第6章 Of practice and habits

We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything，such at least as would carry us further than can be easily imagined；but it is only the exercise of those powers which gives us ability and skill in anything and leads us towards perfection.

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the carriage and language of a gentleman，though his body be as well proportioned and his joints as supple and his natural parts not any way inferior.The legs of a dancing-master and the fingers of a musician fall as it were naturally without thought or pains into regular and admirable motions.Bid them change their parts，and they will in vain endeavor to produce like motions in the members not used to them，and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degrees of a like ability.What incredible and astonishing actions do we find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies toÑnot but that sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful，but I name those which the world takes notice of for such，because on that very account they give money to see them.All these admired motions beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpracticed spectators are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers on.

As it is in the body，so it is in the mind；practice makes it what it is，and most even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments will be found，when examined into more narrowly，to be the product of exercise and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions.Some men are remarked for pleasantness in raillery，others for apologues and apposite diverting stories.This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature，and that the rather，because it is not got by rules，and those who excel in either of them never purposely set themselves to the study of it as an art to be learnt.But yet it is true that at first some lucky hit，which took with somebody and gained him commendation，encouraged him to try again，inclined his thoughts and endeavours that way，till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how，and that is attributed wholly to nature which was much more the effect of use and practice.I do not deny that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it；but that never carries a man far without use and exercise，and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to their perfection.Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade and never produces anything for want of improvement.We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different，even concerning the same matter，at Court and in the university.And he that will go but from Westminster Hall to the Exchange will find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking，and yet one cannot think that all whose lot fell in the City were born with different parts from those who were bred at the university or Inns of Court.

To what purpose all this but to show that the difference so observable in men's understandings and parts does not arise so much from their natural faculties as acquired habits.He would be laughed at that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger at past fifty；and he will not have much better success who shall endeavor at that age to make a man reason well or speak handsomely who has never been used to it，though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or orators.Nobody is made anything by hearing of rules or laying them up in his memory；practice must settle the habit of doing without reflecting on the rule，and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician extempore by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting as a coherent thinker or strict reasoner be a set of rules showing him wherein right reasoning consists.

This being so，that defects and weaknesses in men's understandings，as well as other faculties，come from want of a right use of their own minds，I am apt to think the fault is generally mislaid upon nature and there is often a complaint of w ant of parts when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them.We see men frequently dexterous and sharp enough in making a bargain Who，if you reason with them about matters of religion，appear perfectly stupid.