Origin of Fashion.-Although each individual may have the power of thinking, yet the mass of mankind act without thought, and, like sheep, follow a leader through the various paths of life. Without this natural propensity for imitation, every member of society would hold a different opinion, and the world would be at perpetual warfare. Indeed, every dis-agreement, from the enmity of nations to the petty squabbles of a parish, is caused and conducted by some leader, whom the multitude follow, imitate, and support. This is the origin of changes, in customs or fashions, in every shape. Opinions are declared by one man, and followed by the many. If persons only of superior sense were the leaders, or if mankind always examined what they followed, fashion might, perhaps, be more reasonable: but this supposes mankind always to act like rational beings, which is contrary to every test of experience. Therefore, whether in religion, in politics, in philosophy, in medicine, in language, in the arts, in dress, in equipage, in furniture, or in the most trifling concerns of life, we see thousands move in the way that some one has gone before: and if it be too great a stretch of thought to mark a new track, it is also too great to investigate whether the new track marked out by another be good or bad.
