The constitution of man : considered in relation to external objects / by George Combe.
- George Combe
- Date:
- 1844
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The constitution of man : considered in relation to external objects / by George Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![In many instances, when a determination is adopted it is frustrated by this indecision. A man, for example, 'resolves to make a journey to-morrow, which he is not under an absolute necessity to make, but the induce- ments appear, this evening, so strong, that he does not think it possible he can hesitate in the morning. In the morning, however, these inducements have unaccount- ably lost much of their force. Like the sun that is rising at the same time, they appear dim through a mist; and the sky lowers, or he fancies that it lowers ; recollections of toils and fatigues ill repaid in past ex- peditions rise and pass into anticipations ; and he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced hour determines the question for him, by the certainty that it is now too late to go. Perhaps a man has conclusive reasons for wishing to remove to another place of residence. But when he is going to take the first actual step towards executing his purpose, he is met by a new train of ideas, presenting the possible, and magnifying the unquestionable, disad- vantages and uncertainties of a new situation ; awaken- ing the natural reluctance to quit a place to which habit has accommodated his feelings, and which has grown warm to him, if I may so express it, by his having been in it so long ; giving new strength to his affection for the friends whom he must leave, and so detaining him still lingering, long after his serious judgment may have dictated to him to be gone. A man may think of some desirable alteration in his plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his family, or in the mode of his intercourse with society.—Would it be a good thing ] He thinks it would be a good thing. It certainly would be a very good thing. He wishes it were done. He will attempt it almost imme- diately. The following day, he doubts whether it would be quite prudent. Many things are to be considered. May there not be in the change some evils of which he is not aware ? Is this a proper time 1 What will the people say '—And thus, though he does not formally renounce his purpose, he shrinks out of it, with a wish that he could be fully satisfied of the propriety of re- nouncing it. Perhaps he wishes that the thought had •never occurred to him, since it has diminished his self- complacency, without promoting his virtue. But the Best day, his conviction of the wisdom and advantage of such a reform comes atjain with great force. Then, Is it so practicable as I was at first willing to imagine 1 Why not ] Other men have done much greater things ; a resolute mind is omnipotent ; difficulty is a stimulus and a triumph to a strongspirit ; ' the joys of conquest arc the joys of man.' What need I care about people's opinion It shall be done. He makes the first at- tempt. But some unexpected obstacle presents itself; lie feels the awkwardness of attempting an unacustom- ed manner of acting ; the questions or the ridicule of his friends disconcert him; his ardour abates and ex- pires, lie again begins to question, whether it be wise, whether it be necessary, whether it be possible ; and at 1 ast, si,rrenders his purpose, to be perhaps resumed when ihs same feelings return, and to be in the same manner again relinquished. While animated by some magnanimous sentiments which he has heard or read, or while musing on some great example, a man mav conceive the design, and partly sketch the plan, of a generous enterprise ; and fi s imagination revels in the felicity that would follow, to mhers and to himself, from its accomplishment. The Splendid representation always centres in himself as the hero that is to realize it. Yet a certain consciousness in his mind doubfully asks, Is this any thing more than a dream ; or am I really destined to achieve such an enterprise? Des- tined i—and why are not this conviction of its excellence, this conscious duty of performing the noblest things that are possible, and this passionate ardour, enough to secure that I shall effect it ] He feels indignant at that 17* failing part of his nature which puts him so far below his own conceptions, and below the examples which he is admiring ; and this feeling assists him to resolve, that he will undertake this enterprise, that he certainl> will, though the Alps or the Ocean he between him and the object. Again his ardour slackens ; distrustful ol himself, he wishes to know how the design would ap- pear to other minds ; and when he speaks of it to his associates, one of them wonders, another laughs, and another frowns. His pride attempts, while with them, a manful defence ; but his mind is gradually descend- ing toward their level, he becomes ashamed to enter- tain a visionary project, which therefore, like a rejected friend, desists from intruding on him or following him, - and he subsides, at last, into what he labours to believe, a man too rational for the schemes of ill-calculating enthusiasm. And it were strange if the effort to make out this favourable estimate of himself did not succeed, while it is so much more pleasant to attribute one's defect of enterprise to wisdom, which on maturer thought disapproves of it, than to imbecility which shrinks from it. A person of undecisive character wonders how all the embarassments in the world happened to meet ex- actly in his way, to place him just in that one situation for which he is peculiarly unadapted, and in which he is also willing to think no nther man could have acted with such facility or confidence. Incapable of setting up a firm purpose on the basis of things as they are, he is often employed in vain speculations on some different supposable state of things, which would have saved him from all this perplexity and irresolution. He thinks what a determined course he could have pursued, if his talents, his health, his age, had been different ; if he had been acquainted with some one pprson sooner ; if his friends were, in this or the other point,'different from what they are ; or if fortune had showered her favours on him. And he gives himself as much license to complain, as if all these advantages had been among the rights of his nativity, but refused, by a malignant or capricious fate, to his life. Thus he is occupied —instead of catching with a vigilant eye, and seizing with a strong hand, all the possibilities of his actual situation. A man without decision can never be said to belong ,to himself; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful, you would have supposed, as a spider, may make a capture of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and tri- umphantly exhibit the futility of the determinations by which he was to have proved the independence ol his understanding and his will. He belongs to what- ever can seize him ; and innumerable things do actually verify their claim on him, and arrest him as he tries to go along; as twigs and chips, floating near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, and whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accomplish it,—if the hundred diversities of feeling which may come within the week, will let him. As his character precludes all foresight of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and direction his views and actions are destined to take to- morrow ; as a farmer has often to acknowledge the next day's proceedings are at the disposal of its winds and clouds. This man's opinions and determinations always de- pend very much on other human beings; and what chance for consistency and stability, while the persons with whom he may converse, or transact, are so various ? This very evening, he may talk with a man whose sen- timents will melt away the present form and outline of his purposes, however firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. A succession of persons whose faculties were stronger than his own, might, in spite ot his irresolute reaction, take him and dispose of him as they pleased. An infirm character practically confesses](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21029131_0089.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
