BODY CONTROL AND HABIT FORMATION 355 



before we are able to complete it. After a little practice, the same 

 process may become almost automatic. We have formed a habit. 

 Habits are really acquired reflex actions. They are the result of 

 nature's method of training. The conscious part of the brain has 

 trained the cerebellum or spinal cord to do certain things that, at 

 first, were taken charge of by the cerebrum. 



Importance of Forming Right Habits. Among the habits early 

 to be acquired are the habits of studying properly, of concentrating 

 the mind, of learning self-control, and, above all, of contentment. 

 Get the most out of the world about you. Remember that the 

 immediate effect in the study of some subjects in school may not 

 be great, but the cultivation of correct methods of thinking may be 

 of the greatest importance later in life. The man or woman who 

 has learned how to concentrate on a problem, how to weigh all sides 

 with an unbiased mind, and then to decide on what they believe to 

 be best and right are the efficient and happy ones of their generation. 



" 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 walking bundles of habits, 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 being counted none the less. 

 Down among his nerve cells and fibers the molecules are counting it, regis 

 tering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation 

 comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. 

 Of course this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become per 

 manent 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. Let no youth have any anxiety about 

 the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep 

 faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final 

 result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some 

 fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, 

 in whatever pursuit he may have singled out." JAMES, Psychology. 



