Thus procrastination is accumulated on procrastination, and one
impediment succeeds another, till age shatters our resolution, or death
intercepts the project of amendment. Such is often the end of salutary
purposes, after they have long delighted the imagination, and appeased
that disquiet which every mind feels from known misconduct, when the
attention is not diverted by business or by pleasure.
Nothing surely can be more unworthy of a reasonable nature, than to
continue in a state so opposite to real happiness, as that all the peace
of solitude, and felicity of meditation, must arise from resolutions of
forsaking it. Yet the world will often afford examples of men, who pass
months and years in a continual war with their own convictions, and are
daily dragged by habit, or betrayed by passion, into practices which
they closed and opened their eyes with purposes to avoid; purposes
which, though settled on conviction, the first impulse of momentary
desire totally overthrows.
The influence of custom is indeed such, that to conquer it will require
the utmost efforts of fortitude and virtue; nor can I think any man more
worthy of veneration and renown, than those who have burst the shackles
of habitual vice.
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