Hab] 



AXD SYMBOLS. 



141 



up : the snake coils itself up to strike its enemy, tlie pig ap- 

 proaches fearlessly, and receives the blow in the fold of fat which 

 hangs upon the side of its jaw. Then he places a foot on the 

 tail of the snake, and with his teeth he begins to pull the flesh 

 of his enemy to pieces, and eats it with evident enjoyment. 

 Infidelity, intemperance, and tyranny are horrible social reptiles, 

 and they are often successfully attacked by ferocious, illiterate, 

 gross "revivalists" and demagogues, who bristle up to their 

 work of annihilating them on a method and with a zest not 

 inferior to this rattlesnake-destroyer. These men are not plea- 

 sant beings, but like those other coarse creatures, they are useful 

 for coarse work. Their grossness is their qualification ; for the 

 stings and wounds by which the progeny of vice would kill 

 other public men do not affect that bloated self-complacency 

 and dense coarseness in which their rude nature is entirely en- 

 veloped. And our feelings of loathing and disgust for these 

 rough sons of coarseness should always be tempered by the re- 

 membrance that they are not quite so bad as that which they 

 destroy. The pig, after all, is better than the rattlesnake. 



RE. 



The Force of Habit. 



It is, as Mr. Darwin says, notorious how powerful is the 

 force of habit. The most complex and difficult movements 

 can in time be performed without the least effort or conscious- 

 ness. It is not positively known how it comes that habit is so 

 efficient in facilitating complex movements; but physiologists 

 admit that the conducting power of the nervous fibres increases 

 with the frequency of their excitement. This applies to the 

 nerves of motion and sensation as well as to those connected 

 with the act of thinking. That some physical change is pro- 

 duced in the nerve-cells or nerves which are habitually used 

 can hardly be doubted, for otherwise it is impossible to under- 

 stand how the tendency to certain acquired movements is 

 inherited. That they are inherited we see with horses in 

 certain transmitted paces, such as cantering and ambling, which 

 are not natural to them; in the pointing of young pointers 

 and the setting of young setters; in k the peculiar manner of 

 flight of certain breeds of the pigeon, &c. "VVe have analogous 



