12 SECOND NATURE. 



something else, and liardly even been aware at all 

 of what it was we were nmscularly engaged upon. 

 So purely mechanical is the process, indeed, that 

 people who do not habitually dress for dinner 

 generally find themselves winding up their watches 

 whenever they take off their waistcoats to assume 

 the civilized swallow-tail and white tie of modern 

 society. The action has become stereotyped in 

 the nervous sj'stem, and when once the first step 

 of the series is taken by unbuttoning tlie coat, all 

 the rest follows as a matter of course, without tlie 

 necessity for deliberation or voluntary effort. 

 Sometimes, indeed, even the will itself is not strong 

 enough to beat such chains of habit; Dr. Hughlings 

 Jackson mentions a curious case where an omni- 

 bus horse in the streets of London obstinately 

 refused for several minutes to move on at the 

 combined commands of his driver and a policeman. 

 Shouts and whipping were all in vain ; the creature 

 declined to budge an inch to please anybody. At 

 last a passenger inside suggested mildly, "Shut 

 the door, conductor ! " The conductor slammed 

 the door with a bang, and, as he did so, rang the 

 bell. That familiar sign was too much for the 

 obdurate horse's nervous system. Within all his 

 experience, when a new passenger got in, and the 

 omnibus was ready to start again, the door was 

 slammed and the bell rung. He could not resist 

 the force of habit. He set off at once at a round 



