THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



409 



Importance of forming Right Habits. Danger of Strong Drink. 

 — Among the habits early to be acquired are tlie habits of study- 

 ing properly, of concentrating the mind, of learning self-control, 

 and above all, the habit of contentment. Get the most out of 

 the world about you. Remember that the immediate efToct in 

 the study of some subjects in school may not l)e great, but the 

 cultivation of certain methods of thinking may be of the greatest 

 importance later in life. 



'' The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is 

 no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by 

 habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the 

 young but realize 

 how soon they will 

 become mere walk- 

 ing bundles of hab- 

 its, they would give 

 more heed to their 

 conduct while in 

 the plastic state. 

 We are spinning our 

 own fates, good or 

 evil, and never to 

 be undone. Every 

 smallest stroke of 

 virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip 

 Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh 

 dereliction by saying, ' I won't count this time ! ' Well ! he may 

 not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is l)oing 

 counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibers the 

 molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to ])e used 

 against him when the next temptation comes. Notliing we ever 

 do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course tliis has 

 its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent 

 drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in 

 the moral, and authorities in the practical and scientific, spheres 

 by so many separate acts and hours of work. T.ot no youth \\\\\o 

 any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the hno 



Diagram of the path of a simple nervous reflex action. 



