cause it makes a great figure in human nature: Tho' custom augments moderate pleasures, and leffens those that are intenfe, it has a different effect with refpect to pain; for it blunts the edge of every fort of pain and diftrefs, faint or acute. Uninterrupted mifery, therefore, is attended with one good effect: if its torments be inceffant, custom hardens us to bear them.

The changes made in forming habits, are curious. Moderate pleasures are augmented gradually by reiteration, till they become habitual; and then are at their height: but they are not long stationary; for from that point they gra dually decay, till they vanish altogether. The pain occafioned by want of gratification, runs a different courfe: it increafes uniformly; and at laft becomes extreme, when the pleasure of gratification is reduced to nothing:

-It fo falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,
While we enjoy it; but being lack'd and loft,
Why then we rack the value; then we find
The virtue that poffeffion would not fhew us
Whilft it was ours.

Much ado about nothing, act 4. fc. 2.

The effect of cuftom with relation to a specific habit, is displayed through all its varieties in the use of tobacco. The tafte of that plant is at first extremely unpleasant: our disguft leffens gradually, till it vanish altogether; at which pe

riod the tafte is neither agreeable nor difagree able: continuing the use of the plant, we begin to relish it; and our relish improves by use, till it arrive at perfection: from that period it gradually decays, while the habit is in a ftate of increment, and confequently the pain of want. The refult is, that when the habit has acquired its greatest vigour, the relifh is gone; and accordingly we often fmoke and take fnuff habitually, without fo much as being conscious of the operation. We must except gratification after the pain of want; the pleasure of which gratification is the greatest when the habit is the most vigorous it is of the fame kind with the pleasure one feels upon being delivered from the rack, the cause of which is explained above *. This pleasure, however, is but occafionally the effect of habit; and however exquifite, is avoided as much as poffible because of the pain that precedes it.

With regard to the pain of want, I can difcover no difference between a generic and a fpecific habit. But thefe habits differ widely with respect to the pofitive pleasure: I have had occafion to obferve, that the pleasure of a fpecific habit decays gradually till it turn imperceptible; the pleasure of a generic habit, on the contrary, being fupported by variety of gratification, fuffers little or no decay after it comes

Chap. 2. part 1. fect. 3.

VOL. I.

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to its height. However it may be with other generic habits, the obfervation, I am certain, holds with refpect to the pleafures of virtue and of knowledge the pleasure of doing good has an unbounded scope, and may be so variously gratified that it can never decay: fcience is equally unbounded; our appetite for knowledge having an ample range of gratification, where discoveries are recommended by novelty, by variety, by utility, or by all of them.

In this intricate inquiry, I have endeavoured, but without fuccefs, to difcover by what particular means it is that cuftom hath influence up. on us and now nothing feems left, but to hold our nature to be fo framed as to be fufceptible of fuch influence. And fuppofing it purposely fo framed, it will not be difficult to find out feveral important final caufes. That the power of cuftom is a happy contrivance for our good, cannot have escaped any one who reflects, that bufinefs is our province, and pleasure our relaxation only. Now fatiety is neceffary to check exquisite pleasures, which otherwise would engrofs the mind, and unqualify us for business. On the other hand, as bufinefs is fometimes painful, and is never pleasant beyond moderation, the habitual increase of moderate pleasure, and the converfion of pain into pleasure, are admirably contrived for difappointing the malice of Fortune, and for reconciling us to whatever courfe of life may be our lot:

How

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. fc. 4.

As the foregoing diftinction between intenfe 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 caufe requires no illuftration.

Another final caufe 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 cause, to put the rich and the poor upon a level: weak pleasures, the fhare of the latter, become fortunately stronger by custom; while voluptuous pleasures, the share of the former, are continually lofing ground by fatiety. Men of fortune, who poffefs palaces, fumptuous gardens, rich fields, enjoy them less than paffen. gers do. The goods of Fortune are not unequally distributed the opulent poffess what o

thers enjoy.

And indeed, if it be the effect of habit, to produce the pain of want in a high degree while there is little pleasure in enjoyment, a voluptu

ous life is of all the least to be envied. Those who are habituated to high feeding, eafy vehicles, rich furniture, a croud of valets, much deference and flattery, enjoy but a small share of happiness, while they are exposed to manifold diftreffes. To fuch a man, enflaved by ease and luxury, even the petty inconveniencies in travelling, of a rough road, bad weather, or homely fare, are ferious evils: he lofes his tone of mind, turns peevish, and would wreak his refentment even upon the common accidents of life. Better far to use the goods of Fortune with moderation: a man who by temperance and activity hath acquired a hardy constitution, is, on the one hand, guarded against external accidents; and, on the other, is provided with great variety of enjoyment ever at command.

I fhall close this chapter with an article more delicate than abstruse, namely, what authority custom ought to have over our taste in the fine arts. One particular is certain, that we chearfully abandon to the authority of custom things that nature hath left indifferent. It is cuftom, not nature, that hath established a difference between the right hand and the left, fo as to make it aukward and difagreeable to use the left where the right is commonly used. The various colours, though they affect us differently, are all of them agreeable in their purity: but custom has regulated that matter in another manner; a black skin upon a human being, is to