"The Love of Knowledge is a kind of madness."
This quote, a standalone brilliant line from when our hero first meets the Sorns in Out of the Silent Planet, is one of my favorites from the entire trilogy. Out of the context of the novel, the line has a great deal of power stating that not knowledge itself, but the love of such knowledge is a kind of insanity. But, what kind of insanity does he mean? Does he mean that pursuing knowledge will drive a man wild in a never-ending circle of unending questions? Does he mean that anyone who pursues the answers to such questions must already be mad in the first place?
With the context of the story, one with heavy thematic elements regarding the morality of man, the prejudices we hold, and finding faith in the unknown, I believe he is stating that to let one pursue knowledge itself and not consider the morality around ascertaining the factors surrounding it is the mark of an insane man. Weston, in contrast to Ransom, is very much a person who acts in this manner. His moral deprivation is the obvious evil of this entire book.
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