5. Part V
Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments of
Moral Approbation and Disapprobation
Consisting of One Section
5.1.1. Chap. I
Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions of Beauty
and Deformity
There are other principles besides those already enumerated,
which have a considerable influence upon the moral sentiments of
mankind, and are the chief causes of the many irregular and
discordant opinions which prevail in different ages and nations
concerning what is blameable or praise-worthy. These principles
are custom and fashion, principles which extend their dominion
over our judgments concerning beauty of every kind.
When two objects have frequently been seen together, the
imagination acquires a habit of passing easily from the one to
the other. If the first appear, we lay our account that the
second is to follow. Of their own accord they put us in mind of
one another, and the attention glides easily along them. Though,
independent of custom, there should be no real beauty in their
union, yet when custom has thus connected them together, we feel
an impropriety in their separation. The one we think is awkward
when it appears without its usual companion. We miss something
which we expected to find, and the habitual arrangement of our
ideas is disturbed by the disappointment. A suit of clothes, for
example, seems to want something if they are without the most
insignificant ornament which usually accompanies them, and we
find a meanness or awkwardness in the absence even of a haunch
button. When there is any natural propriety in the union, custom
increases our sense of it, and makes a different arrangement
appear still more disagreeable than it would otherwise seem to
be. Those who have been accustomed to see things in a good taste,
are more disgusted by whatever is clumsy or awkward. Where the
conjunction is improper, custom either diminishes, or takes away
altogether, our sense of the impropriety. Those who have been
accustomed to slovenly disorder lose all sense of neatness or
elegance. The modes of furniture or dress which seem ridiculous
to strangers, give no offence to the people who are used to them.
Fashion is different from custom, or rather is a particular
species of it. That is not the fashion which every body wears,
but which those wear who are of a high rank, or character. The
graceful, the easy, and commanding manners of the great, joined
to the usual richness and magnificence of their dress, give a
grace to the very form which they happen to bestow upon it. As
long as they continue to use this form, it is connected in our
imaginations with the idea of something that is genteel and
magnificent, and though in itself it should be indifferent, it
seems, on account of this relation, to have something about it
that is genteel and magnificent too. As soon as they drop it, it
loses all the grace, which it had appeared to possess before, and
being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to
have something of their meanness and awkwardness.
Dress and furniture are allowed by all the world to be
entirely under the dominion of custom and fashion. The influence
of those principles, however, is by no means confined to so
narrow a sphere, but extends itself to whatever is in any respect
the object of taste, to music, to poetry, to architecture. The
modes of dress and furniture are continually changing, and that
fashion appearing ridiculous to-day which was admired five years
ago, we are experimentally convinced that it owed its vogue
chiefly or entirely to custom and fashion. Clothes and furniture
are not made of very durable materials. A well-fancied coat is
done in a twelve-month, and cannot continue longer to propagate,
as the fashion, that form according to which it was made. The
modes of furniture change less rapidly than those of dress;
because furniture is commonly more durable. In five or six years,
however, it generally undergoes an entire revolution, and every
man in his own time sees the fashion in this respect change many
different ways. The productions of the other arts are much more
lasting, and, when happily imagined, may continue to propagate
the fashion of their make for a much longer time. A
well-contrived building may endure many centuries: a beautiful
air may be delivered down by a sort of tradition, through many
successive generations: a well-written poem may last as long as
the world; and all of them continue for ages together, to give
the vogue to that particular style, to that particular taste or
manner, according to which each of them was composed. Few men
have an opportunity of seeing in their own times the fashion in
any of these arts change very considerably. Few men have so much
experience and acquaintance with the different modes which have
obtained in remote ages and nations, as to be thoroughly
reconciled to them, or to judge with impartiality between them,
and what takes place in their own age and country. Few men
therefore are willing to allow, that custom or fashion have much
influence upon their judgments concerning what is beautiful, or
otherwise, in the productions of any of those arts; but imagine,
that all the rules, which they think ought to be observed in each
of them, are founded upon reason and nature, not upon habit or
prejudice. A very little attention, however, may convince them of
the contrary, and satisfy them, that the influence of custom and
fashion over dress and furniture, is not more absolute than over
architecture, poetry, and music.
Can any reason, for example, be assigned why the Doric
capital should be appropriated to a pillar, whose height is equal
to eight diameters; the Ionic volute to one of nine; and the
Corinthian foliage to one of ten? The propriety of each of those
appropriations can be founded upon nothing but habit and custom.
