LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. RObS. 
213 
that an arithmetical or a mathematical subject may be treated as 
a kind of off hand matter, for the process is so clear and distinct 
without any digressions or wanderings; that we are enabled to 
fix upon the exact time when we shall arrive at the desired pro¬ 
duct. This is however by no means the case with the product 
of the custom which is now immediately under our discussion, 
for it comes sometimes very inopportunely before its time, and 
sometimes after its time, and sometimes, though very seldom, 
never at all. There is again, another very essential difference 
between an arithmetical sum, and the custom under discussion, 
lor in the former we are certain at arriving at the conclusion that 
one and one make two, but the result of the custom to which we 
allude is, that one and one most generally make three, which 
has puzzled many sophists to account for, who never troubled 
their heads about the discovery of the north west passage, or any 
of the customs of the people who migrated from the Tower of 
Babel, to take up their residence on the shores of the Arctic seas. 
This may be considered by some as decidedly heterodoxical, 
and trenching in a very unbecoming manner on that most sublime 
of all compositions, the Athanasian Creed : but the depth, the 
gravity, and more than all, the extreme delight, which an ad¬ 
herence to the particular custom imparts, sanctioned and approved 
of, as it is by every noble British sailor, who ever reefed a sail 
or weighed an anchor, are a sufficient apology for any prolixity 
which may have been evinced in the discussion of this important 
subject. 
It must certainly be admitted that there are certain actions 
performed by the human race, which are so fixed and definite in 
their operations, and which may be considered as so unusually 
appertaining to the innate dispositions of the animal, that their 
exhibition, whether displayed amongst the Japanese, the Pata¬ 
gonians, or the Esquimaux partakes of the same character, and 
is governed by the same rules snd principles. We are indebted 
to our researches into the Physiology of man, for the important 
discovery that the natural operations of eating, drinking, walk¬ 
ing and sleeping, are performed very nearly the same by the 
people on the shores of the Chinese seas, as by those on the 
