quarter-deck, not only in fhape 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, though not only longer but extremely bad.* Play or gaming, at firft barely amufing by the occu pation it affords, becomes in time extremely agreeable; and is frequently profecuted with avidity, as if it were the chief bufinefs of life. The fame obfervation is applicable to the pleasures of the internal fenfes, thofe of knowledge and virtue in particular: children have scarce any fenfe of thefe pleasures; and men very little who are in the ftate of nature without culture: our tafte for virtue and knowledge improves flowly; but is capable of growing ftronger than any other appetite in human nature.

To introduce an active habit, frequency of acts is not fufficient without length of time: the quickest 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 circumftances

then

Cufom is a fecond nature. Formerly, the merchants of Briftol had no place for meeting but the freet, open to every variety of weather. An exchange was erected for them with convenient piazzas. But so rivetted were they to their accuflomed place, that in order to diflodge them, the magiftrates were forced to break up the pavement, and to render the place a heap of rough fliones.

then requifite to augment a moderate pleasure, and at the long run to form a habit, are weak uniform acts, reiterated during a long courfe of time without any confiderable interruption: every agreeable caufe that operates 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 pleafure of focial intercourse with any perfon, must originally be faint, and frequently reiterated, in order to establish the habit of affection. 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 tafte that are delicious, far from tending to become habitual, are apt by indulgence to produce fatiety and difguft: no man contracts a habit of fugar, honey, or sweet-meats, as he doth of tobacco :

Dulcia non ferimus; fucco renovamur amaro.
Ovid. art. amand. I. 3.

Infipido è quel dolce, che condito

Non è di qualche amaro, e tosto fatia.

Aminta di Taffo

Thefe violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die. The sweetest honey
Is loathfome in its own delicioufnefs,

And in the tafte confounds the appetite;

Therefore

Therefore love mod'rately, long love doth fo;
Too fwift arrives as tardy as too flow.

Romeo and Juliet, act 2. fc. 6.

The fame obfervation holds with refpect to all objects that being extremely agreeable raise violent paffions; fuch paffions are incompatible with a habit of any fort; and in particular they never produce affection nor averfion; a man who at firft fight falls violently in love, has a ftrong defire of enjoyment, but no af fection for the woman :* a man who is furprised with an unexpected favour burns for an opportunity to exert his gratitude, without having any affection for his benefactor:

* Violent love without affection is finely exemplified in the following flory. When Conftantinople was taken by the Turks, Irene, a young Greek of an illuftrious family, fell into the hands of Mahomet II, who was at that time in the prime of youth and glory. His favage heart being fubdued by her charms, he fhut himfelf up with her, denying accefs even to his minifters. Love obtained fuch afcendant as to make him frequently abandon the army, and fly to his Irene. War relaxed, for victory was no longer the monarch's favourite paffion. The foldiers, accustomed to booty, began to murmur: and the infection fpread even among the commanders. The Bafha Muftapha, confulting the fidelity he owed his mafler, was the firft who durft acquaint him of the difcourfes held publicly to the prejudice of his glory.

The Sultan, after a gloomy filence, formed his refolution. He ordered Muftapha to affemble the troops next morning; and then with precipitation retired to Irene's apartment. Never before did that princefs appear fo charming; never before did the prince beflow fo many warm carefles. To give a new luftre to her beauty, he exhorted her women next morning, to bestow their utmoft art and care on her drefs. He took her by the hand, led her into the middle of the army, and pulling off her vail, demanded of the Bahas with a fierce look, whether they had ever beheld fuch a beauty ? After an awful paufe, Mahomet with one hand laying hold of the young Greek by her beautiful locks, and with the other pulling out his fcimitar, fevered the head from the body at one ftroke. Then turning to his grandees, with eyes wild and furious, "This fword," faid he, "when it is my will, knows to cut the bands of love." However ftrange it may appear, we learn from experience, that defire of enjoyment may confift with the most brutal averfion, directed both to the fame woman. Of this we have a noted example in the first book of Sully's Memoirs; to which I choose to refer the reader, for it is too grofs to be tranfcribed.

benefactor neither does defire of vengeance for an atrocious injury, involve averfion.

It is perhaps not eafy to fay why moderate pleasures gather ftrength by cuftom: but two caufes 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 lefs precipitation;* and cuftom is too flow in its operation to overcome that law. The other caufe is no lefs powerful: exquifite pleafure is extremely fatiguing; occafioning, as a naturalift would fay, great expenfe of animal fpirits ;t and of fuch the mind cannot bear fo frequent gratification, as to fuperinduce a habit: if the thing that raises the pleafure return before the mind have recovered its tone and relish, disgust enfues inftead of pleasure.

A habit never fails to admonifh us of the wonted time of gratification, by raising a pain for want of the object, and a defire to have it. The pain of want is always firft felt the defire naturally follows; and upon prefenting the object both vanish inftantaneously. Thus a man accustomed to tobacco, feels, at the end of the ufual interval, a confused pain of want; which at first points at nothing in particular, though it foon fettles upon its accustomed object; and the fame may be observed in perfons addicted to drinking, who are often in an uneafy reftlefs ftate before they think of the bottle. In pleafures indulged regularly, and at equal intervals, the appetite, remarkably obfequious to cuftom, returns regularly with the ufual time of gratification; not fooner, even though the object be prefented. This pain of want arifing

*See chap. 2. part 3.

Lady Ealy, upon her husband's reformation, expreffes to her friend the following fentiment: "Be fatisfied; Sir Charles has made me happy, even to a pain of joy."

arifing from habit, feems directly oppofite to that of fatiety; and it must appear fingular, that frequency of gratification should produce effects so opposite, as are the pains of excess and of want.

The appetites that refpect the preservation and propagation of our fpecies, are attended with a pain. of want fimilar to that occafioned by habit: hunger and thirst are uneafy fenfations of want, which always precede the defire of eating or drinking; and a pain for want of carnal enjoyment precedes the defire of an object. The pain being thus felt independent of an object, cannot be cured but by gratification. Very different is an ordinary paffion, in which defire precedes the pain of want: fuch a paffion cannot exist but while the object is in view; and therefore, by removing the object out of thought, it vanifheth, with its defire, and pain of want.*

The natural appetites above mentioned differ from habit in the following particular: they have an undetermined direction toward all objects of gratification in general; whereas an habitual appetite is directed to a particular object: the attachment we have by habit to a particular woman, differs widely from the natural paffion which comprehends the whole fex; and the habitual relish for a particular difh is far from being the fame with a vague appetite for food. That difference notwithstanding, it is ftill remarkable, that nature hath enforced the gratification of certain natural appetites effential to the species, by a pain of the fame fort with that which habit produceth.

The pain of habit is lefs under our power than any other pain that arifes from want of gratification: hunger and thirst are more easily endured, especially

See chap. 2. part 3,

at