The eye having been used to see a particular proportion connected
with a particular ornament, would be offended if they were not
joined together. Each of the five orders has its peculiar
ornaments, which cannot be changed for any other, without giving
offence to all those who know any thing of the rules of
architecture. According to some architects, indeed, such is the
exquisite judgment with which the ancients have assigned to each
order its proper ornaments, that no others can be found which are
equally suitable. It seems, however, a little difficult to be
conceived that these forms, though, no doubt, extremely
agreeable, should be the only forms which can suit those
proportions, or that there should not be five hundred others
which, antecedent to established custom, would have fitted them
equally well. When custom, however, has established particular
rules of building, provided they are not absolutely unreasonable,
it is absurd to think of altering them for others which are only
equally good, or even for others which, in point of elegance and
beauty, have naturally some little advantage over them. A man
would be ridiculous who should appear in public with a suit of
clothes quite different from those which are commonly worn,
though the new dress should in itself be ever so graceful or
convenient. And there seems to be an absurdity of the same kind
in ornamenting a house after a quite different manner from that
which custom and fashion have prescribed; though the new
ornaments should in themselves be somewhat superior to the common
ones.
According to the ancient rhetoricians, a certain measure of
verse was by nature appropriated to each particular species of
writing, as being naturally expressive of that character,
sentiment, or passion, which ought to predominate in it. One
verse, they said, was fit for grave and another for gay works,
which could not, they thought, be interchanged without the
greatest impropriety. The experience of modern times, however,
seems to contradict this principle, though in itself it would
appear to be extremely probable. What is the burlesque verse in
English, is the heroic verse in French. The tragedies of Racine
and the Henriad of Voltaire, are nearly in the same verse with,
'Let me have your advice in a weighty affair.'
The burlesque verse in French, on the contrary, is pretty much
the same with the heroic verse of ten syllables in English.
Custom has made the one nation associate the ideas of gravity,
sublimity, and seriousness, to that measure which the other has
connected with whatever is gay, flippant, and ludicrous. Nothing
would appear more absurd in English, than a tragedy written in
the Alexandrine verses of the French; or in French, than a work
of the same kind in verses of ten syllables.
An eminent artist will bring about a considerable change in
the established modes of each of those arts, and introduce a new
fashion of writing, music, or architecture. As the dress of an
agreeable man of high rank recommends itself, and how peculiar
and fantastical soever, comes soon to be admired and imitated; so
the excellencies of an eminent master recommend his
peculiarities, and his manner becomes the fashionable style in
the art which he practises. The taste of the Italians in music
and architecture has, within these fifty years, undergone a
considerable change, from imitating the peculiarities of some
eminent masters in each of those arts. Seneca is accused by
Quintilian of having corrupted the taste of the Romans, and of
having introduced a frivolous prettiness in the room of majestic
reason and masculine eloquence. Sallust and Tacitus have by
others been charged with the same accusation, though in a
different manner. They gave reputation, it is pretended, to a
style, which though in the highest degree concise, elegant,
expressive, and even poetical, wanted, however, ease, simplicity,
and nature, and was evidently the production of the most laboured
and studied affectation. How many great qualities must that
writer possess, who can thus render his very faults agreeable?
After the praise of refining the taste of a nation, the highest
eulogy, perhaps, which can be bestowed upon any author, is to
say, that he corrupted it. In our own language, Mr Pope and Dr
Swift have each of them introduced a manner different from what
was practised before, into all works that are written in rhyme,
the one in long verses, the other in short. The quaintness of
Butler has given place to the plainness of Swift. The rambling
freedom of Dryden, and the correct but often tedious and prosaic
languor of Addison, are no longer the objects of imitation, but
all long verses are now written after the manner of the nervous
precision of Mr Pope.
