32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



the present discussion we limit ourselves strictly to this field. We 

 shall consider alone the effects which repetition of an experience or 

 of an action produces, the " Law of Habit " meaning merely that 

 principle according to which i-epeated experience or exercise produces 

 its effect. And, as before indicated, it will be maintained that the 

 known effects of repetition, in different spheres of its action, are so 

 apparently diverse and incongruous, that the principle which alone, 

 with the present i-each to which means of investigation have attained, 

 shows itself to be the governing principle of the facts, is that which 

 regards them all as predetermined, and thus in some sense caused, 

 by that end, as means to the attainment of which they, in their 

 variety, are so strikingly adapted. 



We might, at this pointy guard ourselves against a peculiar view 

 held by Mr. John Stuart Mill. According to this distinguished 

 writer, habit is virtually the annihilation of motive, is a principle of 

 action altogether incompatible with motive. Actions are in all cases 

 originally done from some motive or other ; but when through 

 repeated exercise a certain course of conduct has become habitual, 

 Mr. Mill thinks that the actions have ceased to be done from motive. 

 His statements in this connection are made in the " Utilitarianism," 

 Chap. IV., and in the "Logic of the Moral Sciences,"' Chap. II., 

 Section IV. In the former, after laying down the thesis that pleasure 

 (including its negative, freedom from pain,) is the sole motive to 

 action, and attempting to reconcile this with his belief in the possi- 

 bility of a purely disinterested act, Mr. Mill, apparently conscious of 

 his weakness, has recourse to a further argument, the substance of 

 which is briefly as follows : — Men perform actions in many cases 

 toward ends which are either perfectly indifferent, or are positively 

 hurtful in their tendencies. This beino; so, it might seem as if some 

 other end than pleasure were capable of constituting a motive to 

 action. However, instances of such action prove nothing contrary 

 to my thesis that pleasure is the sole motive to action, for when men 

 thus, in the course of repeated action, come to pursue ends which are 

 indifferent, or even hurtful, they have ceased to act from motive, and 

 are under the dominion of habit. "Many indifferent things which 

 men originally did from a motive of some sort, they continue to do 

 from habit. Sometimes this is done unconsciously, .... at other 

 times with conscious volition, but volition which has become habitual, 

 and is put into operation by the force of habit." Now, it would be 



