C hap: 17.] Influence of Habit tin Genius. 5 o I 



be different in each, and their qualifications different. 

 After all, it is difficult to fay what may be the efredti 

 of cultivation. Many excellent practical mufic ; ans 

 are certainly not men of genius, nor even -poflfeffed, 

 as I have been informed, of a natural genius for their 

 own art. What mod commonly influences the pur- 

 fuits and difpofitions of men is, I am perfuaded, 

 cuftom *, early afibciations, and a predilection for cer- 

 tain occupations generated by fome agreeable but 

 fortuitous circumftance. Thus, in relating the life of 

 the poet Cowley, Dr. Johnfon informs us, that, tf In 

 the window of his mother's apartment, lay Spencer's 

 Fairy Queen ; in which he very early took delight to 

 read, till by feeling the charms of verfe, he became, 

 as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such (adds tfiis 

 great moralift) are the accidents, which fometimes 

 remembered, and perhaps fometimes forgotten, pro- 

 duce that particular defignation of mind, and pro- 

 penfity for fome certain fcience, which is commonly 



* Much of the difference between the fcientific genius, and 

 the genius for the arts, will depend on early habit. *' Perfons 

 (fays Dr. Hartley) who give themfelves much to mirth, wit, and 

 humour, muft thereby greatly difqualify their understandings for 

 the fearch after truth ; inafmuch as by the perpetual hunting 

 after apparent and partial agreements and difagr.f ments, as in 

 words, and indirect, accidental circum fiances; whilft the true na- 

 tures of the things themfelves afford real agreements and difagree- 

 ments, that are very different or quite opoofite. a man mull by 

 degrees pervert all his notions of things th mfelve:, and become 

 unable to fee them as they really are, and as they appear to con- 

 fiderate, fober minded inquirers. He muft lofe all his afibciations 

 of the viable ideas of things, their names, i'ymbols, &c. with their 

 ufual practical relations and properties : and g:t in their ftead ac- 

 cidental, indirect, and unnatural conjunctions of circumftances, t'^at 

 are really foreign to each other, or oppoiitions of thole that are 

 united." Hartley, p, 46. 



K k 3 called 



