APPLICATION.
“What’s bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh.”
Nature cannot by any art or labour be changed; she may indeed be wrought upon and moulded by good council and discipline; but it is in vain to attempt a total transformation of our genius, person, or complexion: therefore our application, assiduity, and pains, when wrong directed, are of no avail. We should, indeed, strive to discover which way the bent of our genius lies, that we may apply ourselves to a judicious cultivation and improvement of it; but we ought to be sure never to thwart or oppose nature’s fixed laws. When men aspire to eminence in any of the various arts or sciences, without being gifted with the innate powers or abilities for such attainments, it is only like attempting to wash the Blackamoor white.
