CHAPTER III. 439 itself, anti therefore no wonder if it prevails over reason too. What is it but custom that renders many of the mixtures of food and sauces elegant in Britain, which would be awkward and nauseous to the inhabitants of China, and indeed were nau= seous to us when we first tasted them ? What but custom could Make those salutations polite in Muscovy, which are ridiculous in Prance or England We call ourselves indeed the politer nations, but it is we who judge thus of ourselves ; and that fancied politeness is sometimes more owing to custom than rea- son. Why are the forms of our present garment counted bean:- tiful, and those fashions of our ancestors the matter of scoff and contempt, which in their day were all decent and genteel ? It is custom that forms our opinion of dress, and reconciles us by de., grees to those habits which at first seemed very odd and mon- strous. It must be granted, there are some garments and habits which have a natural congruity, or incongruity, modesty, or im: modesty, decency, or indecency, gaudery, or gravity : though for the most part there is but little reason in these affairs : but what little there is of reason or natural decency, custom triumphs over it all. It is almost impossible to persuade a gay lady that any thing can be decent which is out of fashion ; and it were well if fashion stretched its powers no farther than the business of dra- pery and the fair sex. The methods of our education are governed by custom. It is custom, and not reason, that sends every boy to learn the Roman poets, and begin a little acquaintance with Greek, before he is bound an apprentice to a soap-boiler, or leather- seller. It is custom alone that teaches us Latin by the rules of a Latin grammar ; a tedious and absurd method ! And what is it but custom that has for past centuries confined the brightest geniuses, even of the highest rank in the female world, to the business of the needle only, and secluded them most unmercifully from the pleasures of knowledge, and the divine improvements of rea- son ? But we begin to break all these chains, and reason begins to dictate the education of youth. May the growing age be learned and wise! It is by the prejudice arising from our own customs, that we judge of all other civil and religious forms and practices. The rites and ceremonies of war and peace in other nations, the forms of weddings and funerals, the several ranks of magistracy, the trades and employments of both sexes, the public the do- mestic affairs of life, and almost every thing of foreign customs, is judged irregular. It is all imagined to be unreasonable or unnatural, by those who have no other rule to judge of nature and reason, but the customs of their own country, or the little town where they dwell.. Custom is called a second nature, but we often mistake it for nature itself.
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