Neither is it only over the productions of the arts, that
custom and fashion exert their dominion. They influence our
judgments, in the same manner, with regard to the beauty of
natural objects. What various and opposite forms are deemed
beautiful in different species of things ? The proportions which
are admired in one animal, are altogether different from those
which are esteemed in another. Every class of things has its own
peculiar conformation, which is approved of, and has a beauty of
its own, distinct from that of every other species. It is upon
this account that a learned Jesuit, father Buffier, has
determined that the beauty of every object consists in that form
and colour, which is most usual among things of that particular
sort to which it belongs. Thus, in the human form, the beauty of
each feature lies in a certain middle, equally removed from a
variety of other forms that are ugly. A beautiful nose, for
example, is one that is neither very long, nor very short,
neither very straight, nor very crooked, but a sort of middle
among all these extremes, and less different from any one of
them, than all of them are from one another. It is the form which
Nature seems to have aimed at in them all, which, however, she
deviates from in a great variety of ways, and very seldom hits
exactly; but to which all those deviations still bear a very
strong resemblance. When a number of drawings are made after one
pattern, though they may all miss it in some respects, yet they
will all resemble it more than they resemble one another; the
general character of the pattern will run through them all; the
most singular and odd will be those which are most wide of it;
and though very few will copy it exactly, yet the most accurate
delineations will bear a greater resemblance to the most
careless, than the careless ones will bear to one another. In the
same manner, in each species of creatures, what is most beautiful
bears the strongest characters of the general fabric of the
species, and has the strongest resemblance to the greater part of
the individuals with which it is classed. Monsters, on the
contrary, or what is perfectly deformed, are always most singular
and odd, and have the least resemblance to the generality of that
species to which they belong. And thus the beauty of each
species, though in one sense the rarest of all things, because
few individuals hit this middle form exactly, yet in another, is
the most common, because all the deviations from it resemble it
more than they resemble one another. The most customary form,
therefore, is in each species of things, according to him, the
most beautiful. And hence it is that a certain practice and
experience in contemplating each species of objects is requisite,
before we can judge of its beauty, or know wherein the middle and
most usual form consists. The nicest judgment concerning the
beauty of the human species, will not help us to judge of that of
flowers, or horses, or any other species of things. It is for the
same reason that in different climates, and where different
customs and ways of living take place, as the generality of any
species receives a different conformation from those
circumstances, so different ideas of its beauty prevail. The
beauty of a Moorish is not exactly the same with that of an
English horse. What different ideas are formed in different
nations concerning the beauty of the human shape and countenance
? A fair complexion is a shocking deformity upon the coast of
Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. In some nations
long ears that hang down upon the shoulders are the objects of
universal admiration. In China if a lady's foot is so large as to
be fit to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster of ugliness.
Some of the savage nations in North-America tie four boards round
the heads of their children, and thus squeeze them, while the
bones are tender and gristly, into a form that is almost
perfectly square. Europeans are astonished at the absurd
barbarity of this practice, to which some missionaries have
imputed the singular stupidity of those nations among whom it
prevails. But when they condemn those savages, they do not
reflect that the ladies in Europe had, till within these very few
years, been endeavouring, for near a century past, to squeeze the
beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a square form of
the same kind. And that, notwithstanding the many distortions and
diseases which this practice was known to occasion, custom had
rendered it agreeable among some of the most civilized nations
which, perhaps, the world ever beheld.
Such is the system of this learned and ingenious Father,
concerning the nature of beauty; of which the whole charm,
according to him, would thus seem to arise from its falling in
with the habits which custom had impressed upon the imagination,
with regard to things of each particular kind. I cannot, however,
be induced to believe that our sense even of external beauty is
founded altogether on custom. The utility of any form, its
fitness for the useful purposes for which it was intended,
evidently recommends it, and renders it agreeable to us,
independent of custom. Certain colours are more agreeable than
others, and give more delight to the eye the first time it ever
beholds them. A smooth surface is more agreeable than a rough
one. Variety is more pleasing than a tedious undiversified
uniformity. Connected variety, in which each new appearance seems
to be introduced by what went before it, and in which all the
adjoining parts seem to have some natural relation to one
another, is more agreeable than a disjointed and disorderly
assemblage of unconnected objects. But though I cannot admit that
custom is the sole principle of beauty, yet I can so far allow
the truth of this ingenious system as to grant, that there is
scarce any one external form so beautiful as to please, if quite
contrary to custom and unlike whatever we have been used to in
that particular species of things: or so deformed as not to be
agreeable, if custom uniformly supports it, and habituates us to
see it in every single individual of the kind.
5.1.2. Chap. II
Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral Sentiments
Since our sentiments concerning beauty of every kind, are so
much influenced by custom and fashion, it cannot be expected,
that those, concerning the beauty of conduct, should be entirely
exempted from the dominion of those principles. Their influence
here, however, seems to be much less than it is every where else.
There is, perhaps, no form of external objects, how absurd and
fantastical soever, to which custom will not reconcile us, or
which fashion will not render even agreeable. But the characters
and conduct of a Nero, or a Claudius, are what no custom will
ever reconcile us to, what no fashion will ever render agreeable;
but the one will always be the object of dread and hatred; the
other of scorn and derision. The principles of the imagination,
upon which our sense of beauty depends, are of a very nice and
delicate nature, and may easily be altered by habit and
education: but the sentiments of moral approbation and
disapprobation, are founded on the strongest and most vigorous
passions of human nature; and though they may be somewhat warpt,
cannot be entirely perverted.
