"I deny not but lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been accustomed be good or evil."

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
John Windet
Date
1594
Metaphor
"I deny not but lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been accustomed be good or evil."
Metaphor in Context
If then it be here demanded, by what means it should come to pass (the greatest part of the Law moral being so easy for all men to know) that so many thousands of men notwithstanding have been ignorant even of principal moral duties, not imagining the breach of them to be sin: I deny not but lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been accustomed be good or evil. For example's sake, that grosser kind of heathenish idolatry, whereby they worshipped the very works of their own hands, was an absurdity to reason so palpable, that the Prophet David comparing idols and idolaters together maketh almost no odds between them, but the one in a manner as much without wit and sense as the other; "They that make them are like unto them, and so are all that trust in them." That wherein an idolater doth seem so absurd and foolish is by the Wise Man thus exprest, "He is not ashamed to speak unto that which hath no life, he calleth on him that is weak for health, he prayeth for life unto him which is dead, of him which hath no experience he requireth help, for his journey he sueth to him which is not able to go, for gain and work and success in his affairs he seeketh furtherance of him that hath no manner of power." The cause of which senseless stupidity is afterwards imputed to custom. "When a father mourned grievously for his son that was taken away suddenly, he made an image for him that was once dead, whom now he worshippeth as a god, ordaining to his servants ceremonies and sacrifices. Thus by process of time this wicked custom prevailed, and was kept as a law;" the authority of rulers, the ambition of craftsmen, and such like means thrusting forward the ignorant, and increasing their superstition.
(I.viii.11)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Many variant titles; searching ESTC (1593, 1597, 1604, 1611, 1617, 1622, 1632, 1636, 1639, 1648, 1676).

See Of the Lavves of Ecclesiasticall Politie. Eyght Bookes. By Richard Hooker. (Printed at London: By Iohn Windet, dwelling at the signe of the Crosse keyes neere Powles Wharffe, and are there to be soulde, 1593). <Link to ESTC>

See also Of the Lavves of Ecclesiasticall Politie, Eight Bookes. By Richard Hooker, 2nd edition (Printed at London: By Iohn Windet, dwelling at the signe of the Crosse-keyes neare Paules wharffe, and are there to be solde, 1604). <Link to EEBO><Link to EEBO-TCP>

Originally searching text from Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker, 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), vol. 1 of 3. <Link to OLL>

Reading in Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Vol. 1 of The Works of Richard Hooker, ed. Georges Edelen, Folger Library edition (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1977).
Date of Entry
05/16/2012

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.