Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. Force
maketh nature more violent in the return; doctrine and discourse maketh
nature less importune, but custom only doth alter and subdue nature.
He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too
great nor too small tasks; for the first will make him dejected by
often failings, and the second will make him a small proceeder, though
by often prevailings. And at the first, let him practise with helps,
as swimmers do with bladders, or rushes; but, after a time, let him
practise with disadvantages, as dancers do with thick shoes; for it
breeds great perfection, if the practice be harder than the use. Where
nature is mighty, and therefore the victory hard, the degrees had need
be, first, to stay and arrest nature in time; like to him that would
say over the four and twenty letters when he was angry; then to go less
in quantity: as if one should, in forbearing wine, come from drinking
healths to a draught at a meal; and, lastly, to discontinue altogether;
but if a man have the fortitude and resolution to enfranchise himself
at once, that is the best:—
“Optimus ille animi vindex lædentia pectus
Vincula qui rupit, dedoluitque semel.”[410]
Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand to a
contrary extreme, whereby to set it right; understanding it where
the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon
himself with a perpetual continuance, but with some intermission, for
both the pause reinforceth the new onset; and if a man that is not
perfect be ever in practice, he shall as well practise his errors as
his abilities, and induce one habit of both; and there is no means to
help this but by seasonable intermissions. But let not a man trust his
victory over his nature too far; for nature will lie buried a great
time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation; like as it was
with Æsop’s damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely
at the board’s end till a mouse ran before her. Therefore, let a man
either avoid the occasion altogether, or put himself often to it, that
he may be little moved with it. A man’s nature is best perceived in
privateness, for there is no affectation; in passion, for that putteth
a man out of his precepts; and in a new case or experiment, for there
custom leaveth him. They are happy men whose natures sort with their
vocations; otherwise they may say, “Multum incola fuit anima mea,”[411]
when they converse in those things they do not affect. In studies,
whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it: but
whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set
times; for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves, so as the spaces
of other business or studies will suffice. A man’s nature runs either
to herbs or weeds; therefore, let him seasonably water the one, and
destroy the other.