CHAPTER V
HABIT
Habit is our "best friend or worst enemy." We are "walking bundles of habits."
Habit is the "fly-wheel of society," keeping men patient and docile in the hard or
disagreeable lot which some must fill. Habit is a "cable which we cannot break."
So say the wise men. Let me know your habits of life and you have revealed
your moral standards and conduct. Let me discover your intellectual habits, and I
understand your type of mind and methods of thought. In short, our lives are
largely a daily round of activities dictated by our habits in this line or that. Most
of our movements and acts are habitual; we think as we have formed the habit of
thinking; we decide as we are in the habit of deciding; we sleep, or eat, or speak
as we have grown into the habit of doing these things; we may even say our
prayers or perform other religious exercises as matters of habit. But while habit
is the veriest tyrant, yet its good offices far exceed the bad even in the most
fruitless or depraved life.
1. THE NATURE OF HABIT
Many people when they speak or think of habit give the term a very narrow or
limited meaning. They have in mind only certain moral or personal tendencies
usually spoken of as one's "habits." But in order to understand habit in any
thorough and complete way we must, as suggested by the preceding paragraph,
broaden our concept to include every possible line of physical and mental
activity. Habit may be defined as the tendency of the nervous system to repeat
any act that has been performed once or many times.
The Physical Basis of Habit.—Habit is to be explained from the standpoint of
its physical basis. Habits are formed because the tissues of our brains are capable
of being modified by use, and of so retaining the effects of this modification that
the same act is easier of performance each succeeding time. This results in the
old act being repeated instead of a new one being selected, and hence the old act
is perpetuated.