For as in the
government of states it is sometimes necessary to bridle one faction
with another, so it is in the government within.
(7) Now come we to those points which are within our own command,
and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and
appetite, and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled
custom, exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation,
company, friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books,
studies: these as they have determinate use in moralities, from
these the mind suffereth, and of these are such receipts and
regiments compounded and described, as may serve to recover or
preserve the health and good estate of the mind, as far as
pertaineth to human medicine: of which number we will insist upon
some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it were too long
to prosecute all; and therefore we do resume custom and habit to
speak of.
(8) The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that
of those things which consist by Nature, nothing can be changed by
custom; using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand
times up it will not learn to ascend; and that by often seeing or
hearing we do not learn to see or hear the better.
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