Nor is it the less so, though it should arise from the affociation CHAP. III. of ideas. For what is called the affociation of ideas is a law of nature in our conftitution; which produces its effects without any operation of reafon on our part, and in a manner of which we are entirely ignorant.

H

CHA P. III.

Of Habit.

ABIT differs from inftinct, not in its nature, but in its origin; the latter being natural, the former acquired. Both operate without will or intention, without thought, and therefore may be called mechanical principles.

Habit is commonly defined, A facility of doing a thing, acquired by having done it frequently. This definition is fufficient for habits of art; but the habits which may, with propriety, be called principles of action, must give more than a facility, they must give an inclination or impulse to do the action; and that, in many cafes, habits have this force, cannot be doubted.

How many aukward habits, by frequenting improper company, are children apt to learn, in their address, motion, looks, gefture and pronunciation. They acquire fuch habits commonly from an undefigned and instinctive imitation, before they can judge of what is proper and becoming,

When they are a little advanced in understanding, they may eafily be convinced that fuch a thing is unbecoming, they may refolve to forbear it, but when the habit is formed, fuch a general resolution is not of itself sufficient; for the habit will operate without intention; and particular attention is necessary, on

CHAP. III. every occafion, to refift its impulfe, until it be undone by the habit of oppofing it.

It is owing to the force of habits, early acquired by imitation, that a man who has grown up to manhood in the lowest rank of life, if fortune raise him to a higher rank, very rarely acquires the air and manners of a gentleman.

When to that instinctive imitation, which I spoke of before, we join the force of habit, it is easy to fee, that these mechanical principles have no small share in forming the manners and character of moft men.

The difficulty of overcoming vicious habits has, in all ages, been a common topic of theologians and moralists; and we fee too many fad examples to permit us to doubt of it.

There are good habits, in a moral sense, as well as bad; and it is certain, that the stated and regular performance of what we approve, not only makes it easy, but makes us uneafy in the omiffion of it. This is the case, even when the action derives all its goodness from the opinion of the performer. A good illiterate Roman Catholic does not fleep found if he goes to bed without telling his beads, and repeating prayers which he does not understand.

ARISTOTLE makes wisdom, prudence, good fenfe, science and art, as well as the moral virtues and vices, to be habits. If he meant no more, by giving this name to all thofe intellectual and moral qualities, than that they are all strengthened and confirmed by repeated acts, this is undoubtedly true. I take the word in a less extensive sense, when I confider habits as principles of action. I conceive it to be a part of our conftitution, that what we have been accustomed to do, we acquire, not only a facility, but a proneness to do on like occafions; fo that it requires a

particular

particular will and effort to forbear it, but to do it, requires very CHAP. III. often no will at all. We are carried by habit as by a ftream in fwimming, if we make no resistance.

Every art furnishes examples both of the power of habits and of their utility; no one more than the most common of all arts, the art of speaking.

Articulate language is spoken, not by nature, but by art. It is no easy matter to children, to learn the fimple founds of language; I mean, to learn to pronounce the vowels and confo nants. It would be much more difficult, if they were not led by instinct to imitate the founds they hear; for the difficulty is vaftly greater of teaching the deaf to pronounce the letters and words, though experience fhows that it can be done.

What is it that makes this pronunciation so easy at last which was fo difficult at firft? It is habit.

But from what caufe does it happen, that a good speaker no fooner conceives what he would express, than the letters, fyllables and words arrange themselves according to innumerable rules of speech, while he never thinks of these rules? He means to express certain fentiments; in order to do this properly, a felection must be made of the materials, out of many thoufands. He makes this felection without any expence of time or thought. The materials felected must be arranged in a particular order, according to innumerable rules of grammar, logic and rhetoric, and accompanied with a particular tone and emphasis. He does all this as it were by infpiration, without thinking of any of these rules, and without breaking one of them..

This art, if it were not more common, would appear more wonderful, than that a man should dance blind-fold amidst a

thousand

CHAP. III. thousand burning plough-fhares, without being burnt; yet all be done by habit.

this may

It appears evident, that as, without inftinct, the infant could not live to become a man, fo, without habit, man would remain an infant through life, and would be as helpless, as unhandy, as fpeechless, and as much a child in understanding at threefcore as at three.

I fee no reason to think, that we fhall ever be able to affign. the physical cause, either of instinct, or of the power of habit.

Both feem to be parts of our original conftitution. Their end and use is evident; but we can affign no cause of them, but the will of him who made us.

With regard to instinct, which is a natural propensity, this will perhaps be easily granted; but it is no less true with regard to that power and inclination which we acquire by habit.

No man can fhew a reason why our doing a thing frequently should produce either facility or inclination to do it.

The fact is fo notorious, and fo conftantly in our eye, that we are apt to think no reason should be fought for it, any more than why the fun fhines. But there must be a cause of the fun's fhining, and there must be a cause of the power of habit.

We fee nothing analogous to it in inanimate matter, or in things made by human art. A clock or a watch, a waggon or a plough, by the custom of going, does not learn to go better, or require less moving force. The earth does not increase in fertility by the custom of bearing crops.

It is faid, that trees and other vegetables, by growing long in

an

qualities by CHAP. III.

This, in the power of ha

an unkindly foil or climate, fometimes acquire
which they can bear its inclemency with lefs hurt.
vegetable kingdom, has some resemblance to the
bit; but, in inanimate matter, I know nothing that resembles
it.

A stone lofes nothing of its weight by being long fupported, or made to move upward. A body, by being toffed about ever fo long, or ever fo violently, lofes nothing of its inertia, nor acquires the leaft difpofition to change its state.

AVING difcourfed of the mechanical principles of action,
I proceed to confider those I called animal.

HAVING of the

They are fuch as operate upon the will and intention, but do not suppose any exercise of judgment or reafon; and are most of them to be found in fome brute-animals, as well as in man.

In this clafs, the first kind I fhall call appetites, taking that word in a ftricter fenfe than it is fometimes taken, even by good writers.