DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48956#0057
Ch. XIV. CUSTOM AND HABIT. 5i
it makes a great sigure in human nature: Though
custom augments moderate pleasures, and lessens
those that are intense, it has a different essect with
resped to pain ; for it blunts the edge of every
sort os pain and diltress, faint or acute. Uninter-
rupted misery, therefore, is attended with one
good effect: if its torments be incessant, custom
hardens us to bear them.
The changes made in sorming habits, are cu-
rious Moderate pleasures are augmented gra-
dually by reiteration, till they become habitual;
and then are at their height: but they are not
long stationary ; sor srom that point they gradual-
ly decay, till they vanish altogether. The pain oc-
casioned by want of gratisication , runs a different
course : it increases uniformly ; and at last be-
comes extreme, when the pleasure of gratisication,
is reduced to nothing :
----It so falls out,
That what we have we prize not to the worth,
While we enjoy it ;*but being lack’d and lost,
Why then we rack the value ; then we find
The virtue that posseiTion would not shew us
Whilst it was ours.
Much ado about nothing, a& 4. jc,. i,
The effefil os custom with relation to a specisic ha-
bit , is displayed through all its varieties in the use
of tobacco. The taste of that plant is at first ex-
tremely unpleasant: our disgust lessens gradually
till it vanish altogether : at which period the taste is
D 3
it makes a great sigure in human nature: Though
custom augments moderate pleasures, and lessens
those that are intense, it has a different essect with
resped to pain ; for it blunts the edge of every
sort os pain and diltress, faint or acute. Uninter-
rupted misery, therefore, is attended with one
good effect: if its torments be incessant, custom
hardens us to bear them.
The changes made in sorming habits, are cu-
rious Moderate pleasures are augmented gra-
dually by reiteration, till they become habitual;
and then are at their height: but they are not
long stationary ; sor srom that point they gradual-
ly decay, till they vanish altogether. The pain oc-
casioned by want of gratisication , runs a different
course : it increases uniformly ; and at last be-
comes extreme, when the pleasure of gratisication,
is reduced to nothing :
----It so falls out,
That what we have we prize not to the worth,
While we enjoy it ;*but being lack’d and lost,
Why then we rack the value ; then we find
The virtue that posseiTion would not shew us
Whilst it was ours.
Much ado about nothing, a& 4. jc,. i,
The effefil os custom with relation to a specisic ha-
bit , is displayed through all its varieties in the use
of tobacco. The taste of that plant is at first ex-
tremely unpleasant: our disgust lessens gradually
till it vanish altogether : at which period the taste is
D 3