180 HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



Analogy of based on the law of habit, between the process of mental 

 political gj^j^ation and that of social and political progress. 



T)rO£?l cSS nil* 1 



to mental All education consists in tlie formation of habits, and 

 education. ^^^^ acquisition of any new power as the result of 

 education consists in the exercise of that power becoming 

 habitual, and in a great degree independent of conscious- 

 ness and will. Thus, the process of learning one's own or 

 any other language consists in the words and their mean- 

 ings coining to suggest each other without any effort of 

 thought, so that the reasoning process which is needed in 

 order to understand or to form a sentence is in a great 

 degree, if not altogether, performed in unconsciousness. 

 By thus learning to perform as a result of unconscious 

 habit what at first needed a conscious effort of will and 

 • thought, the immediate work to be done— -whether forming 

 a sentence, or practising an art, or whatever it may be — is 

 done much more rapidly, wliile the attention is set free for 

 other purposes. Learning an art, or a language, occupies 

 the whole attention— that is to say, according to what I 

 think is the correct definition of the word attention, it 

 absorbs the whole consciousness in so far as the conscious- 

 ness is under the control of the will; but when the art 

 has been thoroughly learned, it may be practised while 

 a large share, if not the whole, of the attention is left at 

 liberty to direct itself to other objects. Thus, a compe- 

 tent artisan is able to converse wliile at his work, unless 

 it is in any way exceptionally difficult. And for the 

 same reason it is, I believe, comparatively useless to most 

 persons to read books of information or of reasoning in 

 a language with which they are not sufficiently familiar 

 to read, it without effort ; — the language absorbs too much 

 of the attention to leave enough of it fiee for the subject 

 of the book. 

 Both con- It is a parallel truth to this, that social and political 

 fornlatinn pTog^ess mainly consists in the formation of social and 

 of habits, political habits, of which laws are in a great degree the 

 Necessity expression ; and this progress is possible only on condition 

 of per- ^f actions becomiu" habitual after they are once decided 



manence 



in habits, on. It is, ior instance, very important to have a good par- 



