262 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
to act. Motion goes along lines of least resistance, and 
such lines are part of the stock of heredity. 
Many of the impressions from environment are re- 
ceived by the lower nerve centres alone, the sympathetic 
system or the spinal cord. Here they are converted at 
once into motion without rising into the region of con- 
sciousness. Other sensations rise to the brain itself and 
are made the basis of voluntary and conscious action. 
And between the purely automatic actions and those 
distinctly conscious and voluntary there may be found 
every possible intermediate grade. 
Moreover, a conscious action often repeated becomes 
in some degree reflex and automatic. By repeated 
action nerve connections are formed, 
which have been compared to the auto- 
matic switches of the electric-light plant. 
By these connections an action once become familiar 
requires no further conscious attention. This fact is 
known to us as the formation of habit. That which 
we do to-day voluntarily and even laboriously, the force 
of habit will cause us to repeat to-morrow easily, invol- 
untarily, and whether we will or not. By the repetition 
of conscious actions the character is formed. This for- 
mation of personal character by action I have elsewhere 
called “the higher heredity,” as distinguished from the 
true heredity which finds its bounds in the content of the 
germinal cell. By means of habits each creature builds 
up in some fashion its own life. In such way and to 
some degree each is “the architect of his own fortunes.” 
In such manner “the vanished yesterdays” are the 
tyrants of to-morrow. 
Besides the actual sensations, the so-called realities, 
the brain retains also the sensations which have been re- 
ceived, and which are not wholly lost. Memory-pictures 
crowd the mind, mingling with pictures brought in afresh 
The higher 
heredity. 
