[The landlord] introduced into the house (two rooms upon the second floor and two rooms upon the third floor whereof had been leased to the defendant,) divers lewd women or prostitutes, and kept and detained them in the said house all night, for the purpose of prostitution; that the said lewd women or prostitutes would frequently enter the said house in the day time, and after staying all night, would leave the same by day-light in the morning; . . . [the landlord] and said lewd women or prostitutes . . . were accustomed to make a great deal of indecent noise and disturbance, the said women or prostitutes often screaming extravagantly, and so as to be heard throughout the house, and by the neighbors, and frequently using obscene and vulgar language so loud as to be understood at a considerable distance; and that such noise and riotous proceedings, being from time to time continued all night, greatly disturbed the rest of the persons sleeping in said house, and particularly those parts thereof demised to the defendant; that the practices aforesaid were matters of conversation and reproach in the neighborhood, and were of a nature to draw, and did draw, odium and infamy upon the said house, as being a place of ill fame, so that it was no longer respectable for moral and decent persons to dwell or enter therein . . .

Now, one can learn a great deal from television, but not how to think. Thinking requires dissecting an idea, like a laboratory frog, into its component parts, to determine how, or if, they fit together. Thinking requires the detection and tackling of hidden assumptions. Thinking requires that evidence be at hand, available for reference, not ephemeral, like a moving picture. Thinking takes time, and quiet, and patience, and assiduity. Most important, thinking requires articulateness.

One cannot refine a thought unless one has the words to express it precisely. An idea may be sensed, but it cannot be tested except in words. Unless one has explored a politician's reasoning, one will not know if his rhetoric is sincere or specious. Until one has laid the appeals of salesmen under the cool beam of reason, until one has extracted the claim from the jingle, one can't know what to believe. One cannot evaluate intellectual propositions emotionally; one cannot feel the correct answer. One must think in words. And, unless one thinks, one will never have an idea of one's own; one will be, perhaps unknowingly, a puppet on somebody's string.

Carll Tucker
Saturday Review
September 15, 1979