Show THE LAWS OF or HABIT their relations to ethics ya agents when we look at I 1 living lying creatures from an outward point of view one of be he first bilings that bat strike us is that they arc are bundles of habits in wild animals the usual round of daily behavior seems a necessity implanted at birth I 1 in animas domesticated and especially in man it seems to a great extent t to 0 be the result of education the habits bi t to which there ie an innate tendency arc are called instincts some of those due to education would b by y most persons bb called acts of reason it thus appears that habit covers a large part of life and that one engaged in studying the objective manifestations of mind is bound at the very outset to define dofine clearly just jast what its limits are the tile moment one tries 0 o define what habit is one is led to the fundamental properties of matter the lays of NIL a lure ure are nothing buebe immutable hn habits L which the elementary y sorts of matter follows in their actions till and reactions u upon n each oilier other in the organic world I 1 however berer the habits are more marable than this even instincts vary from one orte individual to another of a kind and are modified in the same individual as wo ire see later to buit wit the exigencies of the case the habits of an elementary particle of matter cannot change ton on the he principles of atomistic philosophy because cancle the particle I 1 is itself an unchangeable tiling thing but those of a compound mass of matter can change because they are in the last instance due to the structure of the compound nd and cither either outward forces or inward tensions can from one hour to another turn that structure into something different from what ic ir was that is they they can do be so if the body be plastic enolia to maintain its integrity and be disrupted when ils its str structure u deture yield the change here spoken of need j not involve the outward shape dellape it may a be and as a of iron becomes bemmes magnetic or crystalline through the action of certain outward causes or india rubber becomes friable or plaster sets all these changes are rather er elow slow the material in question opposes a certain resistance to the modify ing log cause which it takes time to overcome but the gradual yielding whereof often saves the lie material from being disintegrated altogether when the ture has yielded the same inertia becomes a condition of its comparative permanence mari ence in the new form and of the new habits the body then manifests plasticity then in the wide sense of the word means weans of a structure weak enough to yield to io an influence but blit strong enough not to yield at once each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marl marlind ed by what wo we may tay call a new set of habits this brings us by a very verr natural trao imp to the ethical implications odthe of the law of habit they arc are numerous and momentous dr carpenter from whose Al mental physiology we have quoted lias has so prominently enforced the jile pie that our organs grow grol I 1 to ill the way in which they bale have been exercised and dwelt upon its consequences that his book almost deserves to be called a work of edification on this account alone we need make no apology then for tracing a few of these consequences ourselves habit a second nature habit is ten times nature the duke of or wellington agton is said to h have a ve exclaimed and the degree to which this 13 is true no one can probably appreciate as well avell as one who is is a veteran soldier himself the daily drill and years of discipline end by fashioning a map comple over again as to most of the possibilities s of his ills conduct there is a story which is credible enough though may not be true of a practical joker who seeing a discharged veteran carrying home his dinner suddenly called out attention NO whereupon the man instant instantly 7 brought his hands dowland down dow nand and lost il his is million mutton and potatoes in the gutter the drill had been thorough and its effiec effects ts had become embodied in he ho mans nervous structure ol 01 cavalry horses at many a battle have been seen to come to geather and g go t through h g lithely their lr customary evolutions at a t t the sound und odthe bugle call host most trained dom domestic esile ani animals mahi dogs and oxen and omnibus and call horbes seeni to be machines almost pure and simple unhesitatingly doing from minute to minute the duties they have been taught and giving no sign that the possibility of an alternative ever suggests itself itself to their mind men grown old in prison have ask asked ed to bo be readmitted after being once set free in a railroad accident to a traveling menagerie in the abe united states some time in 1834 1884 i a tiger w chobe ahme cage had bad ank broken qu 0 open cn afi bat ead tiger to have em emerged elfed bua presently crept back again as I 1 if too much macli bewildered by his new eo so that he was with out dilli culty secured cured ee habit ia Is thus the enormous flywheel fly wheel of soc society ietT its most precious conservative agent it t alone is what keeps us all w within hin the bounds of ordinance and saves gives the children of fortune from c envious V uprising odthe of alic poor jt it alone prevents the t 1 hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those b brought rought up to tread therein it hee keeps tl I 1 lie 1 ll 11 fisherman and the deck hadd at epa f through fi tha tho winter it U holds the tile miner in bis his darkness an and d nails the countryman to his log cabin and his lonely farm through alt alf the months of 0 snow it protects us from by ly the ho native of the desert and the frozen zone it doama all act f ight out tho he battle hie lite upon the lines I 1 nos olour of our nature or our early cli clinice clio oice and to make the beet best tf of a pursuit hat that disagrees because there thera is no other for which we ire arc itro fitted BOO end and it is too tw lafe digs to begin again apin it keep keeps diffie different rent social strata from mixing already at the tle age of twenty five you see the professional mannerism settling ling down on the tho young commercial trav traveler elir on the youg doctor on the young minister on the young counselor at law you sec we the little lines of cleavage running running the character the tricks of tt thought ought tre the prejudices tho ways of the atop astop in a word from which the men can hy by and by no apol c escape than lian his jill e O can j fal A linto a aiice ew set of folds on cape the tie w whole rl agic I 1 it t is I 1 is best abt ho should not escape estie it I 1 is well for t the lie world that in the most ina atif by the he age ago of thirty the character linse has set like plaster ana an will never soften again |