I rather enjoyed this essay, not because I am into theology, but because I also see the value of old books. I think that I am a bit of a heretic (if I can use that word in a theology thread) because I strongly believe that there is advantage to be gained by reading old books of... science!

It is often presumed that because we learn new things as time goes on, and old theories are discarded as new information comes to light, that there is not much value in reading older science books. After all, isn't half of that stuff wrong? But similar to how Jack says how one can learn about different flavors of Christianity by stepping out of his own century, and thereby how much they have in common, I feel that by reading the original works of Millikan, Carnot, Gibbs, or Einstein, that you get a much better idea of the perspective that developed the theories we see as so cut-and-dried today.