vention of a fable is to me the most enviable exertion of human genius it is the discovering a truth to which there is no clue, and which, when once found out, can never be forgotten. I would rather have been the author of 'Esop's Fables,' than of 'Euclid's Elements.' -Hazlitt, Lect. I.]

CHAPTER XIV.

CUSTOM AND HABIT.

333. VIEWING man as under the influence of novelty, would one suspect that custom also should influence him? and yet our nature is equally susceptible of each; not only in different objects, but frequently in the same. When an object is new, it is enchanting; familiarity renders it indifferent; and custom, after a longer familiarity, makes it again disagreeable. Human nature, diversified with many and various springs of action, is wonderfully, and, indulging the expression, intricately constructed.

Custom respects the action, habit the agent. By custom we mean a frequent reiteration of the same act; and by habit, the effect that custom has on the agent. This effect may be either active, witness the dexterity produced by custom in performing certain exercises; or passive, as when a thing makes an impression on us different from what it did originally. The latter only, as relative to the sensitive part of our nature, comes under the present undertaking.

334. This subject is intricate some pleasures are fortified by custom; and yet custom begets familiarity, and consequently indifference:* in many instances, satiety and disgust are the consequences of reiteration; again, though custom blunts the edge of distress and of pain, yet the want of any thing to which we have been long accustomed, is a sort of torture. A clue to guide us through all the intricacies of this labyrinth, would be an acceptable present. Whatever be the cause, it is certain that we are much influenced by custom: it hath an effect upon our pleasures, upon our actions,

*If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

First Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 8.

333. Influence of novelty and custom.-Custom and habit distinguished.-Active and

Dassive effects of habit.

1

and even upon our thoughts and sentiments.

Habit makes no figure during the vivacity of youth in middle age it gains ground; and in old age governs without control. In that period of life, generally speaking, we eat at a certain hour, take exercise at a certain hour, go to rest at a certain hour, all by the direction of habit; nay, a particular seat, table, bed, comes to be essential; and a habit in any of these cannot be controlled without uneasiness.

335. Any slight 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 desire or appetite for that thing when it returns not as usual. During the course of enjoyment, the pleasure rises insensibly higher and higher till a habit be established; at which time the pleasure is at its height: It continues not however stationary: the same customary reiteration which carried it to its height, brings it down again by insensible degrees, even lower than it was at first; but of that circumstance afterward. What at present 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, such as coffee, asafoetida, and tobacco; which is pleasantly illustrated by Congreve. (The Way of the World, Act I. Sc. 3.)

A walk upon the quarter-deck, though intolerably confined, becomes however so agreeable by custom, that a sailor in his walk on shore, confines himself commonly within the same 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 summit, resembling most accurately a quarter-deck, not only in shape but in size; and here he generally walked. In Minorca, Governor Kane made an excellent road the whole length of the island; and yet the inhabitants adhered to the old road, though not only longer but extremely bad.* Play or gaming, at first barely amusing by the occupation it affords, becomes in time extremely agreeable; and is frequently prosecuted with avidity, as if it were the chief business of life. The same observation is applicable to the pleasures of the internal senses, 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

*Custom is 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 them with convenient piazzas. But so riveted were they to their accustomed place, that in order to dislodge them, the magis trates were forced to break up the pavement, and to render the place a heap of rough stones.

884. Effect of custom upor. our pleasures, &c.-Habit in youth, middle age, old age.

and knowledge improves slowly; but is capable of growing stronger than any other appetite in human nature.

336. To introduce an active habit, frequency of acts is not sufficient without length of time: the quickest succession of acts in a short time, is not sufficient; nor a slow succession in the longest time. The effect must be produced by a moderate soft action, and a long series of easy touches, removed from each other by short intervals. Nor are these sufficient without regularity in the time, place, and other circumstances of the action: the more uniform any operation is, the sooner it becomes habitual. And this holds equally in a passive habit; variety in any remarkable degree, prevents the effect: thus any particular food will scarce ever become habitual, where the manner of dressing is varied. The circumstances then requisite to 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 considerable interruption: every agreeable cause that operates in this manner, will grow habitual.

337. Affection and aversion, as distinguished from passion on the one hand, and on the other from original disposition, are in reality habits respecting particular objects, acquired in the manner above set forth. The pleasure of social intercourse with any person must originally be faint, and frequently reiterated, in order to establish the habit of affection. Affection thus generated, whether it be friendship or love, seldom swells into any tumultuous or vigorous passion; but is, however, the strongest cement that can bind together two individuals of the human species. In like manner, a slight degree of disgust often reiterated with regularity, grows into the habit of aversion, which commonly subsists for life.

Objects of taste that are delicious, far from tending to become habitual, are apt, by indulgence, to produce satiety and disgust: no 1 man contracts a habit of sugar, honey, or sweetmeats, as he doth of tobacco:

Dulcia non ferimus: succo renovamur amaro.

Ovid, Art. Amand. 1. iii.

Insipido è quel dolce, che condito
Non è di qualche amor a, è tosto satia.

Aminta di Tasso.

These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in its own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite;
Therefore love mod'rately, long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II. sc. 6.

