How use doth breed a habit in a man!

This fhadowy defert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
Here I can fit alone, unfeen of any,

And to the nightingale's complaining notes
Tune my diftreffes, and record my woes.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 5. Sc. 4.

As the foregoing diftinction between intense and moderate, holds in pleasure only, every degree of pain being foftened by time, custom is a catholicon for pain and distress of every fort; and of that regulation the final cause requires no illuftration.

Another final cause of custom will be highly relished by every perfon of humanity, and yet has in a great measure been overlooked; which is, that custom hath a greater influence than any other known caufe, to put the rich and the poor upon a level: weak pleasures, the share of the latter, become fortunately ftronger by custom; while voluptuous pleasures, the fhare of the former, are continually lofing ground by fatiety. Men of fortune, who poffefs palaces, sumptuous gardens, rich fields, enjoy them less than paffengers do. The goods of Fortune are not unequally distributed the opulent poffefs what others enjoy.

And indeed, if it be the effect of habit, to produce the pain of want in a high degree while there Dd 2

is

ble, bed, comes to be effential; and a habit in any of these cannot be controlled without uneafinefs.

Any flight or moderate pleasure frequently reiterated for a long time, forms a peculiar connection between us and the thing that causes the pleasure. This connection, termed habit, has the effect to awaken our defire or appetite for that thing when it returns not as usual. During the course of enjoyment, the pleasure rifes infenfibly higher and higher till a habit be established; at which time the pleafure is at its height. It continues not however ftationary: the fame customary reiteration which carried it to its height, brings it down again by infenfible degrees, even lower than it was at first: but of that circumstance afterward. What at prefent we have in view, is to prove by experiments, that those things which at first are but moderately agreeable, are the aptest to become habitual. Spirituous liquors, at first scarce agreeable, readily produce an habitual appetite: and custom prevails so far, as even to make us fond of things originally disagreeable, fuch as coffee, affa-foetida, and tobacco; which is pleasantly illuftrated by Congreve :

Fainall. For a paffionate lover, methinks you are a man fomewhat too difcerning in the failings of your mistress. Mirabell. And for a difcerning man, fomewhat too paffionate a lover; for I like her with all her faults; nay like her for her faults. Her follies are fo natural, or fo artful, that they become her; and thofe affectations which in another woman would be odious, ferve

but

but to make her more agreeable. I'll tell thee, Fainall, fhe once us'd me with that infolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces, fifted her, and feparated her failings; I ftudy'd 'em, and got 'em by rote. The catalogue was fo large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other, to hate her heartily: to which end I fo us'd myself to think of 'em, that at length, contrary to my defign and expectation, they gave me every hour lefs and lefs difturbance; till in a few days, it became habitual to me to remember 'em without being displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties; and in all probability, in a little time longer, I fhall like 'em as well.

The way of the world, act 1. fc. 3.

A walk upon the quarter-deck, tho' intolerably confined, becomes however fo agreeable by cuftom, that a failor in his walk on fhore, confines himself commonly within the fame bounds. I knew a man who had relinquished the sea for a country-life in the corner of his garden he reared an artificial mount with a level fummit, resembling most accurately a quarter-deck, not only in shape but in fize; and here he generally walked. In Minorca Governor Kane made an excellent road the whole length of the island; and yet the inhabitants adhere to the old road, tho' not only longer but extremely bad *. Play or gaming, at

first

* Custom is a second nature. Formerly, the merchants of Bristol had no place for meeting but the street, open to every variety of weather. An exchange was erected for

first barely amufing by the occupation it affords, becomes in time extremely agreeable; and is frequently profecuted with avidity, as if it were the chief business of life. The fame obfervation is applicable to the pleasures of the internal fenfes, those of knowledge and virtue in particular: children have scarce any sense of these pleasures; and men very little who are in the state of nature without culture: our taste for virtue and knowledge improves flowly; but is capable of growing stronger than any other appetite in human nature.

To introduce an active habit, frequency of acts is not fufficient without length of time: the quickeft fucceffion of acts in a fhort time, is not fufficient; nor a flow fucceffion in the longest time. The effect must be produced by a moderate foft action, and a long feries of eafy touches, removed from each other by fhort intervals. Nor are these fufficient without regularity in the time, place, and other circumftances of the action: the more uniform any operation is, the fooner it becomes habitual. And this holds equally in a paffive habit; variety in any remarkable degree, prevents the effect thus any particular food will fcarce ever become habitual, where the manner of dreffing is varied. The circumstances then requifite to

them with convenient piazzas. But fo rivetted were they to their accustomed place, that in order to diflodge them, the magiftrates were forc'd to break up the pavement, and to render the place a heap of rough stones.

augment

augment a moderate pleasure, and at the long-run to form a habit, are weak uniform acts, reiterated during a long course of time without any confiderable interruption: every agreeable cause that ope rates in this manner, will grow habitual.

Affection and averfion, as diftinguished from paffion on the one hand, and on the other from original difpofition, are in reality habits respecting particular objects, acquired in the manner above fet forth. The pleasure of focial intercourse with any person, must originally be faint, and frequently reiterated, in order to establish the habit of af fection. Affection thus generated, whether it be friendship or love, feldom fwells into any tumultuous or vigorous paffion; but is however the strongest cement that can bind together two individuals of the human fpecies. In like manner, a flight degree of disgust often reiterated with regularity, grows into the habit of averfion, which commonly fubfifts for life.

Objects of taste that are delicious, far from tending to become habitual, are apt by indulgence to produce fatiety and difguft: no man contracts a habit of sugar, honey, or sweet-meats, as he doth of tobacco :

Dulcia non ferimus; fucco renovamur amaro.