THE BENEVOLENCE OF HABIT. 459 



at the table ; loves and friendships have originated 

 there. In the same manner the passions are sanctified 

 by marriage. Blended with the pure affections their 

 coarseness disappears : their violence is appeased : they 

 become the ministers of conjugal and parental love. 



If we place exceptions aside, and look at men in the 

 mass, we find that, like the animals, they are actively 

 employed from morning to night in obtaining food for 

 themselves and for their families. But when they 

 have satisfied their actual wants, they do not, like the 

 animals, rest at their ease: they continue their labour. 

 Let us take the life of an ordinary man. He adopts 

 an occupation at first in order to get his bread ; and 

 then that he may marry and have children; and these 

 also he has to feed. But that is not all. He soon 

 desires to rise in his profession, or to acquire such skill 

 in his craft that he may be praised by his superiors, 

 and by his companions. He desires to make money 

 that he may improve his social position. And lastly, 

 he begins to love his occupation for itself, whatever it 

 may be : the poor labourer has this feeling as well as 

 the poet or the artist. When the pleasures of money 

 and fame have been exhausted: when nothing remains 

 on earth that can bribe the mind to turn from its 

 accustomed path, it is Labour itself that is the joy ; 

 and aged men who have neither desires, nor illusions, 

 who are separated from the world, and who are drawing 

 near to the grave, who believe that with life all is 

 ended, and that for them there is no hereafter, yet 

 continue to work with indefatigable zeal. This noble 

 condition of the mind which thus makes for itself a 

 heaven upon earth, can be attained by those who have 

 courage and resolution. It is merely the effect of 

 Habit : labour is painful to all at first ; but if the 



