n6 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 



hunger, and of exposure becomes more apparent, 

 man has become more peaceful as his civilization 

 has advanced. 



Habit is the foundation of all that is conserva- 

 tive in our ideas and conduct. Representing, 

 as it does, a response to an impulse of life, 

 its action affords happiness, and it is accordingly 

 able to form inclinations out of conduct or pur- 

 suits which have been forced upon us by circum- 

 stances. In some of its forms labour must 

 be naturally distasteful. But by repetition 

 it may become a dominating passion. We may 

 wonder how mankind can tolerate such existences 

 as that of a fisherman afloat throughout the winter 

 on the North Sea, or that of a miner or a slaughterer. 

 But to those who earn their livelihood in these 

 fashions their lives have become habitual, and 

 are, therefore, not merely tolerable but even 

 pleasant. So is society supplied with willing 

 servants to minister in the utmost hardship to 

 its luxuries. Habit not a desire for gain is the 

 force which consolidates trades and professions. 

 To those who first enter them they are generally 

 not more attractive than is to young children 

 attendance at church. On the other hand habit 

 weakens the spontaneity to which we are urged 

 by our impulse towards change, and, since it 

 reinforces itself by repetition, it tends to become 

 the more powerful of the two, especially in adult 

 life. If accepted undeviatingly as a guide of 

 conduct it may render us altogether incapable of 

 independent thought or action. We may see 

 this tendency very clearly in the effects of such a 

 habitual routine as is imposed by military disci- 

 pline. It is notorious that soldiers who return 

 to civil life are deficient in resourcetulness, and it 



