HABIT 113 



children : many of us know how hard it is to 

 memorize botanical terms which in boyhood 

 were instantly fixed in our memories. On the 

 other hand, with increasing years, we improve 

 in the faculty of appreciating the properties of 

 our impressions, and of detecting connections 

 between one impression and another which, 

 incidentally, enable us to illustrate our ideas 

 with greater fecundity. This is what is called 

 the " wisdom of the aged." 



Some individuals are blessed with good, others 

 are afflicted with bad memories. But in mankind, 

 generally, the faculty of remembering is more 

 highly developed than in any of the lower animals. 

 We speak of the good memories of dogs and horses, 

 but should be surprised by an anecdote which 

 showed that recollections endured with them for so 

 long as ten years. Lower down the scale the scope 

 for memory diminishes with the growing usurpa- 

 tions of directive instinct. Recollections are vivid 

 during the performance of an instinctive task, 

 but, this completed, they fade away. Whilst an 

 egg-cell is under construction, it is ever-present 

 to the bee : once finished, it ceases to exist for 

 her. But the faculty seems to persist, however 

 little it may be developed : some insects recollect 

 occurrences that are unconnected with their 

 instinctive processes. 







HABIT. Nervous tissue has a tendency to 

 repeat its reaction to a stimulus. Our hearts and 

 lungs illustrate this tendency by their regular 

 pulsations, and many of us know how rapidly 

 faults of style, in playing games or performing 

 upon instruments, become stereotyped. This 

 proclivity to repeat is strengthened by practice : 

 it is by practice that we attain the repetitive 

 facility that is needed for walking, speaking, and 