But though the influence of custom and fashion upon moral
sentiments, is not altogether so great, it is however perfectly
similar to what it is every where else. When custom and fashion
coincide with the natural principles of right and wrong, they
heighten the delicacy of our sentiments, and increase our
abhorrence for every thing which approaches to evil. Those who
have been educated in what is really good company, not in what is
commonly called such, who have been accustomed to see nothing in
the persons whom they esteemed and lived with, but justice,
modesty, humanity, and good order., are more shocked with
whatever seems to be inconsistent with the rules which those
virtues prescribe. Those, on the contrary, who have had the
misfortune to be brought up amidst violence, licentiousness,
falsehood, and injustice; lose, though not all sense of the
impropriety of such conduct, yet all sense of its dreadful
enormity, or of the vengeance and punishment due to it. They have
been familiarized with it from their infancy, custom has rendered
it habitual to them, and they are very apt to regard it as, what
is called, the way of the world, something which either may, or
must be practised, to hinder us from being the dupes of our own
integrity.
Fashion too will sometimes give reputation to a certain
degree of disorder, and, on the contrary, discountenance
qualities which deserve esteem. In the reign of Charles II. a
degree of licentiousness was deemed the characteristic of a
liberal education. It was connected, according to the notions of
those times, with generosity, sincerity, magnanimity, loyalty,
and proved that the person who acted in this manner, was a
gentleman, and not a puritan. Severity of manners, and regularity
of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether unfashionable, and
were connected, in the imagination of that age, with cant,
cunning, hypocrisy, and low manners. To superficial minds, the
vices of the great seem at all times agreeable. They connect
them, not only with the splendour of fortune, but with many
superior virtues, which they ascribe to their superiors; with the
spirit of freedom and independency, with frankness, generosity,
humanity, and politeness. The virtues of the inferior ranks of
people, on the contrary, their parsimonious frugality, their
painful industry, and rigid adherence to rules, seem to them mean
and disagreeable. They connect them, both with the meanness of
the station to which those qualities commonly belong, and with
many great vices, which, they suppose, usually accompany them;
such as an abject, cowardly, ill-natured, lying, pilfering
disposition.
The objects with which men in the different professions and
states of life are conversant, being very different, and
habituating them to very different passions, naturally form in
them very different characters and manners. We expect in each
rank and profession, a degree of those manners, which, experience
has taught us, belong to it. But as in each species of things, we
are particularly pleased with the middle conformation, which, in
every part and feature, agrees most exactly with the general
standard which nature seems to have established for things of
that kind; so in each rank, or, if I may say so, in each species
of men, we are particularly pleased, if they have neither too
much, nor too little of the character which usually accompanies
their particular condition and situation. A man, we say, should
look like his trade and profession; yet the pedantry of every
profession is disagreeable. The different periods of life have,
for the same reason, different manners assigned to them. We
expect in old age, that gravity and sedateness which its
infirmities, its long experience, and its worn-out sensibility
seem to render both natural and respectable; and we lay our
account to find in youth that sensibility, that gaiety and
sprightly vivacity which experience teaches us to expect from the
lively impressions that all interesting objects are apt to make
upon the tender and unpractised senses of that early period of
life. Each of those two ages, however, may easily have too much
of the peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting levity of
youth, and the immovable insensibility of old age, are equally
disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, are most
agreeable when in their behaviour there is something of the
manners of the old, and the old, when they retain something of
the gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have
too much of the manners of the other. The extreme coldness, and
dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth
ridiculous. The levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which
are indulged in youth, render old age contemptible.
The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom
to appropriate to each rank and profession, have sometimes
perhaps a propriety independent of custom; and are what we should
approve of for their own sakes, if we took into consideration all
the different circumstances which naturally affect those in each
different state of life. The propriety of a person's behaviour,
depends not upon its suitableness to any one circumstance of his
situation, but to all the circumstances, which, when we bring his
case home to ourselves, we feel, should naturally call upon his
attention. If he appears to be so much occupied by any one of
them, as entirely to neglect the rest, we disapprove of his
conduct, as something which we cannot entirely go along with,
because not properly adjusted to all the circumstances of his
situation: yet, perhaps, the emotion he expresses for the object
which principally interests him, does not exceed what we should
entirely sympathize with, and approve of, in one whose attention
was not required by any other thing. A parent in private life
might, upon the loss of an only son, express without blame a
degree of grief and tenderness, which would be unpardonable in a
general at the head of an army, when glory, and the public
safety, demanded so great a part of his attention. As different
objects ought, upon common occasions, to occupy the attention of
men of different professions, so different passions ought
naturally to become habitual to them; and when we bring home to
ourselves their situation in this particular respect, we must be
sensible, that every occurrence should naturally affect them more
or less, according as the emotion which it excites, coincides or
disagrees with the fixt habit and temper of their minds. We
cannot expect the same sensibility to the gay pleasures and
amusements of life in a clergyman, which we lay our account with
in an officer. The man whose peculiar occupation it is to keep
the world in mind of that awful futurity which awaits them, who
is to announce what may be the fatal consequences of every
deviation from the rules of duty, and who is himself to set the
example of the most exact conformity, seems to be the messenger
of tidings, which cannot, in propriety, be delivered either with
levity or indifference. His mind is supposed to be continually
occupied with what is too grand and solemn, to leave any room for
the impressions of those frivolous objects, which fill up the
attention of the dissipated and the gay . We readily feel
therefore, that, independent of custom, there is a propriety in
the manners which custom has allotted to this profession; and
that nothing can be more suitable to the character of a clergyman
than that grave, that austere and abstracted severity, which we
are habituated to expect in his behaviour. These reflections are
so very obvious, that there is scarce any man so inconsiderate,
as not, at some time, to have made them, and to have accounted to
himself in this manner for his approbation of the usual character
of this order.
