"If we had any understanding," he says, "ought we not, both in public and in private, incessantly to sing and praise the Deity, and rehearse His benefits? Ought we not, whether we dig, or plough, or eat, to sing this hymn to God? Great is God, who has supplied us with these instruments to till the ground; great is God, who has given us hands and organs of digestion; who has given us to grow insensibly, to breathe in sleep. These things we ought forever to celebrate, and to make it the theme of the greatest and divinest hymn that He has given us the power to appreciate these gifts, and to use them well. But because the most of you are blind and insensible there must be some one to fill this station, and lead in behalf of all men the hymn to God; for what else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan. But since I am a reasonable creature it is my duty to praise God. This is my business. I do it. Nor will I ever desert this post, so long as it is permitted me; and I call on you to join in the same song."[148] CHAPTER XVI. MORAL MEDICINE AND GYMNASTICS. SUMMARY. =Means and end.=--Moral science should not only point out the _end_; it should also indicate the _means_ of attaining that end. There is, as of the body, a culture of the soul: as, in medicine, we distinguish between _temperaments_, _diseases_ and their _treatments_, so do we distinguish in morals, _characters_, _passions_, and _remedies_. =Of character.=--Character as compared with temperament: four principal types. Character at different ages: childhood, youth, manhood, and old age. =Passions.=--Passions may in one respect be considered as _natural affections_; but in a moral point of view they should be considered as _diseases_. The law of passions considered from this last standpoint. Enumeration and analysis of these various passions. =Culture of the soul=, or =moral treatment=.--On the government of passions.--Bossuet's advice: not directly to combat the passions, but to turn them off into other channels. =Of the formation of character.=--Rules of Malebranche: 1, acts produce habits, and habits produce acts; 2, one can always act against a ruling habit. How is one habit to be substituted for another?--Aristotle's rule: To go from one extreme to the other.--Bacon's rules: 1, to proceed by degrees; 2, to choose for a new virtue two kinds of opportunities: the first when one is best disposed, the second when one is least so; 3, not to trust too much to one's conversion and distrust opportunities. Benjamin Franklin's Almanac.--Other practices.--Kant's moral catechism.