HABIT. 109 



ously a case for repeating the celebrated French formula 

 of * La fonction fait Vorgane.' 



So nothing is easier than to imagine how, when a cur- 

 rent once has traversed a path, it should traverse it more 

 readily still a second time. But Avliat made it ever traverse 

 it the first time ? * In answering this question we can only 

 fall back on our general conception of a nervous system as 

 a mass of matter whose parts, constantly kept in states of 

 different tension, are as constantly tending to equalize their 

 states. The equalization between any two points occurs 

 through whatever path may at the moment be most per- 

 vious. But, as a given point of the system may belong, 

 actually or potentially, to many different paths, and, as the 

 play of nutrition is subject to accidental changes, blochs 

 may from time to time occur, and make currents shoot 

 through unwonted lines. Such an unwonted line would be 

 a new-created path, which if traversed repeatedly, Avould 

 become the beginning of a new reflex arc. All this is vague 

 to the last degree, and amounts to little more than saying 

 that a new path may be formed by the sort of chances that 

 in nervous material are likely to occur. But, vague as it 

 is, it is really the last word of our wisdom in the matter, f 



It must be noticed that the groAvth of structural modi- 

 fication in li^dng matter may be more rapid than in any 

 lifeless mass, because the incessant nutritive renovation of 

 which the living matter is the seat tends often to corroborate 



* We cannot say the will, for, tliough mall3^ perhaps most, Liiman 

 habits were once voluntarj^ actious, no action, as we shall see in a later 

 chapter, can be primarily such. "While an habitual action may once have 

 been voluntary, the voluntary action must before that, at least once, have 

 been impulsive or retlex. It is this very first occurrence of all that we 

 consider in the text. 



f Those who desire a more detiuite formulation may consult J. Fiske's 

 'Cosmic Philosophy,' vol ii. pp. 142-146 and Spencer',s 'Principles of 

 Biology,' sections 302 and 303, and the part entitled 'Physical Synthesis' 

 of his 'Principles of Psychology.' Mr. Spencer there tries, not only to 

 show how new actious may arise in nervous systems and form new retlex 

 arcs therein, but even how nervous tissue may actually be born by the pas- 

 sage of new waves of isometric transformation through an originally indif- 

 ferent mass. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Spencer's data, under a great 

 show of precision, conceal vagueness and improbability, and even self- 

 contradiction. 