The foundation of the customary character of some other
professions is not so obvious, and our approbation of it is
founded entirely in habit, without being either confirmed, or
enlivened by any reflections of this kind. We are led by custom,
for example, to annex the character of gaiety, levity, and
sprightly freedom, as well as of some degree of dissipation, to
the military profession. Yet, if we were to consider what mood or
tone of temper would be most suitable to this situation, we
should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the most serious and
thoughtful turn of mind would best become those whose lives are
continually exposed to uncommon danger, and who should therefore
be more constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and its
consequences than other men. It is this very circumstance,
however, which is not improbably the occasion why the contrary
turn of mind prevails so much among men of this profession. It
requires so great an effort to conquer the fear of death, when we
survey it with steadiness and attention, that those who are
constantly exposed to it, find it easier to turn away their
thoughts from it altogether, to wrap themselves up in careless
security and indifference, and to plunge themselves, for this
purpose, into every sort of amusement and dissipation. A camp is
not the element of a thoughtful or a melancholy man: persons of
that cast, indeed, are often abundantly determined, and are
capable, by a great effort, of going on with inflexible
resolution to the most unavoidable death. But to be exposed to
continual, though less imminent danger, to be obliged to exert,
for a long time, a degree of this effort, exhausts and depresses
the mind, and renders it incapable of all happiness and
enjoyment. The gay and careless, who have occasion to make no
effort at all, who fairly resolve never to look before them, but
to lose in continual pleasures and amusements all anxiety about
their situation, more easily support such circumstances.
Whenever, by any peculiar circumstances, an officer has no reason
to lay his account with being exposed to any uncommon danger, he
is very apt to lose the gaiety and dissipated thoughtlessness of
his character. The captain of a city guard is commonly as sober,
careful, and penurious an animal as the rest of his
fellow-citizens. A long peace is, for the same reason, very apt
to diminish the difference between the civil and the military
character. The ordinary situation, however, of men of this
profession, renders gaiety, and a degree of dissipation, so much
their usual character; and custom has, in our imagination, so
strongly connected this character with this state of life, that
we are very apt to despise any man, whose peculiar humour or
situation, renders him incapable of acquiring it. We laugh at the
grave and careful faces of a city guard, which so little resemble
those of their profession. They themselves seem often to be
ashamed of the regularity of their own manners, and, not to be
out of the fashion of their trade, are fond of affecting that
levity, which is by no means natural to them. Whatever is the
deportment which we have been accustomed to see in a respectable
order of men, it comes to be so associated in our imagination
with that order, that whenever we see the one, we lay our account
that we are to meet with the other, and when disappointed, miss
something which we expected to find. We are embarrassed, and put
to a stand, and know not how to address ourselves to a character,
which plainly affects to be of a different species from those
with which we should have been disposed to class it.
The different situations of different ages and countries are
apt, in the same manner, to give different characters to the
generality of those who live in them, and their sentiments
concerning the particular degree of each quality, that is either
blamable or praise-worthy, vary, according to that degree which
is usual in their own country, and in their own times. That
degree of politeness, which would be highly esteemed, perhaps
would be thought effeminate adulation, in Russia, would be
regarded as rudeness and barbarism at the court of France. That
degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would
be considered as excessive parsimony, would be regarded as
extravagance in a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country
look upon that degree of each quality, which is commonly to be
met with in those who are esteemed among themselves, as the
golden mean of that particular talent or virtue. And as this
varies, according as their different circumstances render
different qualities more or less habitual to them, their
sentiments concerning the exact propriety of character and
behaviour vary accordingly.
