AN ENQUIRY INTO THE FORMATION OF HABIT IN MAN. 151 



I would repeat here that m wliat we call voluntary actions 

 all we do is to will a result, as of raising the hand to the 

 mouth. The ease with which we do it and indeed the 

 power to do it at all arises, not from our will-power being- 

 able to control the so-called voluntary muscles, but in their 

 being already associated for the purpose by long established 

 habit. Where no such habit exists an action becomes well 

 nigh impossible, however strongly it may be willed. By 

 long habit, hereditary in nature, we always swing our right 

 arm with the movement of our left leg, and the left arm 

 with the right leg. Let any one loill the contrary, i.e., to 

 move the right arm with the right leg and vice versa, and 

 however strong the effort of will may be, they will find in 

 the end that it is powerless to- overcome this established 

 habit, except most a^vkwardly, and for the shortest time. 

 The intense difficulty of the one movement and the perfect 

 ease of the other, both in themseWes equally easy, is 

 most striking. 



Let any one will to play the violin, or piano, or to skate, 

 or swim, or in short to do anything that requires the formation 

 of habits, and they will see it is impossible ; and that to do so 

 at all a habit must necessarily be formed for the very purpose : 

 and then behold ! the thing which was impossible before is 

 executed with almost contemptuous ease. Few of us know 

 what bundles of habits we are, and we imagine many of our 

 actions to be voluntary which are really artificially automatic. 

 Let any man over forty try to wash and dress himself in any 

 but the accustomed order, and he will see what difficulties 

 arise. He may not know the order in vdiich he washes his 

 face, but the hands know. He cannot tell which arm is put 

 into the coat first, but the arms know. He cannot tell which 

 foot is put into his stockings first, but the feet know. 

 Before I begin to dress, from long habit I am almost com- 

 pelled to pull up the blind a certain exact height, and if I 

 fail to do so, I feel an inward impulse that is not satisfied till 

 it is obeyed. 



Consider the habit of shooting ; the perfect ease with which 

 the trained sportsman, the moment the grouse rise, aims and 

 fires well nigh automatically at the birds, who themselves 

 have acquired fin-cle-siecle habits (as Sir Joseph Fayrer told 

 us) in learning to avoid the telegraph wires as they fly, which 

 in earlier times they always struck against. 



Look what an automaton a soldier becomes ; so that the 

 very dinner he may be camying, as Huxley tells us, is dropped 



