Into wrong ones, which we shall afterwards have to undo before we can establish the better. Further, life does not always remain plastic. Our ways get more and more fixed as we grow older, and it is hard for the mature man to acquire new habits. You remember James' statement, quoted in the last chapter, that before we are twenty-five we acquire most of the ideas we shall ever have, except those directly concerned with our business and the ordinary events of life. He maintains that we acquire the larger part of our personal habits before twenty, and that the character of most men is pretty well set by the age of thirty.

Above all, we need to remember that within the limits of our plasticity, the law of habit is always sure to act. It does not concern itself primarily with great moral issues, but with the ordinary things which we are apt to deem trivial. And it has no exceptions. There is only one safe rule to follow: Refrain entirely from actions you do not wish to become habitual. Keep absolutely apart, both in mind and in life, the things you want kept apart. There is no moment of life too valueless, no action or attitude or thought too insignificant, for habit to take account of and fasten upon us. James puts this with a vividness that is startling :

"Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't count this time!' Well! he may not count it, and a kind heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among

his nerve cells and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out."

6. How shall we make sure that we are securely establishing the good habit we desire, or making permanent the association needed? There is only one way to gain a new habit, or to break up an old one —that is to keep steadily working at it. Habits are not built out of resolutions or high emotions or inspiring visions, but out of repeated actions. Just keep on doing the right thing, and you will wake some morning to find that you have permanent possession of it.

The same principle applies to the making of associations. All education is at bottom a matter of getting habits of thought. A fact is learned just in so far as associations are established which will insure its permanent possession, and its availability when needed. In making such associations, the factor of frequency exhorts to repetition, recency to review, while intensity insists that the association must be clear and distinct, in the full light of attention.

The need of attention to insure strength of connection requires special emphasis. Because we have said that habits may be incidentally acquired, and that the law is always sure to act, the conclusion does not follow that we may rely upon incidental and careless repetition for the establishment of a desired habit or association. Just as the utmost care must be used to keep undesirable connections out of life, the most strenuous energy must be put forth to get those that are good. The only safe rule here is: Put all the strength you can into the act that is to become a habit. Center your whole mind upon the

fact you wish to remember.

Professor James, thinking of actions rather than of associations, gives this and three other concrete maxims which constitute the best practical summary of the whole matter:

"(1) Launch yourself with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall reinforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know.

“(2) Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.

"(3) Seize the very first opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain.

"(4) Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it,

so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may not find you unnerved and untrained to stand the test." *

QUESTIONS

1. What is the physical basis of habit?

2. State the law of habit.

3. Explain the variables of the law of habit

4. State the general principle of the association of ideas.

5. What is association by contiguity? Show how the variables of the law of habit apply to such associations.

6. What is association by similarity? Give an illustration of your Show how association by similarity is dependent upon association by contiguity.

own.

7. "Habit underlies everything that is done by intellect and will” -show why this is true.

8. What fourth variable may be added to the law of habit when it deals directly with actions?

9. Is an action that is willed determined in any degree by habit? Give reasons for your answer.

10. How can we make sure that we do not fall into bad habits or acquire undesirable associations?

II. How can we make sure of acquiring good habits and desirable associations?

12. Give James' rules for acquiring a new habit or breaking up an old one.

* The quotations in this chapter are all from James' "Psychology," Briefer Course, pp. 142-150. The chapter on Habit should be read by every teacher. It is one of the best sermons ever written.

LESSON X

THE WILL

People often speak of the will as though it were a sort of absolute ruler, independent of the rest of the mind, and master of all its ideas and feelings and actions. The truth is that the will is itself a part of the mind, and must develop as must any other of its faculties. One's will depends on his ideas and feelings, instincts and habits, just as truly as they in turn are controlled by it.

Every idea is as well Left to itself, any thought

1. To understand the will, we must begin with the fundamental principle that "all consciousness is motor. an impulse to act. Thoughts are forces. will issue in action.

(1) This is a natural consequence of the structure of the nervous system. We have learned how its cells are so coupled up that "action of some sort is the natural outcome of every nerve current, and hence of every sensation and idea." † We called this the law of motor discharge.

(2) Many experiments have proved that, even though we check the impulse and prevent the action, we cannot entirely stop the motor discharge. Our sensations and ideas reflect themselves constantly in little starts of the muscles, in changes of heart-beat, breathing, secretion, digestion, and the like. Everyone has felt chagrined at some time or other because of a blush that would come when he did not wish it.

(3) A hypnotized subject is extremely suggestible. He proceeds to act upon any idea that is put into his mind by the person who hypnotized him. It is because the hypnotic sleep has emptied his mind of ideas, and the one suggested takes complete possession of it. If one be told while awake that he is an animal, a host of conflicting ideas and sensations present themselves to disprove the suggestion; but if while hypnotized, these critical ideas do not come to mind, the suggested idea is left alone, and it issues in action.

(4) In normal wide-awake life we often act impulsively. See a magazine that looks interesting, and you take out your purse and buy it. Think of golf, and you start for the links. Some judgment comes to

*James: "Psychology," Briefer Course, p. 370.

† See p. 19.

mind, and it is no sooner thought than spoken. Note the condition, however—if left to itself, an idea issues in action. If conflicting ideas present themselves, you will not do the impulsive thing. You will not buy the magazine if the thought comes that there are other things more worth reading; you will not play golf if you remember that you have an engagement; you will not express your judgment if it occurs to you that it might hurt someone.

2. The distinction between impulsive and voluntary action thus becomes plain. An action is impulsive that results from the simple presence and impulse of one idea. When you "speak before you think," it is not that you did not think the judgment you blurt forth, but that you did not think of anything else but it. In Bible history King Saul is a notable example of an impulsive man. His mistakes and sins were the result, not so much of settled badness of character as of a disposition to think of only one thing at a time. An action is voluntary, on the other hand, when more than one idea has been present, offering an alternative, and it is therefore the result of choice.

3. Ideas differ greatly, of course, in the degree of impulsive strength which they possess. Some ideas are relatively weak in their push toward action, and others so urgent that they are hard to resist. The rule is that the impulsive strength of an idea depends upon its relation to instincts and habits, and upon the immediacy of the satisfaction it promises. The strongest of all impulses are associated with those objects which appeal directly to elemental instincts—the bodily appetites, the passions and emotions. Ideas that are in line with acquired habits may have as great a force, though we seldom feel it quite as intensely. Things near at hand, immediate results and present goods, have an impulsive attraction which diminishes rapidly with their removal in space or postponement in time. It is much easier to let each moment take care of itself than to act for sake of some end to be realized in the distant future-the here and now seems so much more real, and immediate satisfactions more tangible. In any normal man, therefore, distinctly rational ideas of action-those derived from far-sighted consideration—are relatively cold and weak in impulsive power. Such ideas it requires an effort to hold before the mind, in face of the overwhelming surge of stronger impulses.

4. An act of will involves three things; first, the presence before the mind of alternative lines of action; second, the acceptance of some one as our choice; third, the resulting action.

The first factor of an act of will-the presence of alternatives—