Among civilized nations, the virtues which are founded upon
humanity, are more cultivated than those which are founded upon
self-denial and the command of the passions. Among rude and
barbarous nations, it is quite otherwise, the virtues of
self-denial are more cultivated than those of humanity. The
general security and happiness which prevail in ages of civility
and politeness, afford little exercise to the contempt of danger,
to patience in enduring labour, hunger, and pain. Poverty may
easily be avoided, and the contempt of it therefore almost ceases
to be a virtue. The abstinence from pleasure becomes less
necessary, and the mind is more at liberty to unbend itself, and
to indulge.its natural inclinations in all those particular
respects.
Among savages and barbarians it is quite otherwise. Every
savage undergoes a sort of Spartan discipline, and by the
necessity of his situation is inured to every sort of hardship.
He is in continual danger: he is often exposed to the greatest
extremities of hunger, and frequently dies of pure want. His
circumstances not only habituate him to every sort of distress,
but teach him to give way to none of the passions which that
distress is apt to excite. He can expect from his countrymen no
sympathy or indulgence for such weakness. Before we can feel much
for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If our
own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend
to that of our neighbour: and all savages are too much occupied
with their own wants and necessities, to give much attention to
those of another person. A savage, therefore, whatever be the
nature of his distress, expects no sympathy from those about him,
and disdains, upon that account, to expose himself, by allowing
the least weakness to escape him. His passions, how furious and
violent soever, are never permitted to disturb the serenity of
his countenance or the composure of his conduct and behaviour.
The savages in North America, we are told, assume upon all
occasions the greatest indifference, and would think themselves
degraded if they should ever appear in any respect to be
overcome, either by love, or grief, or resentment. Their
magnanimity and self-command, in this respect, are almost beyond
the conception of Europeans. In a country in which all men are
upon a level, with regard to rank and fortune, it might be
expected that the mutual inclinations of the two parties should
be the only thing considered in marriages, and should be indulged
without any sort of control. This, however, is the country in
which all marriages, without exception, are made up by the
parents, and in which a young man would think himself disgraced
for ever, if he shewed the least preference of one woman above
another, or did not express the most complete indifference, both
about the time when, and the person to whom, he was to be
married. The weakness of love, which is so much indulged in ages
of humanity and politeness, is regarded among savages as the most
unpardonable effeminacy. Even after the marriage, the two parties
seem to be ashamed of a connexion which is founded upon so sordid
a necessity. They do not live together. They see one another by
stealth only. They both continue to dwell in the houses of their
respective fathers, and the open cohabitation of the two sexes,
which is permitted without blame in all other countries, is here
considered as the most indecent and unmanly sensuality. Nor is it
only over this agreeable passion that they exert this absolute
self-command. They often bear, in the sight of all their
countrymen, with injuries, reproach, and the grossest insults,
with the appearance of the greatest insensibility, and without
expressing the smallest resentment. When a savage is made
prisoner of war, and receives, as is usual, the sentence of death
from his conquerors, he hears it without expressing any emotion,
and afterwards submits to the most dreadful torments, without
ever bemoaning himself, or discovering any other passion but
contempt of his enemies. While he is hung by the shoulders over a
slow fire, he derides his tormentors, and tells them with how
much more ingenuity he himself had tormented such of their
countrymen as had fallen into his hands. After he has been
scorched and burnt, and lacerated in all the most tender and
sensible parts of his body for several hours together, he is
often allowed, in order to prolong his misery, a short respite,
and is taken down from the stake: he employs this interval in
talking upon all indifferent subjects, inquires after the news of
the country, and seems indifferent about nothing but his own
situation. The spectators express the same insensibility; the
sight of so horrible an object seems to make no impression upon
them; they scarce look at the prisoner, except when they lend a
hand to torment him. At other times they smoke tobacco, and amuse
themselves with any common object, as if no such matter was going
on. Every savage is said to prepare himself from his earliest
youth for this dreadful end. He composes, for this purpose, what
they call the song of death, a song which he is to sing when he
has fallen into the hands of his enemies, and is expiring under
the tortures which they inflict upon him. It consists of insults
upon his tormentors, and expresses the highest contempt of death
and pain. He sings this song upon all extraordinary occasions,
when he goes out to war, when he meets his enemies in the field,
or whenever he has a mind to show that he has familiarised his
imagination to the most dreadful misfortunes, and that no human
event can daunt his resolution, or alter his purpose. The same
contempt of death and torture prevails among all other savage
nations. There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who does
not, in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the
soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of
conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over
mankind, than when she subjected those nations of heroes to the
refuse of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the
virtues neither of the countries which they come from, nor of
those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and
baseness, so justly expose them to the contempt of the
vanquished.
