iabit 

 alf-truth 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



292 



ly taught method of walking or trotting? 

 It is alleged that dogs inherit the intelli- 

 gence acquired by association with man, and 

 that retrievers inherit the effects of their 

 training. But selection and imitation are 

 so potent that the additional hypothesis of 

 use- inheritance seems perfectly superfluous. 

 Where intelligence is not highly valued and 

 carefully promoted by selection, the intelli- 

 gence derivable from association with man 

 does not appear to be inherited. Lap-dogs, 

 for instance, are often remarkably stupid. 

 BALL Are the Effects of Use and Disuse In- 

 herited? p. 31. (Hum.,' 1891.) 



1421. HABIT, HYPNOTIC, FASCINA- 

 TION OF Frequent hypnotizing may lead 

 in the long run to an irresistible passion 

 for the hypnotic sleep, in which case the 

 impulse to obtain it acts like the morphin 

 habit or habituation to any particular stim- 

 ulant or sedative. The confirmed hypnotic 

 will try in every possible way to procure 

 the enjoyment which he craves. WUNDT 

 Psychology, lect. 22, p. 331. (Son. & Co., 

 1896.) 



1422. HABIT, IMPERIOUSNESS OF 



Unconscious Profanity Anecdote of Mil- 

 itary Officer. The following case, recently 

 communicated to the writer, shows how 

 strongly the mode of expression of our 

 ideas is influenced by habit; and how, after 

 the chain would seem to have been com- 

 pletely broken, it may come to renew itself 

 when the circumstances recur under which 

 it had been formed: 



A military officer, who had seen much 

 hard service at a time when a command 

 was scarcely ever given without the ac- 

 companiment of an oath, and who had thus 

 acquired the habit of continual swearing, 

 determined, on retiring into private life, 

 to do his best to forego this practise; and 

 by keeping a constant check upon himself, 

 with the assistance of the friendly moni- 

 tions of others, he entirely succeeded. After 

 the lapse of many years, however, he found 

 himself called upon to perform some mili- 

 tary duty; and, in the discharge of it, he 

 used much of the bad language to which 

 he had formerly accustomed himself. A 

 friend who happened to notice this, hav- 

 ing afterwards expressed his regret that he 

 should have relapsed into his old habit of 

 swearing, the officer assured him (and he 

 was a man whose word could be implicitly 

 relied on) that he was not at the time in 

 the least degree conscious of uttering an 

 oath, and that he had not the slightest rec- 

 ollection of having done so. CARPENTER 

 Mental Physiology, bk. i, ch. 6, p. 282. (A., 

 1900.) 



1423. HABIT OF DOING RIGHT 



Preparation for Instantaneous Action The 

 Habits of a Nation. I consider the great 

 object of intellectual education to be, not 

 only to teach the pupils how to think, but 

 how to act and to do, and I place great stress 



upon the early education of the habits. And 

 this kind of training may be extended be- 

 yond the mental processes to the moral prin- 

 ciples; the pupil may be taught on all oc- 

 casions habitually and promptly, almost 

 without thought, to act properly in any 

 case that may occur, and this in the prac- 

 tical duties of life is of the highest im- 

 portance. We are frequently required to 

 act from the impulse of the moment, and 

 have no time to deduce our course from 

 the moral principles of the act. An in- 

 dividual can be educated to a strict regard 

 for truth, to deeds of courage in rescuing 

 others from danger, to acts of benevolence, 

 of generosity, and justice; or, on the other 

 hand, tho his mind may be well stored 

 with moral precepts, he may be allowed 

 to fall into opposite habits alike prejudicial 

 to himself and to those with whom he is 

 associated. He may " know the right, and 

 yet the wrong pursue." 



Man is the creature of habit; it is to him 

 more than second nature; but unfortu- 

 nately, while bad habits are acquired with 

 readiness, on account of the natural desire 

 to gratify our passions and appetites, good 

 habits can only be acquired by unremitting 

 watchfulness and labor. The combined 

 habits of individuals form the habits of a 

 nation, and these can only be molded . . . 

 by the coercive labor of the instructor judi- 

 ciously applied. HENRY Thoughts on Edu- 

 cation (Scientific Writings, vol. i, p. 340). 

 (Sm. Inst., 1886.) 



1424. HABITAT, ADAPTATION OF 



ANIMALS TO Protective Mimicry. 'Even 

 the popular mind has been struck with the 

 curious adaptation of nearly all animals to 

 their habitat, for example in the matter of 

 color. The sandy hue of the sole and floun- 

 der, the white of the polar bear, with its 

 suggestion of arctic snows, the stripes of 

 the Bengal tiger as if the actual reeds of 

 its native jungle had nature-printed them- 

 selves on its hide these, and a hundred 

 others which will occur to every one, are 

 marked instances of adaptation to environ- 

 ment induced, by natural selection or other- 

 wise, for the purpose, obviously in these 

 cases at least, of protection. DRUMMOND 

 Natural Law in the Spiritual World, essay 

 7, p. 233. (II. Al.) 



1425. HABITAT OF HUMMING-BIRDS 



Species Limited to a Single Mountain. 

 In contrast with these species of extended 

 range, there are many species [of humming- 

 birds] whose habitat is confined, perhaps, to 

 a single mountain, and there are a few 

 which never have been seen beyond the edges 

 of some extinct volcano, whose crater is now 

 filled with a special flora. Many of the 

 great mountains of the Andes have each of 

 them species peculiar to themselres. On 

 Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, and other sum- 

 mits, special forms of humming-birds are 

 found in special zones of vegetation even 

 close up to the limits of perpetual snow. 