835. Desire awakened by habit.-Effect of habit on our pleasures.-Things apt to become habitual. Instances.-Walk upon a quarter-deck.-Governor Kane's new load. Exchange at Bristol, &c.

336. How an active habit must be introduced; now a passive habit is formed.

The same observation holds with respect to all objects, that being extremely agreeable, raise violent passions: such passions are incompatible with a habit of any sort; and in particular they never produce affection or aversion. A man who is surprised with an unexpected favor, burns for an opportunity to exert his gratitude, without having any affection for his benefactor: neither does desire of vengeance for an atrocious injury involve aversion.

338. It is perhaps not easy to say why moderate pleasures gather strength by custom; but two causes concur to prevent that effect in the more intense pleasures. These, by an original law in our nature, increase quickly to their full growth, and decay with no less precipitation (see chap. ii. part iii.); and custom is too slow in its operation to overcome that law. The other cause is no less powerful: exquisite pleasure is extremely fatiguing; occasioning, as a naturalist would say, great expense of animal spirits;* and of such the mind cannot bear so frequent gratification, as to superinduce a habit : in the thing that raises the pleasure return before the mind have recovered its tone and relish, disgust ensues instead of pleasure.

A habit never fails to admonish us of the wonted time of gratification, by raising a pain for want of the object, and a desire to have it. The pain of want is always first felt; the desire naturally follows: and upon presenting the object, both vanish instantaneously. Thus a man accustomed to tobacco, feels, at the end of the usual interval, a confused pain of want; which at first points at nothing in particular, though it soon settles upon its accustomed object: and the same may be observed in persons addicted to drinking, who are often in an uneasy restless state before they think of the bottle. In pleasures indulged regularly, and at equal intervals, the appetite, remarkably obsequious to custom, returns regularly with the usual time of gratification; not sooner, even though the object be presented. This pain of want arising from habit, seems directly opposite to that of satiety; and it must appear singular, that frequency of gratification should produce effects so opposite, as are the pains of excess and of want.

339. The appetites that respect the preservation of our species, are attended with a pain of want similar to that occasioned by habit: hunger and thirst are uneasy sensations of want, which always precede the desire of eating or drinking. The natural appetites differ from habit in the following particular: they have an undetermined direction towards all objects of gratification in general; whereas an

*Lady Easy, upon her husband's reformation, expresses to her friend the following sentiment: "Be satisfied: Sir Charles has made me happy, even to & pain of joy."

337. How affection or aversion is formed into a habit.-What is said of delicious objects of taste; what of agreeable objects that raise violent passions.

338. Two canses preventing intense pleasures from gaining strength by custom.-A habit admonishes of what?-Regular return of appetite.

habitual appetite is directed to a particular object. The habitual relish for a particular dish is far from being the same with a vague appetite for food. That difference notwithstanding, it is still remarkable that nature hath enforced the gratification of certain natural appetites essential to the species, by a pain of the same sort with that which habit produceth.

340. The pain of habit is less under our power than any other pain that arises from want of gratification; hunger and thirst are more easily endured, especially at first, than an unusual intermission of any habitual pleasure: persons are often heard declaring they would forego sleep or food, rather than tobacco. We must not, however, conclude that the gratification of an habitual appetite affords the same delight with the gratification of one that is natural; far from it; the pain of want only is greater.

The slow and reiterated acts that produce a habit, strengthen the mind to enjoy the habitual pleasure in greater quantity and more frequency than originally; and by that means a habit of intemperate gratification is often formed: after unbounded acts of intemperance, the habitual relish is soon restored, and the pain for want of enjoyment returns with fresh vigor.

341. The causes of the present emotions hitherto in view are either an individual, such as a companion, a certain dwelling-place, certain amusement, or a particular species, such as coffee, mutton, or any other food. But habit is not confined to such. A constant train of trifling diversions, may form such a habit in the mind, that t cannot be easy a moment without amusement: a variety in the objects prevents a habit as to any one in particular; but as the train is uniform with respect to amusement, the habit is formed accordingly; and that sort of habit may be denominated a generic habit, in opposition to the former, which is a specific habit. A habit of a town life, of country sports, of solitude, of reading, or of business, where sufficiently varied, are instances of generic habits. Every specific habit hath a mixture of the generic; for the habit of any one sort of food makes the taste agreeable, and we are fond of that taste wherever found. Thus a man, deprived of an habitual object, takes up with what most resembles it: deprived of tobacco, any bitter herb will do, rather than want: a habit of punch, makes wine a good resource: accustomed to the sweet society and comforts of matrimony, the man, unhappily deprived of his beloved object, inclines the sooner to a second. In general, when we are deprived of an habitual object, we are fond of its qualities in any other object.

342. The reasons are assigned above, why the causes of intense pleasure become not readily habitual; but now we discover that

339. The natural appetites attende 1 with the pain of want. How they differ from habit. 840. The pain of habit-How a habit of intemperate gratification is formed. 341. Difference between a generic and a specific habit. Instances.-Every specific habit partakes of the generic.-The effect of being deprived of an habitual object.