The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant Part 13

11. I think it is one of _Pythagoras's_ golden sayings, _that a man should take care above all things to have a due respect for himself_; and it is certain, that this licentious sort of authors, who are for depreciating mankind, endeavour to disappoint and undo what the most refined spirits have been labouring to advance since the beginning of the world. The very design of dress, good-breeding, outward ornaments and ceremonies, were to lift up human nature, and set it of too advantage. Architecture, painting, and statuary, were invented with the same design; as indeed every art and science that contributes to the embellishment of life, and to the wearing off and throwing into shades the mean and low parts of our nature.

12. Poetry carries on this great end more than all the rest, as may be seen in the following pa.s.sages taken out of Sir _Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning_, which gives a true and better account of this art than all the volumes that were ever written upon it.

"Poetry, especially heroical, seems to be raised altogether from a n.o.ble foundation, which makes much for the dignity of man's nature. For seeing this sensible world is in dignity inferior to the soul of man, poesy seems to endow human nature with that which history denies; and to give satisfaction to the mind, with at least the shadow of things, where the substance cannot be had."

13. "For if the matter be thoroughly considered, a strong argument may be drawn from poesy, that a more stately greatness of things, a more perfect order, and a more beautiful variety, delights the soul of man than any way can be found in nature since the fall. Wherefore, seeing the acts and events, which are the subjects of true history, are not of that amplitude as to content the mind of man, poesy is ready at hand to feign acts more heroical."

14. "Because true history reports the successes of business not proportionable to the merit of virtues and vices, poesy corrects it, and presents events and fortunes according to desert, and according to the law of Providence: because true history, through the frequent satiety and similitude of things, works a distaste and misprision in the mind of man; poesy cheereth and refresheth the soul, chanting things rare and various, and full of vicissitudes."

15. "So as poesy serveth and conferreth to delectation, magnanimity and morality; and therefore it may seem deservedly to have some partic.i.p.ation of divineness, because it doth raise the mind, and exalt the spirit with high raptures, proportioning the shew of things to the desires of the mind, and not submitting the mind to things as reason and history do. And by these allurements and congruities, whereby it cherisheth the soul of man, joined also with concert of music, whereby it may more sweetly insinuate itself; it hath won such access, that it hath been in estimation, even in rude times, among barbarous nations, when our learning stood excluded."

16. But there is nothing which favours and falls in with this natural greatness and dignity of human nature so much as religion, which does not only promise the entire refinement of the mind, but the glorifying of the body, and the immortality of both.

_Custom a Second Nature_.

1. There is not a common saying which has a better turn of sense in it than what we often hear in the mouths of the vulgar, that Custom is a second Nature. It is indeed able to form the man anew, and give him inclinations and capacities altogether different from those he was born with.

2. Dr. _Plot_, in his history of _Staffordshire_, tells of an idiot, that chancing to live within the sound of a clock, and always amusing himself with counting the hour of the day whenever the clock struck: the clock being spoiled by some accident, the idiot continued to strike and count the hour without the help of it, in the same manner as he had done when it was entire.

3. Though I dare not vouch for the truth of this story, it is very certain that custom has a mechanical effect upon the body, at the same time that it has a very extraordinary influence upon the mind.

4. I shall in this paper consider one very remarkable effect which custom has upon human nature; and which, if rightly observed, may lead us into very useful rules of life. What I shall here take notice of in custom, is its wonderful efficacy in making every thing pleasant to us.

5. A person who is addicted to play or gaming, though he took but little delight in it at first, by degrees contracts so strong an inclination towards it, and gives himself up so entirely to it, that it seems the only end of his being. The love of a retired or busy life will grow upon a man insensibly, as he is conversant in the one or the other, till he is utterly unqualified for relishing that to which he has been for some time disused.

6. Nay, a man may smoke or drink, or take snuff, till he is unable to pa.s.s away his time without it; not to mention how our delight in any particular study, art, or science, rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus what was at first an exercise, becomes at length an entertainment. Our employments are changed into diversions. The mind grows fond of those actions it is accustomed to, and is drawn with reluctancy from those paths in which it has been used to walk.

7. Not only such actions as were at first indifferent to us, but even such as were painful, will by custom and practice become pleasant.

8. Sir _Francis Bacon_ observes in his natural philosophy, that our taste is never better pleased than with those things which at first create a disgust in it. He gives particular instances of claret, coffee, and other liquors; which the palate seldom approves upon the first taste: but when it has once got a relish of them, generally retains it for life. The mind is const.i.tuted after the same manner, and after having habituated itself to any particular exercise or employment, not only loses its first aversion towards it, but conceives a certain fondness and affection for it.