This heroic and unconquerable firmness, which the custom and
education of his country demand of every savage, is not required
of those who are brought up to live in civilized societies. If
these last complain when they are in pain, if they grieve when
they are in distress, if they allow themselves either to be
overcome by love, or to be discomposed by anger, they are easily
pardoned. Such weaknesses are not apprehended to affect the
essential parts of their character. As long as they do not allow
themselves to be transported to do any thing contrary to justice
or humanity, they lose but little reputation, though the serenity
of their countenance, or the composure of their discourse and
behaviour, should be somewhat ruffled and disturbed. A humane and
polished people, who have more sensibility to the passions of
others, can more readily enter into an animated and passionate
behaviour, and can more easily pardon some little excess. The
person principally concerned is sensible of this; and being
assured of the equity of his judges, indulges himself in stronger
expressions of passion, and is less afraid of exposing himself to
their contempt by the violence of his emotions. We can venture to
express more emotion in the presence of a friend than in that of
a stranger, because we expect more indulgence from the one than
from the other. And in the same manner the rules of decorum among
civilized nations, admit of a more animated behaviour, than is
approved of among barbarians. The first converse together with
the openness of friends; the second with the reserve of
strangers. The emotion and vivacity with which the French and the
Italians, the two most polished nations upon the continent,
express themselves on occasions that are at all interesting,
surprise at first those strangers who happen to be travelling
among them, and who, having been educated among a people of
duller sensibility, cannot enter into this passionate behaviour,
of which they have never seen any example in their own country. A
young French nobleman will weep in the presence of the whole
court upon being refused a regiment. An Italian, says the abbot
Dû Bos, expresses more emotion on being condemned in a fine of
twenty shillings, than an Englishman on receiving the sentence of
death. Cicero, in the times of the highest Roman politeness,
could, without degrading himself, weep with all the bitterness of
sorrow in the sight of the whole senate and the whole people; as
it is evident he must have done in the end of almost every
oration. The orators of the earlier and ruder ages of Rome could
not probably, consistent with the manners of the times, have
expressed themselves with so much emotion. It would have been
regarded, I suppose, as a violation of nature and propriety in
the Scipios, in the Leliuses, and in the elder Cato, to have
exposed so much tenderness to the view of the public. Those
ancient warriors could express themselves with order, gravity,
and good judgment; but are said to have been strangers to that
sublime and passionate eloquence which was first introduced into
Rome, not many years before the birth of Cicero, by the two
Gracchi, by Crassus, and by Sulpitius. This animated eloquence,
which has been long practised, with or without success, both in
France and Italy, is but just beginning to be introduced into
England. So wide is the difference between the degrees of
self-command which are required in civilized and in barbarous
nations, and by such different standards do they judge of the
propriety of behaviour.
This difference gives occasion to many others that are not
less essential. A polished people being accustomed to give way,
in some measure, to the movements of nature, become frank, open,
and sincere. Barbarians, on the contrary, being obliged to
smother and conceal the appearance of every passion, necessarily
acquire the habits of falsehood and dissimulation. It is observed
by all those who have been conversant with savage nations,
whether in Asia, Africa, or America, that they are all equally
impenetrable, and that, when they have a mind to conceal the
truth, no examination is capable of drawing it from them. They
cannot be trepanned by the most artful questions. The torture
itself is incapable of making them confess any thing which they
have no mind to tell. The passions of a savage too, though they
never express themselves by any outward emotion, but lie
concealed in the breast of the sufferer, are, notwithstanding,
all mounted to the highest pitch of fury. Though he seldom shows
any symptoms of anger, yet his vengeance, when he comes to give
way to it, is always sanguinary and dreadful. The least affront
drives him to despair. His countenance and discourse indeed are
still sober and composed, and express nothing but the most
perfect tranquillity of mind: but his actions are often the most
furious and violent. Among the North-Americans it is not uncommon
for persons of the tenderest age and more fearful sex to drown
themselves upon receiving only a slight reprimand from their
mothers, and this too without expressing any passion, or saying
any thing, except, you shall no longer have a daughter. In
civilized nations the passions of men are not commonly so furious
or so desperate. They are often clamorous and noisy, but are
seldom very hurtful; and seem frequently to aim at no other
satisfaction, but that of convincing the spectator, that they are
in the right to be so much moved, and of procuring his sympathy
and approbation.
All these effects of custom and fashion, however, upon the
moral sentiments of mankind, are inconsiderable, in comparison of
those which they give occasion to in some other cases; and it is
not concerning the general style of character and behaviour, that
those principles produce the greatest perversion of judgment, but
concerning the propriety or impropriety of particular usages.
