Hor. Is it a custom?
Hamlet. Ay, marry, is't:
But, to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.
Hamlet, Act I, Sc. IV.
If a moralist were to divide his catalogue of immoralities into such as were of general commission, and such as occurred in the conduct of the various trades and professions, we fear the latter division would suggest no flattering position to humanity. An elevation somewhat above gifted creatures it might be; but still we fear it would be at so low a level as to afford Man but a humiliating indication of the height from which he had fallen. He would, in too many instances, perhaps, find his real claims to his high destiny about equal to the shadowy difference between a creature who fulfils some only of his responsibilities, and one who has no responsibilities to fulfil. We should like to hear some grave philosopher discourse on Fashion: it is surely a curious thing, for there is a fashion in everything. It is very like habit; but it is not habit neither. Habit is a garment, which takes some time to fit easily, and is then not abandoned without difficulty. Fashion is a good fit instanter, but is thrown aside at once without the smallest trouble. The most grotesque or absurd custom which slowly-paced habit bores us with examining, is at once adopted by fashion with a characteristic assentation.
Morals are by no means free from this kind of conventionalism: so much the contrary, that few things evince more strongly the power of fashion. It might be imagined that the multiplication of examples would tend to teach the true nature of the thing exemplified; but it would not seem so with error; "tout au contraire." Arts or acts, which are tabooed as vicious in the singular number, become, in the plasticity of our moral grammars, very tolerable in the plural. Things that the most hardy shrink from perpetrating single-handed, are regarded as easy "compliances with custom" when "joint-stock" vices; practices which, when partial, men are penetrating enough to discover to be unchristian, or sufficiently sensitive to regard as ungentlemanly, pass muster with marvellous lubricity when they become universal. We can anathemize, with self-complacent indignation, vices in which we have no share; but we are abundantly charitable when we discuss those in which we have a common property; and, finally, moral accounts are settled very much to our own satisfaction, as Butler says, by compounding
"For sins we are inclined to,