8 SECOND NATURE. 



have been, who first struck out the lucid concep- 

 tion of liabit as a second nature, must have pos- 

 sessed philosophical and psychological powers of 

 no mean order. For he touched at once, as if 

 with the needle-point of fine criticism, the very 

 core and heart of the matter ; he summed up in a 

 single short and easy epigrammatic sentence a 

 whole condensed scientific theory of habit and 

 repetition. Habit is that which by use has be- 

 come natural to us ; nature is habit handed down 

 from our ancestors, and ingrained bodily in the 

 very structure of our brains and muscles and ner- 

 vous systems. 



Let us look first at a few of the more extended 

 manifestations of habit, where it assumes heredi- 

 tarily the very guise and form of nature. It is well 

 known that the children of jugglers, rope-dancers, 

 tumblers, and acrobats can be much more easily 

 trained and taught their fathers' profession than 

 any casual ordinary members of the general public. 

 They are born, in fact, with quicker fingers, more 

 supple limbs, nimbler toes, easier muscles, than 

 the vast mass of their fellow-citizens. The con- 

 stant practice of hand or foot has made a real dif- 

 ference at last in the very structure and fibres of 

 their bodies ; and this difference is transmitted to 

 their children, so that the conjurer, like the poet, 

 is to some extent born, not made. It is just the 

 same with many other arts and handicrafts. Chil- 



