HABIT A CONTROLLING FORCE 115 



Habit, then, tends to regularize our conduct 

 by canalizing the impulses that affect it. In 

 its results it may be compared to the directive 

 instincts that dominate the life of insects and give 

 their behaviour such undeviating precision. But, 

 below the channels which habit elaborates, the 

 innate impulses seethe, fundamentally unchanged: 

 so, indeed, we must conclude from the glimpses 

 of human nature which we obtain when habits 

 are shattered by strong excitement. In such 

 moments individuals and races display the traits 

 with which they were born, and we realize 

 that habit, which appearing to transform char- 

 acter, in fact merely drills it, and depends 

 very largely for its success upon the innate 

 strength or weakness of the impulses which it 

 endeavours to bring under discipline. The con- 

 flict between habit and character, and the in- 

 ability of habit radically to overcome the more 

 deeply seated impulses, is strikingly illustrated by 

 the inconsistencies which we so frequently observe 

 between the words and the conduct of individuals. 

 Habit may guide the current of smoothly-flowing 

 words, whilst the less plastic activities of practical 

 conduct remain under the control of the innate 

 impulses that constitute character. 



A nervous reaction, once experienced, tends to 

 repeat itself, irrespective of feeling. We easily 

 contract subconscious habits. But its conscious 

 repetition may be assisted or checked by memories 

 of associated pleasure or pain ; and it is very 

 largely by their effect upon the formation of 

 habits that these feelings may powerfully in- 

 fluence our ideas and behaviour. Thus the 

 dangers and hardships of war have urged man 

 towards peaceful habits in opposition to the 

 promptings of his combative impulses ; and since 

 with increasing comfort the pain of wounds, of 