9. I have heard one of the greatest genuises this age has produced, who had been trained up in all the polite studies of antiquity, a.s.sure me, upon his being obliged to search into several rolls and records, that notwithstanding such an employment was at first very dry and irksome to him, he at last took an incredible pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the reading of _Virgil_ or _Cicero_.

10. The reader will observe that I have not here considered custom as it makes things easy, but as it renders them delightful; and though others have often made the same reflection, it is possible they may not have drawn those uses from it, with which I intend to fill the remaining part of this paper.

11. If we consider attentively this property of human nature, it may instruct us in very fine moralities. In the first place, I would have no man discouraged with that kind of life or series of actions, in which the choice of others or his own necessities may have engaged him. It may perhaps be very disagreeable to him at first; but use and application will certainly render it not only less painful, but pleasing and satisfactory.

12. In the second place, I would recommend to every one the admirable precept which _Pythagoras_ is said to have given to his disciples, and which that philosopher must have drawn from the observation I have enlarged upon: _Optimum vitae genus eligito nam consuctudo facict jucundissimum._ Pitch upon that course of life which is the most excellent, and custom will render it the most delightful.

13. Men, whose circ.u.mstances will permit them to choose their own way of life, are inexcusable if they do not pursue that which their judgment tells them is the most laudable. The voice of reason is more to be regarded than the bent of any present inclination, since by the rule above-mentioned, inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reason to comply with inclination.

14. In the third place, this observation may teach the most sensual and irreligious man to overlook those hardships and difficulties, which are apt to discourage him from the prosecution of a virtuous life. The G.o.ds, said _Hesiod_, have placed labour before virtue; the way to her is at first rough and difficult, but grows more smooth and easy, the further you advance in it. The man who proceeds in it, with steadiness and resolution, will in a little time find that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace.

15. To enforce this consideration, we may further observe, that the practice of religion will not only be attended with that pleasure which naturally accompanies those actions to which we are habituated, but with those supernumerary joys of heart, that rise from the consciousness of such a pleasure, from the satisfaction of acting up to the dictates of reason, and from the prospect of an happy immortality.

16. In the fourth place, we may learn from this observation which we have made on the mind of man, to take particular care, when we are once settled in a regular course of life, how we too frequently indulge ourselves in any of the most innocent diversions and entertainments, since the mind may insensibly fall off from the relish of virtuous actions, and by degrees, exchange that pleasure which it takes in the performance of its duty, for delight of a much more inferior and unprofitable nature.

17. The last use which I shall make of this remarkable property in human nature, of being delighted with those actions to which it is accustomed, is to shew how absolutely necessary it is for us to gain habits of virtue in this life, if we would enjoy the pleasures of the next.

18. The state of bliss we call heaven, will not be capable of affecting those minds, which are not thus qualified for it: we must in this world gain a relish of truth and virtue, if we would be able to taste that knowledge and perfection which are to make us happy in the next. The seeds of those spiritual joys and raptures, which are to rise up and flourish in the soul to all eternity, must be planted in it, during this its present state of probation. In short, heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but as the natural effect of a religious life.

19. On the other hand, those evil spirits, who by long custom, have contracted in the body, habits of l.u.s.t, sensuality, malice and revenge, an aversion to every thing that is good, just, or laudable, are naturally seasoned and prepared for pain and misery. Their torments have already taken root in them; they cannot be happy when divested of the body, unless we may suppose, that Providence will in a manner create them anew, and work a miracle in the rectification of their faculties.

20. They may, indeed, taste a kind of malignant pleasure in those actions to which they are accustomed whilst in this life; but when they are removed from all those objects which are here apt to gratify them, they will naturally become their own tormentors, and cherish in themselves those painful habits of mind which are called, in scripture phrase, the worm which never dies.

21. This notion of heaven and h.e.l.l is so very conformable to the light of nature, that it was discovered by several of the most exalted heathens. It has been finely improved by many eminent divines of the last age, as in particular by Archbishop _Tillotson_ and Dr. _Sherlock_; but there is none who has raised such n.o.ble speculations upon it as Dr.

_Scott_, in the first book of his Christian Life, which is one of the finest and most rational schemes of divinity, that is written in our tongue or any other. That excellent author has shewn how every particular custom and habit of virtue will, in its own nature, produce the heaven, or a state of happiness, in him who shall hereafter practise it: as on the contrary, how every custom or habit of vice will be the natural h.e.l.l of him in whom it subsists.

_On Cleanliness_.

SPECTATOR, No. 631.

1. I had occasion to go a few miles out of town, some days since, in a stage-coach, where I had for my fellow travellers, a dirty beau, and a pretty young Quaker woman. Having no inclination to talk much at that time, I placed myself backward, with a design to survey them, and pick a speculation out of my two companions. Their different figures were suificient of themselves to draw my attention.

