Whatever be the cause, it is an established fact, that we are much influenced by custom. It hath an effect upon our pleasures, upon our actions, and even upon our thoughts and sentiments. Habit makes no figure during the vivacity of youth; in middle age it gains ground; and in old age it governs without control. In that period of life, generally speaking, we eat at a certain hour, take exercise at a certain hour, go to rest at a certain hour, all by the direction of habit. Nay a particular seat, table, bed, comes to be essential. And a habit in any of these, cannot be contradicted without uneasiness.
Any slight or moderate pleasure frequently reiterated for a long time, forms a connection betwixt us and the thing that causes the pleasure. This connection, termed habit, has the effect to raise our desire or appetite for that thing when it returns not as usual. During the course of enjoyment, the pleasure grows insensibly stronger till a habit be established; at which time the pleasure is at its height. It continues not however stationary. The same customary reiteration which carried it to its height, brings it down again by insensible degrees, even lower than it was at first. But of this circumstance afterward. What at present we have in view, is to prove by experiments, that those things which at first are but moderately agreeable, are the aptest to become habitual. Spirituous liquors, at first scarce agreeable, readily produce an habitual appetite; and custom prevails so far, as even to make us fond of things originally disagreeable, such as coffee, assa-sœtida, and tobacco. This is pleasantly illustrated by Congreve:
Fainall. For a passionate lover, methinks you are a man somewhat too discerning in the failings of your mistress.
Mirabell. And for a discerning man, somewhat too passionate a lover; for I like her with all her faults; nay like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her; and those affectations which in another woman would be odious, serve but to make her more agreeable. I’ll tell thee, Fainall, she once us’d me with that insolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted her, and separated her failings; I study’d ’em, and got ’em by rote. The catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other, to hate her heartily: to which end I so us’d myself to think of ’em, that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they gave me every hour less and less disturbance; till in a few days it became habitual to me, to remember ’em without being displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties; and in all probability, in a little time longer, I shall like ’em as well.
The way of the world, act 1. sc. 3.
A walk upon the quarterdeck, though intolerably confined, becomes however so agreeable by custom, that a sailor in his walk on shore, confines himself commonly within the same bounds. I knew a man who had relinquished the sea for a country-life. In the corner of his garden he reared an artificial mount with a level summit, resembling most accurately a quarterdeck, not only in shape but in size; and this was his choice walk. Play or gaming, at first barely amusing by the occupation it affords, becomes in time extremely agreeable; and is frequently prosecuted with avidity, as if it were the chief business of life. The same observation is applicable to the pleasures of the internal senses, those of knowledge and virtue in particular. Children have scarce any sense of these pleasures; and men very little, who are in the state of nature without culture. Our taste for virtue and knowledge improves slowly; but is capable of growing stronger than any other appetite in human nature.
To introduce a habit, frequency of acts is not alone sufficient: length of time is also necessary. The quickest succession of acts in a short time, is not sufficient; nor a slow succession in the longest time. The effect must be produced by a moderate soft action, and a long series of easy touches removed from each other by short intervals. Nor are these sufficient, without regularity in the time, place, and other circumstances of the action. The more uniform any operation is, the sooner it becomes habitual; and this holds equally in a passive habit. Variety in any remarkable degree, prevents the effect. Thus any particular food will scarce ever become habitual, where the manner of dressing is varied. The circumstances then requisite to augment any pleasure and at the long run to form a habit, are weak uniform acts, reiterated during a long course of time without any considerable interruption. Every agreeable cause which operates in this manner, will grow habitual.
Affection and aversion, as distinguished from passion on the one hand, and on the other from original disposition, are in reality habits respecting particular objects, acquired in the manner above set forth. The pleasure of social intercourse with any person, must originally be faint, and frequently reiterated, in order to establish the habit of affection. Affection thus generated, whether it be friendship or love, seldom swells into any tumultuous or vigorous passion; but is however the strongest cement that can bind together two individuals of the human species. In like manner, a slight degree of disgust often reiterated with any degree of regularity, grows into the habit of aversion, which generally subsists for life.
Those objects of taste that are the most agreeable, are so far from having a tendency to become habitual, that too great indulgence fails not to produce satiety and disgust. No man contracts a habit of taking sugar, honey, or sweet-meats, as he doth of tobacco: