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Part V, Chapter II, 1
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Of the influence of custom and fashion upon moral sentiments.
Since our sentiments concerning beauty of every kind are so much influenced by custom and fashion, it cannot be expected, that those, concerning the beauty, of conduct, should be entirely exempted from the dominion of those principles. Their influence here, however, seems to be much less than it is every where else. There is, perhaps, no form of external objects, how absurd and fantastical soever, to which custom will not reconcile us, or which fashion will not render even agreeable. But the characters and conduct of a Nero, or a Claudius, are what no custom will ever reconcile us to, what no fashion will ever render agreeable; but the one will always be the object of dread and hatred; the other of scorn and derision. The principles of the imagination, upon which our sense of beauty depends, are of a very nice and delicate nature, and may easily be altered by habit and education: but the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation, are founded on the strongest and most vigorous passions of human nature; and though they may be somewhat warpt, cannot be entirely perverted.
But though the influence of custom and fashion, upon moral sentiments, is not altogether so great, it is however perfectly similar to what it is every where else. When custom and fashion coincide with the natural principles of right and wrong, they heighten the delicacy of our sentiments, and increase our abhorrence for every thing which approaches to evil. Those who have been educated in what is really good company, not in what is commonly called such, who have been accustomed to see nothing in the persons whom they esteemed and lived with, but justice, modesty, humanity, and good order, are more shocked with whatever seems to be inconsistent with the rules which those virtues prescribe. Those, on the contrary, who have had the misfortune to be brought up amidst violence, licentiousness, falsehood, and injustice, lose, though not all sense of the impropriety of such conduct, yet all sense of its dreadful enormity, or of the vengeance and punishment due to it. They have been familiarized with it from their infancy, custom has rendered it habitual to them, and they are very apt to regard it as, what is called the way of the world, something which either may, or must be practised, to hinder us from being the dupes of our own integrity.
Fashion too will sometimes give reputation to a certain degree of disorder, and on the contrary discountenance qualities which deserve esteem. In the reign of Charles II. a degree of licentiousness was deemed the characteristic of a liberal education. It was connected, according to the notions of those times, with generosity, sincerity, magnanimity, loyalty, and proved that the person who acted in this manner, was a gentleman, and not a puritan; severity of manners, and regularity of conduct, on the other hand, were altogether unfashionable, and were connected, in the imagination of that age, with cant, cunning, hypocrisy, and low manners. To superficial minds, the vices of the great seem at all times agreeable. They connect them, not only with the splendour of fortune, but with many superiour virtues, which they ascribe to their superiors; with the spirit of freedom and independency, with frankness, generosity, humanity, and politeness. The virtues of the inferior ranks of people, on the contrary, their parsimonious frugality, their painful industry, and rigid adherence to rules, seem to them mean and disagreeable. They connect them, both with the meanness of the station to which those qualities commonly belong, and with many great vices, which, they suppose, usually accompany them; such as an abject, cowardly, ill-natured, lying, pilfering disposition.
The objects with which men in the different professions and states of life are conversant, being very different, and habituating them to very different passions, naturally form in them very different characters and manners. We expect in each rank and procession, a degree of those manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to it. But as in each species of things, we are particularly pleased with the middle conformation, which in every part and feature agrees most exactly with the general standard which nature seems to have established for things of that kind; so in each rank, or, if I may say so, in each species of men, we are particularly pleased, if they have neither too much, nor too little of the character which usually accompanies their particular condition and situation. A man, we say, should look like his trade and profession; yet the pedantry of every profession is disagreeable. The different periods of life have, for the same reason, different manners assigned to them. We expect in old age, that gravity and sedateness which its infirmities, its long experience, and its worn-out sensibility seem to render both natural and respectable; and we lay our account to find in youth that sensibility, that gaiety and sprightly vivacity which experience teaches us to expect from the lively impressions that all interesting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpractised senses of that early period of life. Each of those two ages, however, may easily have too much of these peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting levity of youth, and the immoveable insensibility of old age, are equally disagreeable. The young, according to the common saying, are most agreeable when in their behaviour there is something of the manners of the old, and the old, when they retain something of the gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much of the manners of the other. The extreme coldness, and dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, make youth ridiculous. The levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in youth, render old age contemptible.
The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom to appropriate to each rank and profession, have sometimes perhaps a propriety independent of custom; and are what we should approve of for their own sakes, if we took into consideration all the different circumstances which naturally affect those in each different state of life. The propriety of a person’s behaviour, depends not upon its suitableness to any one circumstance of his situation, but to all the circumstances, which, when we bring his case home to ourselves we feel, should naturally call upon his attention. If he appears to be so much occupied by any one of them, as entirely to neglect the rest, we disapprove of his conduct, as something which we cannot entirely go along with, because not properly adjusted to all the circumstances of his situation: yet, perhaps, the emotion he expresses for the object which principally interests him, does not exceed what we should entirely sympathize with, and approve of, in one whose attention was not required by any other thing. A parent in private life might, upon the loss of an only son, express without blame, a degree of grief and tenderness, which would be unpardonable in a general at the head of an army, when glory, and the public safety demanded so great a part of his attention. As different objects ought, upon common occasions, to occupy the attention of men of different professions, so different passions ought, naturally to become habitual to them; and when we bring home to ourselves their situation in this particular respect, we must be sensible, that every occurrence should naturally affect them more or less, according as the emotion which it excites, coincides or disagrees with the fixt habit and temper of their minds. We cannot expect the same sensibility to the gay pleasures and amusements of life in a clergyman which we lay our account with in an officer. The man whose peculiar occupation it is to keep the world in mind of that awful futurity which awaits them, who is to announce what may be the fatal consequences of every deviation from the rules of duty, and who is himself to set the example of the most exact conformity, seems to be the messenger of tidings, which cannot, in propriety, be delivered either with levity or indifference. His mind is supposed to be continually occupied with what is too grand and solemn, to leave any room for the impressions of those frivolous objects, which fill up the attention of the dissipated and the gay. We readily feel therefore, that, independent of custom, there is a propriety in the manners which custom has allotted to this profession; and that nothing can be more suitable to the character of a clergyman, than that grave, that austere and abstracted severity, which we are habituated to expect in his behaviour. These reflections are so very obvious, that there is scarce any man so inconsiderate, as not, at some time, to have made them, and to have accounted to himself in this manner for his approbation of the usual character of this order.
The foundation of the customary character of some other professions is not so obvious, and our approbation of it is founded entirely in habit, without being either confirmed, or enlivened by any reflections of this kind. We are led by custom, for example, to annex the character of gaiety, levity, and sprightly freedom, as well as of some degree of dissipation, to the military profession: yet, if we were to consider what mood or tone of temper would be most suitable to this situation, we should be apt to determine, perhaps, that the most serious and thoughtful turn of mind, would best become those whose lives are continually exposed to uncommon danger; and who should therefore be more constantly occupied with the thoughts of death and its consequences than other men. It is this very circumstance, however, which is not improbably the occasion why the contrary turn of mind prevails so much among men of this profession. It requires so great an effort to conquer the fear of death, when we survey it with steadiness and attention, that those who are constantly exposed to it, find it easier to turn away their thoughts from it altogether, to wrap themselves up in careless security and indifference, and to plunge themselves, for this purpose, into every sort of amusement and dissipation. A camp is not the element of a thoughtful or a melancholy man: persons of that cast, indeed, are often abundantly determined, and are capable, by a great effort, of going on with inflexible resolution to the most unavoidable death. But to be exposed to continual, though less imminent danger, to be obliged to exert, for a long time, a degree of this effort, exhausts and depresses the mind, and renders it incapable of all happiness and enjoyment. The gay and careless, who have occasion to make no effort at all, who fairly resolve never to look before them, but to lose in continual pleasures and amusements, all anxiety about their situation, more easily support such circumstances. Whenever, by any peculiar circumstances, an officer has no reason to lay his account with being exposed to any uncommon danger, he is very apt to lose the gaiety and dissipated thoughtlessness of his character. The captain of a city guard is commonly as sober, careful, and penurious an animal as the rest of his fellow-citizens. A long peace is, for the same reason, very apt to diminish the difference between the civil and the military character. The ordinary situation, however, of men of this profession, renders gaiety, and a degree of dissipation, so much their usual character; and custom has, in our imagination, so strongly connected this character with this state of life, that we are very apt to despise any man, whose peculiar humour or situation, renders him incapable of acquiring it. We laugh at the grave and careful faces of a city guard, which, so little resemble those of their profession. They themselves seem often to be ashamed of the regularity of their own manners, and, not to be out of the fashion of their trade, are fond of affecting that levity, which is by no means natural to them. Whatever is the deportment which we have been accustomed to see in a respectable order of men, it comes to be so associated in our imagination with that order, that whenever we see the one, we lay our account that we are to meet with the other, and when disappointed, miss something which we expected to find. We are embarrassed, and put to a stand, and know not how to address ourselves to a character, which plainly affects to be of a different species from those with which we should have been disposed to class it.
The different situations of different ages and countries, are apt, in the same manner, to give different characters to the generality of those who live in them, and their sentiments concerning the particular degree of each quality, that is either blameable, or praise-worthy, vary according to that degree, which is usual in their own country, and in their own times. That degree of politeness, which would be highly esteemed, perhaps, would be thought effeminate adulation, in Russia, would be regarded as rudeness and barbarism at the court of France. That degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would be considered as excessive parsimony, would be regarded as extravagance in a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country look upon that degree of each quality, which is commonly to be met with in those who are esteemed among themselves, as the golden mean of that particular talent or virtue. And as this varies, according as their different circumstances render different qualities more or less habitual to them, their sentiments concerning the exact propriety of character and behaviour vary accordingly.
Among civilized nations, the virtues which are founded upon humanity, are more cultivated than those which are founded upon self-denial and the command of the passions. Among rude and barbarous nations, it is quite otherwise, the virtues of self-denial are more cultivated than those of humanity. The general security and happiness which prevail in ages of civility and politeness afford little exercise to the contempt of danger, to patience in enduring labour, hunger, and pain. Poverty may easily be avoided, and the contempt of it therefore, almost ceases to be a virtue. The abstinence from pleasure, becomes less necessary, and the mind is more at liberty to unbend itself, and to indulge its natural inclinations in all those particular respects.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete sixth-edition English text of all parts (the appended Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is not included) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
On the influence of custom and fashion on moral sentiments.
Since custom and fashion have so much influence on our sentiments about every kind of beauty, we cannot expect our sentiments about the beauty of conduct to be wholly free of their power. Here, however, their influence seems much weaker than elsewhere. There is perhaps no form of external object, however absurd and fanciful, that custom will not accustom us to, or fashion will not even make agreeable. But no custom can accustom us to the characters and conduct of a Nero or a Claudius, and no fashion can make them agreeable. One will always inspire dread and hatred, the other scorn and ridicule. The principles of imagination on which our sense of beauty depends are fine and delicate and can readily be altered by habit and education. But sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation rest on the strongest and most vigorous passions of human nature; though they may be somewhat distorted, they cannot be entirely corrupted.
Yet while the influence of custom and fashion on moral sentiments is not quite as powerful, it works in precisely the same way as elsewhere. When custom and fashion agree with the natural principles of right and wrong, they sharpen our feelings and increase our abhorrence of everything approaching evil. People raised in genuinely good company—not what is commonly called by that name—who have seen nothing but justice, modesty, humanity, and good order in the people they esteem and live among, are more shocked by anything inconsistent with the rules of those virtues. Those unfortunate enough to be raised amid violence, licentiousness, falsehood, and injustice do not lose all sense that such conduct is improper; but they lose all sense of its dreadful enormity, or of the vengeance and punishment it deserves. Familiar with it from infancy, they have grown used to it, and readily regard it as what is called the way of the world: something we may, or must, practice to avoid becoming dupes of our own integrity.
Fashion, too, will sometimes give a certain degree of disorder a good name and, conversely, put deserving qualities out of favor. During the reign of Charles II., a measure of licentiousness was considered the mark of an enlightened education. People of the time associated it with generosity, sincerity, magnanimity, and loyalty, and took it as proof that a person was a gentleman, not a puritan. Strict manners and orderly conduct, on the other hand, were utterly unfashionable and associated with sanctimony, cunning, hypocrisy, and vulgarity. To superficial minds, the vices of the great always seem attractive. Such minds associate them not merely with the splendor of wealth, but with many superior virtues they attribute to their social superiors: a spirit of liberty and independence, frankness, generosity, humanity, and courtesy. The virtues of people of lower rank, by contrast—their careful thrift, laborious industry, and strict obedience to rules—seem shabby and disagreeable. Superficial minds associate these qualities both with the lowly station in which they commonly appear and with serious vices they suppose to accompany them: servility, cowardice, ill temper, deceit, and petty theft.
The different occupations and stations of life bring people into contact with very different things and accustom them to very different passions, naturally giving rise to very different characters and manners. In each rank and profession we expect some degree of the manners experience has taught us to associate with it. Just as in each kind of thing we take particular pleasure in an intermediate form, whose every part and feature most closely agrees with the general pattern nature seems to have established for that kind, so in each rank—or, if I may put it so, each kind of person—we are particularly pleased when people possess neither too much nor too little of the character that usually attends their position and circumstances. A person should look, we say, like someone of his trade and profession; yet the professional's pedantry is disagreeable. The different stages of life similarly have different manners assigned to them. We expect in old age the gravity and calmness made natural and respectable by its infirmities, long experience, and diminished sensitivity. In youth we expect the responsiveness, cheerfulness, and lively spirit that the vivid impressions made by every interesting object naturally awaken in young and inexperienced senses. Either age, however, can display too much of its distinctive traits. Youthful giddiness and the unshakable insensibility of old age are equally disagreeable. As the familiar saying has it, young people are most agreeable when their conduct has something of the manners of the old, and old people when they retain some youthful cheerfulness. Yet either can also take on too much of the other's manner. The extreme coldness and dreary formality excused in old age make youth ridiculous. The flightiness, carelessness, and vanity tolerated in youth make old age contemptible.
The distinctive character and manners that custom leads us to associate with each rank and profession may sometimes possess a propriety independent of custom. We would approve them for their own sake if we considered all the different circumstances naturally affecting people in each station. The propriety of someone's conduct depends on its fitness not for a single circumstance of his situation but for all the circumstances that, when we put ourselves in his place, we feel should naturally command his attention. If he appears so absorbed by one as to neglect all the rest, we disapprove of conduct we cannot fully sympathize with because it is not properly adjusted to every aspect of his situation. Yet the feeling he expresses about the matter chiefly concerning him might be no more than we would fully sympathize with and approve in someone whose attention was required by nothing else. In private life, a parent who loses his only son might express a degree of grief and tenderness without blame that would be inexcusable in a general commanding an army, when glory and public safety demand so much of his attention. Since different concerns ought ordinarily to occupy people in different professions, different passions ought naturally to become habitual to them. When we put ourselves in their place in this respect, we must recognize that each event should naturally affect them more or less according as the emotion it arouses agrees or conflicts with their settled habits and temperaments. We cannot expect a clergyman to be as responsive to life's cheerful pleasures and amusements as we expect an officer to be. A man whose special calling is to remind the world of the solemn future awaiting them, to announce the potentially fatal consequences of every departure from duty, and to set an example of the strictest obedience himself, seems to bear news that cannot properly be delivered with levity or indifference. His mind is presumed to be continually occupied by matters too grand and solemn to make room for the impressions of trifles that fill the minds of the pleasure-seeking and the gay. We readily feel, therefore, that independently of custom there is propriety in the manners custom assigns to this profession: nothing could better suit a clergyman than the grave, austere, and detached severity we are accustomed to expect of him. These reflections are so obvious that scarcely anyone is too thoughtless to have made them at some point and thus explained to himself why he approves the customary character of this calling.
The basis of the customary character of some other professions is less obvious, and our approval rests wholly on habit, neither confirmed nor strengthened by such reflections. Custom, for example, leads us to associate the military profession with cheerfulness, levity, spirited freedom, and some degree of dissipation. Yet if we considered the temper best suited to that occupation, we might decide that the most serious and thoughtful disposition best becomes people whose lives are continually exposed to extraordinary danger, and who should therefore think more constantly than others about death and its consequences. This very circumstance, however, may well explain why the opposite disposition is so prevalent among them. Facing death steadily and attentively, one must make such a great effort to master the fear of it that those constantly exposed to death find it easier to turn their minds away from it altogether, wrap themselves in a careless sense of safety and indifference, and immerse themselves in every kind of amusement and distraction. A camp is no place for a thoughtful or melancholy person. People of that disposition are indeed often resolute enough to press on, through a mighty effort, to certain death. But continual exposure to danger, even when death is less imminent, requires a prolonged effort that exhausts and depresses the mind, leaving it incapable of happiness or enjoyment. Cheerful, carefree people need make no such effort. Having firmly resolved never to look ahead, but to drown all anxiety about their position in endless pleasures and amusements, they bear such circumstances more easily. Whenever an officer's particular situation gives him no reason to expect extraordinary danger, he is quite likely to lose the cheerfulness and dissipated thoughtlessness associated with his profession. A captain of the city guard is ordinarily as sober, cautious, and thrifty a creature as the rest of his fellow citizens. A long peace likewise tends to reduce the difference between civilian and military character. The ordinary circumstances of the profession nevertheless make cheerfulness and some dissipation so characteristic of its members, and custom has linked those traits to their way of life so firmly in our imaginations, that we are inclined to despise a man whose particular temperament or circumstances prevent him from acquiring them. We laugh at the grave, cautious faces of the city guard, so unlike what we expect of their profession. They themselves often seem ashamed of their regular habits and, unwilling to be out of fashion in their trade, like to pretend to a levity that is not natural to them. Whatever bearing we have grown accustomed to seeing among a respected group becomes so closely associated with it in our minds that, whenever we encounter the one, we expect the other. Disappointed, we miss something we expected to find. We are embarrassed and brought up short, not knowing how to address someone who plainly appears to belong to a different kind from the one in which we would have placed him.
In the same way, the different circumstances of different ages and countries tend to give different characters to most of the people living in them. People's judgments about exactly how much of each quality deserves blame or praise vary with the amount customary in their own country and time. A degree of politeness regarded as effeminate flattery in Russia would be considered rudeness and barbarism at the court of France. A degree of orderliness and thrift regarded as excessive stinginess in a Polish nobleman would be seen as extravagance in a citizen of Amsterdam. Every age and country treats the degree of each quality commonly found in its respected people as the golden mean of that particular talent or virtue. As differing circumstances make different qualities more or less habitual, their judgments of the precise propriety of character and conduct change accordingly.
Among civilized nations, the virtues rooted in humanity are cultivated more than those rooted in self-denial and command of the passions. Among nations deemed rough and barbarous, the reverse is true: the virtues of self-denial are more cultivated than those of humanity. The general security and happiness prevailing in civilized and courteous ages give little occasion to practice contempt for danger or patience in enduring toil, hunger, and pain. Poverty can readily be avoided, so contempt for it almost ceases to be a virtue. Abstaining from pleasure becomes less necessary, and the mind is freer to relax and indulge its natural inclinations in all these respects.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete sixth-edition English text of all parts (the appended Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is not included).
How custom and fashion affect moral feelings.
Since custom and fashion affect our feelings about every kind of beauty so much, they must also affect what we find beautiful in human conduct. Still, their influence on conduct seems much smaller than elsewhere. There may be no shape of a physical object so absurd or fanciful that custom cannot make us accept it or fashion cannot make us even like it. But neither custom nor fashion could ever make us like the characters and conduct of Nero or Claudius. One will always provoke fear and hatred, and the other scorn and ridicule. Our sense of beauty rests on workings of the imagination that are subtle and easily changed by habit and education. But moral approval and disapproval rest on the strongest, most forceful human passions. Habit can bend those feelings somewhat, but it cannot completely reverse them.
Although custom and fashion have less power over moral feelings, they work in just the same way as they do elsewhere. When they support our natural sense of right and wrong, they sharpen our feelings and strengthen our horror of anything approaching evil. People raised in genuinely good company, rather than what merely passes for it, see justice, modesty, humanity, and orderly conduct in the people they admire and live among. They are more shocked by anything that seems to break the rules of these virtues. By contrast, people unfortunate enough to grow up amid violence, reckless behavior, lies, and injustice do not lose all sense that such behavior is improper. But they do lose their sense of how dreadful it is and of the punishment and retribution it deserves. They have known it since childhood, and custom has made it familiar. They are very likely to regard it as the way of the world: something we can or must do to avoid being fooled by our own honesty.
Fashion can also make a degree of misconduct seem respectable and make worthy qualities unpopular. During the reign of Charles II., a certain looseness of behavior was seen as a mark of a well-educated person. People at the time associated it with generosity, honesty, greatness of spirit, and loyalty. They took it as proof that a person was a gentleman, not a puritan. Strict manners and disciplined behavior, by contrast, were completely unfashionable. People associated them with self-righteous talk, trickery, hypocrisy, and vulgarity. Superficial people always find the vices of the powerful attractive. They associate these vices not just with wealth's splendor but with virtues they attribute to the powerful: a free and independent spirit, openness, generosity, humanity, and politeness. They find the virtues of lower-ranking people unattractive: their careful thrift, exhausting work, and strict obedience to rules. They associate those qualities with low social standing and with the great vices they imagine often go with it: servility, cowardice, unkindness, lying, and petty theft.
People in different trades and positions deal with very different things. These experiences accustom them to different feelings and naturally give them different characters and manners. We expect each rank and profession to show some degree of the manners experience has taught us to associate with it. With every kind of thing, we particularly like the middle form: the shape whose every part and feature best matches what seems to be nature's general standard for that kind. In the same way, we like people in each rank, or each kind of person, to show neither too much nor too little of the character commonly associated with their situation. A person should look the part of their trade, we say. Yet the professional who makes a show of professional habits is disagreeable. Different stages of life have their own expected manners for the same reason. In old age, we expect the seriousness and calm made natural and respectable by its frailty, long experience, and diminished sensitivity. In youth, we expect responsiveness, cheerfulness, and lively energy, because interesting things make strong impressions on young, inexperienced senses. Both ages, however, can display these traits too strongly. Youthful flirtatious frivolity and the unshakable insensitivity of old age are equally unpleasant. As people commonly say, young people are most agreeable when they have something of older people's manners, and older people when they keep some of the young people's cheerfulness. But either group can take on too much of the other's manners. Extreme coldness and dull formality may be forgiven in the old, but make young people ridiculous. Frivolity, carelessness, and vanity may be tolerated in the young, but make old people contemptible.