2. The gentleman was dressed in a suit, the ground whereof had been black, as I perceived from some few s.p.a.ces that had escaped the powder, which was incorporated with the greatest part of his coat; his periwig, which cost no smull sum, was after so slovenly a manner cast over his shoulders, that it seemed not to have been combed since the year 1712; his linen, which was not much concealed, was daubed with plain Spanish from the chin to the lowest b.u.t.ton, and the diamond upon his finger (which naturally dreaded the water) put me in mind how it sparkled amidst the rubbish of the mine where it was first discovered.

3. On the other hand, the pretty Quaker appeared in all the elegance of cleanliness. Not a speck was to be found on her. A clear, clean, oval face, just edged about with little thin plaits of the purest cambrick, received great advantages from the shade of her black hood: as did the whiteness of her arms from that sober-coloured stuff in which she had clothed herself. The plainness of her dress was very well suited to the simplicity of her phrases, all which put together, though they could not give me a great opinion of her religion, they did of her innocence.

4. This adventure occasioned my throwing together a few hints upon _cleanliness_, which I shall consider as one of the half virtues, as _Aristotle_ calls them, and shall recommend it under the three following heads: As it is a mark of politeness; as it produceth love; and as it bears a.n.a.logy to purity of mind.

5. First, it is a mark of politeness. It is universally agreed upon, that no one, unadorned with this virtue, can go into company without giving a manifest offence. The easier or higher any one's fortune is, this duty rises proportionably. The different nations of the world are as much distinguished by their cleanliness, as by their arts and sciences. The more any country is civilized, the more they consult this part of politeness. We need but compare our ideas of a female _Hottentot_ with an _English_ beauty, to be; satisfied with the truth of what hath been advanced.

6. In the next place, cleanliness may be said to be the foster-mother of love. Beauty, indeed, most commonly produces that pa.s.sion in the mind, but cleanliness preserves it. An indifferent face and person, kept in perpetual neatness, hath won many a heart from a pretty slattern. Age itself is not unamiable, while it is preserved clean and unsullied: like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel that is cankered with rust.

7. I might observe further, that as cleanliness renders us agreeable to others, so it makes it easy to ourselves; that it is an excellent preservative of health; and that several vices, destructive both to mind and body, are inconsistent with the habit of it. But these reflections I shall leave to the leisure of my readers, and shall observe in the third place, that it bears a great a.n.a.logy with purity of mind, and naturally inspires refined sentiments and pa.s.sions.

8. We find, from experience, that through the prevalence of custom, the most vicious actions lose their horror, by being made familiar to us. On the contrary, those who live in the neighbourhood of good examples, fly from the first appearances of what is shocking. It fares with us much after the same manner as our ideas. Our senses, which are the inlets to all the images conveyed to the mind, can only transmit the impression of such things as usually surround them; so that pure and unsullied thoughts are naturally suggested to the mind, by those objects that perpetually encompa.s.s us, when they are beautiful and elegant in their kind.

9. In the East, where the warmth of the climates makes cleanliness more immediately necessary than in colder countries, it is made one part of their religion; the Jewish law (and the Mahometan, which, in somethings, copies after it) is filled with bathings, purifications, and other rites of the like nature. Though there is the above named convenient reason to be a.s.signed for these ceremonies, the chief intention, undoubtedly, was to typify inward purity and cleanliness of heart by those outward washings.

10. We read several injunctions of this kind in the book of Deuteronomy, which confirms this truth, and which are but ill accounted for by saying, as some do, that they were only inst.i.tuted for convenience in the desert, which otherways could not have been habitable, for so many years.

11. I shall conclude this essay with a story which I have some where read in an account of Mahometan superst.i.tion. A dervise of great sanct.i.ty one morning had the misfortune, as he took up a crystal cup, which was consecrated to the prophet, to let it fall upon the ground and dash it in pieces. His son coming in some time after, he stretched out his hand to bless him, as his manner was every morning; but the youth going out stumbled over the threshold and broke his arm. As the old man wondered at those events, a caravan pa.s.sed by in its way from _Mecca_.

The dervise approached it to beg a blessing; but as he stroked one of the holy camels, he received a kick from the beast, that sorely bruised him. His sorrow and amazement increased upon him, till he recollected, that, through hurry and inadvertency, he had that morning come abroad without washing his hands.

_The Advantages of a good Education_.

1. I consider a human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shews none of its inherent beauties, until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot and vein, that runs through the body of it.

Education, after the same manner, when it works, upon a n.o.ble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.