Chap. 12.] Sour f 6 of habitual Vices. 469 



to hear perfons fpeak in rapturous terms of their paft 

 fituation, when it is impoffible for them to recount the 

 reafons why it was fo agreeable j or, if they were to 

 attempt to recount them, they would probably not 

 aiTign the true caufes. Actions and things in them- < 

 felves indifferent thus borrow pleafures from others, 

 and by this means attach us to them, as we have feen 

 that fafliions, without any one original principle of 

 beauty, nay, even deformed in themfelves, obtain re- 

 Ipeft and admiration from the beaucy of the wearer. 



It is thus that card-playing, and fome other habitual 

 vices, not in themfelves pleafarrt, acquire an empire 

 over us. The defire of imitating others has, we will 

 fuppofe, been our firft motive for engaging in them; 

 they have been united in the courfe of our purfuing 

 them with the pleafures of fociety, the occafional gra r 

 t-ification of avarice, the pleafure of lurprife, &c. and 

 thus afterwards appear pleafajit themfelves from their 

 borrowed luftre. 



Whether the love of life itfelfis an innate principle 

 has been difputed ; for though infants fear pain, yet they 

 have no apprehenfion of death, till reafbn has fo far 

 made a progrefs, as to inform them that it is connected 

 with pain, and life with happinefs. The love of life is 

 generated from the fenfe of pleafure refulting from the 

 goods we poffefs in it ; and this affords no inconfider- 

 able proof that the good in the world overbalances the 

 evil. So ftrongly, indeed, are the ideas of life and 

 happinefs affociated, that moft men would rather 

 live miferable, than not live at all: thus again we fee 

 that an affociated affection may overcome and coun- 

 teract the natural affections, and even thofe that gave it 

 birth. 



It will be unneceffary to add any more in this place 



gp this fubject, or to endeavour^ to prove more at large 



H b 3 the 



