48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



of matter points iis to mind, matter being only a means and a slave, 

 with all its functions and references significant only in a region above 

 and beyond itself. It acts and moves only as it is impelled ; its laws 

 are physical causes, and its expositor that philosophy which deals 

 with facts of mathematical or mechanical necessity. But when we 

 leave the merely material, or even the organic, and come to the world 

 of psychical and rational life, we find that the ruling principle cannot 

 be expressed as an impelling force, but as a moral purpose, and only 

 through the thought of highest ends can the mysteries that involve 

 us fade away into the light of intelligent solution. 



Directed by the principles indicated, we will now note the most 

 important facts and purposes of the working of habit. 



It is a law of universal life obtaining in the vegetable, animal and 

 rational kingdoms. It is a law not only of intellectual and moral 

 faculties, but even of animate textures. It is a law of growth and 

 development ; only through it are those faculties educated and en- 

 larged whose perfection is intended in the creature's existence. And, 

 as a subsidiary to this end, it hedges the individual round with a 

 pi'otection against all hurtful increase of those feelings and tendencies 

 whose indefinite enlargement vvoukl hinder the attainment of the end 

 designed. 



The influence of the law of habit varies in the difierent spheres of 

 its action, and its eff'ect upon the difierent faculties subjected to it are 

 more or less remarkable according to the rank of importance which 

 these faculties severally occupy in a scheme of our constitution. 

 Their respective relative importance determines their rate of develop- 

 ment. Its effects within the vegetable kingdom are easily noticeable. 

 We find, for instance, that vegetables, within a narrow range, may 

 become inured to strange climates. Still more apparent are the in- 

 fluences of habit upon animal organizations. Animals are adaptable 

 to foreign climates ; and, under training, surprising facility is de- 

 veloped for taking on new modes of muscular adjustment. But it is 

 when we come to the higher emotions and intellectual and moral 

 powers of man that we discover the greatest energy of the law. 

 The capacities of development and of strength and stability of 

 character to be acquired through habit are here quite indefinite. 

 And it is to be noticed that the powers which illustrate here the 

 greatest energy of habit are precisely those powers whose highest 

 development is a condition sine qua non of the attainment of the 



