16 SECOND NATURE. 



be regarded as a direct inheritatice from our fathers 

 and. motliers, our grandfathers and grandmothers, 

 in varying degrees of compounded qualities. 

 Hence, while habit is a second nature, it may also 

 be said that nature in turn is a secondary habit. 

 What we are by nature we largely or even entirely 

 derive from the various acquired habits of our 

 ancestors ; what we make ourselves, on the other 

 hand, by habit we largely pass on to the natures 

 of our children and our remoter descendants. 

 And this consideration renders the awful respon- 

 sibility of the formation of habits even more pain- 

 fully evident than ever. It is a serious enough 

 thought that ever}'^ wrong act indulged in, every 

 weakness gratified, every temptation yielded to, 

 helps to stereotype the evil practice itself in the 

 very fibres and tissues of our bodies. But it 

 is more serious still to consider that every habit 

 thus thoughtlessly or wickedly formed is liable to 

 be transmitted to our children after us. Drunk- 

 enness, for example, as we all know, tends to 

 show itself as a hereditary vice. Well, then, every 

 act of culpable yielding to the temptation to drink 

 to excess is not only a step to the formation of an 

 ingrained habit in the person himself, but also a 

 step towards the setting up of a hereditary ten- 

 dency to drunkenness in his children and descen- 

 dants. On the other hand, the more strongly any 

 such besetting sin assails us by nature — the more 



