AN ENQUIRY INTO THE FORMATION OP HABIT IN MAN. 153 



to display tliera. Thus decision, self-control, obedience, self- 

 respect, unselfishness, courtesy, reverence, can, one and all, be 

 formed by frequent repetition in early life. We know nothing 

 of the mind tracks that ensure their permanence ; all we know 

 is that they are as sure and lasting as physical habits. 



In this connection those words of Holy AVrit derive an 

 added meaning : " Train up a child in the way that he should 

 go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." 



Value of habit. — And now in bringing these fragmentary 

 remarks to a close, let me point out first the value of habits 

 as a whole, and lastly their drawbacks ; for they have draw- 

 backs. 



Habit is economical. It has been well described as using 

 the interest of nerve energy instead of the principal. Tlie 

 absence of fixed habits is misery, and is the source of nearly 

 all indecision of action and of character. 



Habit alone enables things otherwise impossible to be 

 accomplished, such as playing the fiute, violin, or piano. 

 But for habit we should spend a whole day in doing one or 

 two things with great fatigue of mind and body, such as the 

 continued effort to balance the body in the erect attitude by 

 sheer force of will, or to read a book, or to walk. 



Habit gives speed, accuracy, and ease. The will, as we 

 have seen, can only set habits in motion, and is powerless to 

 act when such do not exist. The unconscious ease of a well- 

 formed habit has been well illustrated by fixing a wafer on a 

 looking-glass, and while keeping the eyes fixed on it, moving 

 the head in a circle. The eyes will be seen to be moving in 

 every part of the orbit, but cannot otherwise be known to 

 move at all: so unconscious and without effort is the action 

 of the complicated muscles that move them, which by the 

 Avay are all so-called voluntary muscles. 



Habit forms character, or at least a good deal of it. Up 

 to a certain point our character is formed /or us by heredity, 

 beyond this it is formed by us by habit. Skill is entirely 

 the result of habit. To seek to be ambidextrous is folly. 

 Specialism is everything in the body, and the habits that 

 suit the right hand do not suit the left, nor the left the right. 

 The left hand is just as awkward with a knife, as the right 

 is with a fork. Some callings may require a certain 

 measure of ambidexterity, but it is against all tnie develop- 

 ment, and is common in idiots. 



Habit adapts us to our environment, witliout which we 

 should die. A bookbinder ij\ a little den in Paternoster Row 



