made their thoughts weak; and will then wonder dazedly what in the
world is the matter, and why the great power they were expecting to
gain fails to appear. Again, if they ever forget what they read,
they'll be worried. Those who /can/ forget--those with fresh eyes
who have swept from their minds such facts as the exact month and
day that their children were born, or the numbers on houses, or the
names (the mere meaningless labels) of the people they meet,--will
be urged to go live in sanitariums or see memory doctors!


By nature their itch is rather for knowing, than for understanding
or thinking. Some of them will learn to think, doubtless, and even
to concentrate, but their eagerness to acquire those accomplishments
will not be strong or insistent. Creatures whose mainspring is
curiosity will enjoy the accumulating of facts, far more than the
pausing at times to reflect on those facts. If they do not reflect
on them, of course they'll be slow to find out about the ideas and
relationships lying behind them; and they will be curious about
those ideas; so you would suppose they'd reflect. But deep thinking
is painful. It means they must channel the spready rivers of their
attention. That cannot be done without discipline and drills for the
mind; and they will abhor doing that; their minds will work better
when they are left free to run off at tangents.

Compare them in this with other species. Each has its own kind of
strength. To be compelled to be so quick-minded as the simians would
be torture, to cows. Cows could dwell on one idea, week by week,
without trying at all; but they'd all have brain-fever in an hour at
a simian tea. A super-cow people would revel in long thoughtful books
on abstruse philosophical subjects, and would sit up late reading them.