Of the INFLUENCE of CUSTOM and FASHION upon the sentiments of moral
approbation and disapprobation.
CONSISTING OF ONE SECTION.
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 faction, 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 reparation. 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 or 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 in the same verse with,
_Thus said to my lady the knight full of care._
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
matter 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, tho’ 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.
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 superiour 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 procession, 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 these peculiarities which belong to it. The
flirting levity of youth, and the immoveable 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 blameable, 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 controul. 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 practiced, 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 passions 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 œconomy
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 authorizes 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 newborn 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 authorized 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 authorize. 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 mens
conduct and behaviour was of a piece with the horrible practice I just
now mentioned.
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