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Show WHY WE BEHAVE,! LIKE HUMAN BEINGS I By CEORCE DORSE Y. Pa. D , Lt-l. a a Four-Wheeled Machines and Human Machines PRACTICE makes perfect Even a car "drives" better after the first thousand miles. And ss for the driver driv-er himself I At the end of the first day he ever drove a car he was a wreck. Kor two reasons. Tear lest he wreck the car: too emotional. Be suffered enough In anticipation an-ticipation to loee a dozen cars, several legs, ribs, eyes, lives. Other fears under bis belt moved him deeply: was It safe, any possibility of Its blowing op, would the gas bold out, etc.T Ha did not know bis car; It was a great unknown; the unknown la alwaya a threat. He did not know bis road, nor Its manners and Its customs, Its curves end Its grades. The new way Is alwaya a threat; what Is around the corner? The other reason. Bis own motor mechanism was tired all over. Throughout Through-out the day his muscles had been tense, taut as fiddle strings, keyed up for emergency action. Now he drives three hundred miles a day; Is aa fresh as a daisy; has a good time, sees the country, talks bis bat off, smokes a dozen cigars. Does not give his car a thought the whole day. He Is as automatic as bis engine. en-gine. Same car, same road, same driver. And the same process In every act of learning, beginning with the act of standing up or the first walk In life. We have time for the high spots In life If we have learned how to cross the routine valley by force of habit Do you know which stocking you put on first this morning or which trousers' leg you filled first? Do you recall bow you felt th a first time you ever wore ' a dress suit, or how long It took you to put it on, or to learn to tie a bow-knot? bow-knot? Can you bathe, shave, and dress In six minutes? I can do It In less than five. A skilled performer at the piano or typewriter or on the tennis court acts like an automaton. But no mere automatonhuman auto-matonhuman or otherwise ever makes a great performer. For this reason: heightened sensitivity sensi-tivity of the central nervous system Increases the response of the reflex arcs. A tap on flexed patellar tendon elicits no kick when one is asleep. Sleep means that central has bung up. But try out the knee-kick with your teeth clenched or your fist tightly doubled dou-bled np; more kick. Get real mad; more kick. A good habit Is a well-learned habit put to useful purpose. The competent driver guides his car as a clever boy his bicycle; the right muscles work to the right amounts at the proper time and In proper order. A car, or a curve, or a bole, or a bonk ahead. Is stimulus enough for eye or ear ; the adjustment is made as though It were a reflex, as easy as pie. It Is an acquired reflex. All our habits act by force of habit because these paths are worn. We awake in the morning and "before we know It" we are at the breakfast table, ta-ble, or possibly "come to" only when some headline In the paper catches our eye perhaps already half through cmr breakfast And yet, before we "came to," we went through a thousand acts: dressing, shaving, etc, etc., some of them reully complex performances requiring re-quiring delicate adjustments. Yet there were a thousand responses re-sponses available for that breakfast stimulus. The stimulus was not necessarily neces-sarily followed by a yawn, a stretch, push covers down, one leg out, other leg out, slippers, etc. one conditioned retlex touching olf another. But that chain of reactions had been performed so many times thnt the paths connecting connect-ing np these countless reflexes had been worn; all the other possible paths of response offered more resistance because be-cause the; had not been worn b; constant con-stant action. A hubit, then, Is an act so often repeated re-peated that It runs Itself: It does not need our conscious attention; we can give our attention to something else. The average mortal has only one habit The one stimulus which rouses him from sleep carries him through the day and back to bed and to sleep. All days Ionic alike to him. Saturday night Is also conditioned Into the chain; no fresh stimulus needed for the bath I Ills body's clock Is likewise set for Sunday. That day, too, goes by according to schedule, and when done Is Itself the stimulus to resume a new week. One habit after another, like a chain, functioning as one. Works like a clock wound up for life. Makes a perfect clerk, "hand," or maid. This one-hnhlt mode of existence Is fine; It gives the brain a complete rest. The possessor need never have a thought I He Is a skilled performer, but never great, on piccolo, at lathe, behind counter, or on a stool. He does not even make a good soldier. There must be visceral dynamics eenerally called "guts" behind a bajonet charge; and nigh-strung central-called central-called "brains" In control for a sharpshooter. sharp-shooter. The difference between action ac-tion In an automatic machine and In a human genius Is brains. 1(9 by George A. Dorsey.) |