If we suppose proportion in natural things to be relative to custom and use, the nature of use and custom will show that beauty, which is a _positive_ and powerful quality, cannot result from it.

We are so wonderfully formed, that, whilst we are creatures vehemently desirous of novelty, we are as strongly attached to habit and custom.

But it is the nature of things which hold us by custom, to affect us very little whilst we are in possession of them, but strongly when they are absent.

I remember to have frequented a certain place, every day for a long time together; and I may truly say that, so far from finding pleasure in it, I was affected with a sort of weariness and disgust; I came, I went, I returned, without pleasure; yet if by any means I passed by the usual time of my going thither, I was remarkably uneasy, and was not quiet till I had got into my old track.

They who use snuff, take it almost without being sensible that they take it, and the acute sense of smell is deadened, so as to feel hardly anything from so sharp a stimulus; yet deprive the snuff-taker of his box, and he is the most uneasy mortal in the world.