What are Animals and Plants ? 367 



rery stage of its cycle of life, just because it is a cycle, is 

 conditioned by the anterior states which alone have made it 

 possible, and refers to future states for which it is in active 

 preparation. Thus, as it were, at every present moment of 

 its existence, it lives hoih in the past and in the future, a 

 mode of existence which attains its fullest development 

 in the highest hving organism — man, the one creature 

 emphatically, because consciously, ' looking before and 

 after' ji 



X. But living creatures present another still more dis- 

 tinctive character, one which is indeed but obscurely in- 

 dicated in plants, but is very evident in animals. This is the 

 'power of forming habits, which is itself the sign of the 

 possession of a special internal spontaneity in living things, 

 by which they each and all tend to act and to ' react ' when 

 acted upon. 



For what is a ' habit ' ? A ' habit ' is not formed by re- 

 peated actions, though it may be strengthened and confirmed 

 by them. If an act performed once only had not in it some 

 power of generating a ' habit,' then a thousand repetitions of 

 that act would not generate it.^ Habit is the determination 

 in one definite direction of a previously vague tendency to 

 action. All living organisms tend to act. With them action 

 is not only their nature, it is a positive want. Moreover, 

 within limits, the powers and energies of Hving creatures 

 increase with action, and diminish, and finally perish, through 

 repose. Thus the general activity and power of organisms, 

 and also the exercise of this power in definite' modes and 

 directions, are facilitated and increased by actions in the very 

 first of which the power of ' generating habit ' Hes hid. 



This second, mysterious, internal tendency, as we have 

 said, eminently distinguishes living organisms from all inor- 



^ As we have before pointed out, see ante, p. 350. 

 2 See also ante, p. 327. 



