160 LIFE AND HABIT. 



performance we may have gone some way beyond our 

 ordinary powers, owing to some unconscious action of 

 the mind. The supreme effort has exhausted us, and 

 we must rest on our oars a little, before we make 

 further progress ; or we may even fall back a little, 

 before we make another leap in advance. 



In this respect, almost every conceivable degree of 

 variation is observable, according to differences of 

 character and circumstances. Sometimes the new 

 impression has to be made upon us many times from 

 without, before the earlier strain of action is elimi- 

 nated ; in this case, there will long remain a tendency 

 to revert to the earlier habit. Sometimes, after the 

 impression has been once made, we repeat our old way 

 two or three times, and then revert to the new, which 

 gradually ousts the old; sometimes, on the other 

 hand, a single impression, though involving consider- 

 able departure from our routine, makes its mark so 

 deeply that we adopt the new at once, though not 

 without difficulty, and repeat it in our next perform- 

 ance, and henceforward in all others ; but those who 

 vary their performance thus readily will show a 

 tendency to vary subsequent performances according 

 as they receive fresh ideas from others, or reason them 

 out independently. They are men of genius. 



This holds good concerning all actions which we 

 do habitually, whether they involve laborious acquire- 

 ment or not. Thus, if we have varied our usual 

 dinner in some way that leaves a favourable im- 

 pression upon our minds, so that our dinner may, in 

 the language of the horticulturist, be said to have 



