DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48956#0063
Ch. XIV. CUSTOM AND HABIT.
has little authority, and ought to have none.
The principle of duty taken naturally place of
every other; and it argues a shameful weakness or
degeneracy os mind, to sind it in any case sofar
subdued as to submit tQ custom.
These few hints may enable us to judge in some
measure of soreign manners , whether exhibited by
foreign writers or our own. A comparison be-
tween the ancients and the moderns, was some
time ago a favorite subjed : those who declared
sor ancient manners, thought it sufficient that these
manners were supported by custom :• their antago-
nists, on the other hand, refusmg submission to
custom as a standard of taste , condemned ancient
manners as in several instances irrational. In that
controversy , an appeal being made to different
principles, without the slightest attempt to esta-
blilh a common standard , the dispute could have
no end. The hints above given tend to establilh a
standard for judging how far the authority of cu-
stom ought to be held lawsul ; and for the sake of
illustration , we shall apply that standard in a few
instances.
Human sacrifices, the most dismal effcdl of blind
and grovelling supeistition, wore gradually out of
use by the prevalence of reason and humanity. In
the days os Sophocles and Euripides, traces of thar
pradice were still recent; and the Athenians’
through the prevalence os custom, could without
diigust suller human sacrifices to be represented in
has little authority, and ought to have none.
The principle of duty taken naturally place of
every other; and it argues a shameful weakness or
degeneracy os mind, to sind it in any case sofar
subdued as to submit tQ custom.
These few hints may enable us to judge in some
measure of soreign manners , whether exhibited by
foreign writers or our own. A comparison be-
tween the ancients and the moderns, was some
time ago a favorite subjed : those who declared
sor ancient manners, thought it sufficient that these
manners were supported by custom :• their antago-
nists, on the other hand, refusmg submission to
custom as a standard of taste , condemned ancient
manners as in several instances irrational. In that
controversy , an appeal being made to different
principles, without the slightest attempt to esta-
blilh a common standard , the dispute could have
no end. The hints above given tend to establilh a
standard for judging how far the authority of cu-
stom ought to be held lawsul ; and for the sake of
illustration , we shall apply that standard in a few
instances.
Human sacrifices, the most dismal effcdl of blind
and grovelling supeistition, wore gradually out of
use by the prevalence of reason and humanity. In
the days os Sophocles and Euripides, traces of thar
pradice were still recent; and the Athenians’
through the prevalence os custom, could without
diigust suller human sacrifices to be represented in