CHAPTER XV. 



THE LAWS OF HABIT. 



I HAVE to begin this chapter by stating in what sense 

 I intend to use the word Habit. 

 We generally nse the word with special reference to the Meaning 

 mysterious border-land between the conscious and the un- ^.^^ 

 conscious functions. Thus we say, that such an action as habit, 

 using some particular tool, for instance, is conscious at Conscious 

 first, and afterwards becomes habitual. This is one of the ^gpo°^ij^„ 

 most important cases of the law of Habit, and for the habitual, 

 purposes of human education it is all-important : but it is 

 only one case of the law. Among animals in the wild 

 state there is a great variety of instincts to which this 

 explanation will not apply. To mention that which Uncon- 

 Darwin iustly calls " the most wonderful of all known scious m- 



'> •' _ stmct 01 



instincts," we cannot suppose that the bee, in building its the bee. 

 hexagonal cells, has, or ever had, any conscious knowledge 

 of those geometrical properties of the hexagon which make 

 it the most suitable form at once for convenience and for 

 the economical use of wax. If, as I think we must, we 

 class this and other purely unconscious instincts as cases 

 of habit, the definition of the word habit must be greatly 

 extended. Habitual actions, under any possible definition, 

 include all mental and mentally determined actions which 

 are not purely voluntary. But, if we are to extend the 

 definition of habit so as to include under the denomina- 

 tion of habitual such purely unconscious instincts as that 

 of the bee, we must include under that denomination all 

 motor actions whatever thab are characteristic either of 

 organic species or of particular iudividuals. And this is 



