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and stronger, and consequently the pain of want. The result is, that when the habit has acquired its greatest vigor, the pleasure of gratification is gone. And hence it is, that we often smoke and take snuff habitually, without so much as being confcious of the operation. We must except gratification after the pain of want; because gratification in that case is at the height when the habit is strongest. It is of the fame kind with the joy one feels upon being delivered from the rack, the cause of which is explained above*. This pleafure however is but occasionally the effect of habit; and however exquifite, is guarded against as much as poffible, by preventing want.

With regard to the pain of want, I can discover no difference betwixt a generic and specific habit: the pain is the fame in both. But these habits differ widely with respect to the positive pleasure. I have had occafion to observe, that the pleasure of a specific habit decays gradually till it become imperceptible. Not so the pleasure of a ge

** Chap. 2. part 1. fect. 2.

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neric habit. So far as I can discover, this pleasure fuffers little or no decay after it comes to its height. The variety of gratification preserves it entire. However it may be with other generic habits, the observation I am certain holds with respect to the pleasures of virtue and of knowledge. The pleasure of doing good has such an unbounded scope, and may be so variously gratified, that it can never decay. Science is equally unbounded; and our appetite for knowledge has an ample range of gratification, where discoveries are recommended by novelty, by variety, by utility, or by all of them.

Here is a large field of facts and experi ments, and several phenomena unfolded, the causes of which have been occafionally suggested. The efficient caufe of the power of custom over man, a fundamental point in the present chapter, has unhappily evaded my keenest search; and now I am reduced to hold it an original branch of the human constitution, though I have no better reason for my opinion, than that I cannot resolve it into any other principle. But with respect

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to the final cause, a point of still greater importance, I promise myself more fuccess. It cannot indeed have escaped any thinking person, that the power of custom is a happy contrivance for our good. Exquifite pleafure produceth satiety: moderate pleasure becomes stronger by custom. Business is our province, and pleasure our relaxation only. Hence, satiety is necessary to check exquifite pleasures, which otherwise would ingross the mind, and unqualify us for bufiness. On the other hand, habitual increase of moderate pleasure, and even conversion of pain into pleasure, are admirably contrived for disappointing the malice of Fortune, and for reconciling us to whatever course of life may be our lot:

How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy defert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
Here I can fit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale's complaining notes
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.

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

The foregoing distinction betwixt intense and

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and moderate, holds in pleasure only, not in pain, every degree of which is softened by time and custom. Custom is a catholicon for pain and distress of every fort; and of this regulation the final cause is so evident as to require no illustration.

Another final cause of custom will be highly relished by every person of humanity; and yet has in a great measure been overlooked. Custom hath a greater influence than any other known principle, to put the rich and poor upon a level. Weak pleasures, which fall to the share of the latter, become fortunately stronger by custom; while voluptuous pleasures, the lot of the former, are continually lofing ground by satiety. Men of fortune, who possess palaces, sumptuous gardens, rich fields, enjoy them less than passengers do. The goods of Fortune are not unequally diftributed: the opulent possess what others 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 voluptuous life is of all the least to be envied. Those who are accustomed

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to high feeding, easy vehicles, rich furnis ture, a crowd of valets, much deference and flattery, enjoy but a small share of happiness, while they are exposed to manifold distresses. To fuch a man, inslaved by ease and luxury, even the petty inconveniencies of a rough road, bad weather, or homely fare on a journey, are serious evils. He lofes his tone of mind, becomes peevish, and would wreak his resentment even upon the common accidents of life. Better far to use the goods of Fortune with moderation. A man who by temperance and activity has acquired a hardy conftitution, is, on the one hand, guarded against external accidents, and is, on the other, provided with great variety of enjoyment ever at command.

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I shall close this chapter with the difcufsion of a question more delicate than abstruse, viz. What authority custom ought to have over our taste in the fine arts? It is proper to be premised, that we chearfully abandon to its authority every thing that nature leaves to our choice, and where the preference we bestow has no foundation other than whim or fancy. There appears

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