s below the ligature.

97

The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling; chance
decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters. "He is a good
slater," says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, "They are perfect
fools." But others affirm, "There is nothing great but war, the rest of
men are good for nothing." We choose our callings according as we hear
this or that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love
truth and hate folly. These words move us; the only error is in their
application. So great is the force of custom that out of those whom
nature has only made men, are created all conditions of men. For some
districts are full of masons, others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature
is not so uniform. It is custom then which does this, for it constrains
nature. But sometimes nature gains the ascendancy, and preserves man's
instinct, in spite of all custom, good or bad.

98

_Bias leading to error._--It is a deplorable thing to see all men
deliberating on means alone, and not on the end. Each thinks how he will
acquit himself in his condition; but as for the choice of condition, or
of country, chance gives them to us.

It is a pitiable thing to see so many Turks, heretics, and infidels
follow the way of their fathers for the sole reason that each has been
imbued with the prejudice that it is the best. And that fixes for each
man his conditions of locksmith, soldier, etc.

Hence savages care nothing for Providence.[60]

99

There is an universal and essential difference between the actions of
the will and all other actions.

The will is one of the chief factors in belief, not that it creates
belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect in
which we look at them. The will, which prefers one aspect to another,
turns away the mind from considering the qualities of all that it does
not like to see; and thus the mind, moving in accord with the will,
stops to consider the aspect which it likes, and so judges by what it
sees.

100

_Self-love._--The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to love
self only and consider self only. But what will man do? He cannot
prevent this object that he loves from being full of faults and wants.
He wants to be great, and he sees himself small. He wants to be happy,
and he sees himself miserable. He wants to be perfect, and he sees
himself full of imperfections. He wants to be the object of love and
e