English
Beauty, to be satisfied of the Truth of what hath been advanced.
In the next Place, Cleanliness may be said to be the Foster-Mother of Love. Beauty indeed most commonly produces that Passion in the Mind, but Cleanliness preserves it. An indifferent Face and Person, kept in perpetual Neatness, had won many a Heart from a pretty Slattern. Age it self is not unamiable, while it is preserved clean and unsullied: Like a piece of Metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more Pleasure than on a new Vessel that is canker'd with Rust.
I might observe farther, that as Cleanliness renders us agreeable to others, so it makes us easie to our selves; that it is an excellent Preservative of Health; and that several Vices, destructive both to Mind and Body, are inconsistent with the Habit of it. But these Reflections I shall leave to the Leisure of my Readers, and shall observe in the Third Place, that it bears a great Analogy with Purity of Mind, and naturally inspires refined Sentiments and Passions.
We find from Experience, that through the Prevalence of Custom, the most vicious Actions lose their Horror, by being made familiar to us. On the contrary, those who live in the Neighbourhood of good Examples, fly from the first Appearances of what is shocking. It fares with us much after the same Manner, as to our Ideas. Our Senses, which are the Inlets to all the Images conveyed to the Mind, can only transmit the Impression of such things as usually surround them. So that pure and unsullied Thoughts are naturally suggested to the Mind, by those Objects that perpetually encompass us, when they are beautiful and elegant in their kind.
In the East, where the Warmth of the Climate makes Cleanliness more immediately necessary than in colder Countries, it is made one Part of their Religion: The
Jewish
Law, (and the
Mahometan
, which in some things copies after it) is filled with Bathings, Purifications, and other Rites of the like Nature. Though there is the above-named convenient Reason to be assigned for these Ceremonies, the chief Intention undoubtedly was to typifie inward Purity and Cleanness of Heart by those outward Washings. We read several Injunctions of this Kind in the Book of