The different manners which custom teaches us to approve of
in the different professions and states of life, do not concern
things of the greatest importance. We expect truth and justice
from an old man as well as from a young, from a clergyman as well
as from an officer; and it is in matters of small moment only
that we look for the distinguishing marks of their respective
characters. With regard to these too, there is often some
unobserved circumstance which, if it was attended to, would show
us, that, independent of custom, there was a propriety in the
character which custom had taught us to allot to each profession.
We cannot complain, therefore, in this case, that the perversion
of natural sentiment is very great. Though the manners of
different nations require different degrees of the same quality,
in the character which they think worthy of esteem, yet the worst
that can be said to happen even here, is that the duties of one
virtue are sometimes extended so as to encroach a little upon the
precincts of some other. The rustic hospitality that is in
fashion among the Poles encroaches, perhaps, a little upon
oeconomy and good order; and the frugality that is esteemed in
Holland, upon generosity and good-fellowship. The hardiness
demanded of savages diminishes their humanity; and, perhaps, the
delicate sensibility required in civilized nations sometimes
destroys the masculine firmness of the character. In general, the
style of manners which takes place in any nation, may commonly
upon the whole be said to be that which is most suitable to its
situation. Hardiness is the character most suitable to the
circumstances of a savage; sensibility to those of one who lives
in a very civilized society. Even here, therefore, we cannot
complain that the moral sentiments of men are very grossly
perverted.
It is not therefore in the general style of conduct or
behaviour that custom authorises the widest departure from what
is the natural propriety of action. With regard to particular
usages, its influence is often much more destructive of good
morals, and it is capable of establishing, as lawful and
blameless, particular actions, which shock the plainest
principles of right and wrong.
Can there be greater barbarity for example, than to hurt an
infant? Its helplessness, its innocence, its amiableness, call
forth the compassion, even of an enemy, and not to spare that
tender age is regarded as the most furious effort of an enraged
and cruel conqueror. What then should we imagine must be the
heart of a parent who could injure that weakness which even a
furious enemy is afraid to violate ? Yet the exposition, that is,
the murder of new-born infants, was a practice allowed of in
almost all the states of Greece, even among the polite and
civilized Athenians; and whenever the circumstances of the parent
rendered it inconvenient to bring up the child, to abandon it to
hunger, or to wild beasts, was regarded without blame or censure.
This practice had probably begun in times of the most savage
barbarity. The imaginations of men had been first made familiar
with it in that earliest period of society, and the uniform
continuance of the custom had hindered them afterwards from
perceiving its enormity. We find, at this day, that this practice
prevails among all savage nations; and in that rudest and lowest
state of society it is undoubtedly more pardonable than in any
other. The extreme indigence of a savage is often such that he
himself is frequently exposed to the greatest extremity of
hunger, he often dies of pure want, and it is frequently
impossible for him to support both himself and his child. We
cannot wonder, therefore, that in this case he should abandon it.
One who, in flying from an enemy, whom it was impossible to
resist, should throw down his infant, because it retarded his
flight, would surely be excusable; since, by attempting to save
it, he could only hope for the consolation of dying with it. That
in this state of society, therefore, a parent should be allowed
to judge whether he can bring up his child, ought not to surprise
us so greatly. In the latter ages of Greece, however, the same
thing was permitted from views of remote interest or conveniency,
which could by no means excuse it. Uninterrupted custom had by
this time so thoroughly authorised the practice, that not only
the loose maxims of the world tolerated this barbarous
prerogative, but even the doctrine of philosophers, which ought
to have been more just and accurate, was led away by the
established custom, and upon this, as upon many other occasions,
instead of censuring, supported the horrible abuse, by
far-fetched considerations of public utility. Aristotle talks of
it as of what the magistrate ought upon many occasions to
encourage. The humane Plato is of the same opinion, and, with all
that love of mankind which seems to animate all his writings, no
where marks this practice with disapprobation. When custom can
give sanction to so dreadful a violation of humanity, we may well
imagine that there is scarce any particular practice so gross
which it cannot authorise. Such a thing, we hear men every day
saying, is commonly done, and they seem to think this a
sufficient apology for what, in itself, is the most unjust and
unreasonable conduct.
There is an obvious reason why custom should never pervert
our sentiments with regard to the general style and character of
conduct and behaviour, in the same degree as with regard to the
propriety or unlawfulness of particular usages. There never can
be any such custom. No society could subsist a moment, in which
the usual strain of men's conduct and behaviour was of a piece
with the horrible practice I have just now mentioned.