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TRADE.

Perhaps there is not by nature so much difference in the capacities of men, as by education.  The efforts of nature will produce a ten-fold crop in the field, but those of art, fifty.

Perhaps too, the seeds of every virtue, vice, inclination, and habit, are sown in the breast of every human being, though not in an equal degree.  Some of these lie dormant for ever, no hand inviting their cultivation.  Some are called into existence by their own internal strength, and others by the external powers that surround them.  Some of these seeds flourish more, some less, according to the aptness of the soil, and the modes of assistance.  We are not to suppose infancy the only time in which these scions spring, no part of life is exempt.  I knew a man who lived to the age of forty, totally regardless of music.  A fidler happening to have apartments near his abode, attracted his ear, by frequent exhibitions, which produced a growing inclination for that favourite science, and he became a proficient himself.  Thus in advanced periods a man may fall in love with a science, a woman, or a bottle.  Thus avarice is said to shoot up in ancient soil, and thus, I myself bud forth in history at fifty-six.

The cameleon is said to receive a tincture from the colour of the object that is nearest him; but the human mind in reality receives a bias from its connections.  Link a man to the pulpit, and he cannot proceed to any great lengths in profligate life.  Enter him into the army, and he will endeavour to swear himself into consequence.  Make the man of humanity an overseer of the poor, and he will quickly find the tender feelings of commiseration hardened.  Make him a physician, and he will be the only person upon the premises, the heir excepted, unconcerned at the prospect of death.  Make him a surgeon, and he will amputate a leg with the same indifference with which a cutler saws a piece of bone for a knife handle.  You commit a rascal to prison because he merits transportation, but by the time he comes out he merits a halter.  By uniting also with industry, we become industrious.  It is easy to give instances of people whose distinguishing characteristic was idleness, but when they breathed the air of Birmingham, diligence became the predominant feature.  The view of profit, like the view of corn to the hungry horse, excites to action.

Thus the various seeds scattered by nature into the soul at its first formation, either lie neglected, are urged into increase by their own powers, or are drawn towards maturity by the concurring circumstances that attend them.

The late Mr. Grenville observed, in the House of Commons, “That commerce tended to corrupt the morals of a people.”  If we examine the expression, we shall find it true in a certain degree, beyond which, it tends to improve them.