The manners that custom associates with each rank and profession may sometimes be proper in their own right. We might approve of them even without custom if we considered every circumstance that naturally affects people in each situation. Whether someone's behavior is proper depends on whether it fits all the circumstances they face, not just one. When we imagine ourselves in that person's position, we can feel the demands that all those circumstances should place on their attention. If they seem so caught up in one concern that they ignore the rest, we disapprove. We cannot fully share a response that fails to fit their whole situation. Yet the feeling they show for their main concern might be one we would entirely share and approve of in a person who had no other claims on their attention. In private life, a parent who loses an only son might express a depth of grief and tenderness without blame. The same display would be unforgivable in a general commanding an army, when glory and public safety demand so much of his attention. Different professions normally require attention to different things, so different feelings should naturally become habitual to their members. When we imagine ourselves in their situations, we can see that each event should affect them more or less depending on how the feeling it arouses fits their settled habits and temperament. We do not expect a clergyman to respond to cheerful pleasures and entertainment with the sensitivity we expect from an officer. The clergyman's special task is to remind people of the grave future that awaits them, announce the possibly disastrous results of every failure to do one's duty, and set an example of exact obedience to duty. His message cannot properly be delivered carelessly or lightly. We assume that his thoughts are always occupied with matters too great and solemn to leave room for the trivial things that occupy pleasure-loving people. It is easy to see, then, why the manners custom assigns to this profession are proper even without custom. Nothing suits a clergyman better than the serious, austere, and detached manner we have come to expect. These thoughts are so obvious that hardly anyone has failed at some time to use them to explain why they approve of this profession's customary character.
The basis of the usual character of some other professions is less clear. We approve of it simply out of habit, without support or reinforcement from such reasoning. For instance, habit makes us associate soldiers with cheerfulness, a carefree and lively spirit, and a measure of pleasure-seeking. Yet if we asked what disposition would best suit people whose lives are constantly at unusual risk, we might choose the most serious and thoughtful one. They have more reason than others to think continually about death and what follows it. But that very danger may well explain why the opposite disposition is so common among them. Facing death steadily and directly requires an enormous effort to master our fear. People constantly exposed to it find it easier to avoid thinking about it altogether. They surround themselves with carefree confidence and indifference, plunging into all kinds of amusement and distraction. A military camp is no place for a thoughtful or melancholy person. Such people are often very determined and can make a great effort to face even certain death with unbending resolve. But constant exposure to less immediate danger demands a prolonged effort of that sort. It exhausts and depresses them, leaving them unable to feel happiness or enjoyment. Cheerful, carefree people need make no such effort. They simply decide not to look ahead and lose all anxiety about their situation in continual pleasures and entertainment. They bear those circumstances more easily. If an officer has no reason, because of special circumstances, to expect unusual danger, he is likely to lose his cheerful, carefree habits. The captain of a city guard is usually as sober, careful, and tight with money as the other citizens. For the same reason, a long period of peace tends to reduce the difference between civilian and military character. But the ordinary situation of soldiers makes cheerfulness and a measure of pleasure-seeking so common among them that custom firmly links those traits with their profession in our minds. We tend to look down on anyone whose individual temperament or circumstances prevent him from developing them. We laugh at the serious, careful faces of a city guard, so unlike what we expect of soldiers. The guards themselves often seem ashamed of their orderly manners. To fit the fashion of their profession, they like to put on a carefree attitude that does not come naturally to them. Whatever conduct we are used to seeing in a respected group becomes so closely associated with it in our minds that seeing one makes us expect the other. When our expectation fails, we feel something is missing. We are confused and at a loss about how to deal with someone who clearly wants to be treated as a different sort of person from the one we expected.
In the same way, conditions in different times and countries tend to shape the character of most people living in them. Their judgments about exactly how much of each quality deserves blame or praise change with the amount usual in their own country and time. The degree of politeness prized at the court of France might be regarded in Russia as weak, fawning flattery. What Russia calls polite might seem rude and uncivilized in France. The level of order and thrift considered excessive stinginess in a Polish nobleman would seem extravagance in a citizen of Amsterdam. People in every time and country treat the degree of a quality usually found in those they respect as the ideal middle point of that talent or virtue. Their different circumstances make different qualities more or less habitual, so their views of exactly what character and conduct are proper vary too.
In civilized nations, people cultivate virtues based on humanity more than those based on self-denial and mastery of the passions. Among nations called rude and barbarous, it is the other way around. They cultivate self-denial more than humanity. The general safety and happiness of polite, civilized times offer few chances to practice facing danger without fear or enduring work, hunger, and pain patiently. Poverty is relatively easy to avoid, so looking down on it almost stops being a virtue. Giving up pleasures becomes less necessary, and people are freer to relax and follow their natural inclinations in all these matters.