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The purpose here is to show that morals or habits of thought-hence characterhave a sound physiological basis.

The manner of movement, with the body in an upright attitude, is a muscular habit, formed by man, in distinction to the muscular movement of other animals. It is a habit acquired by each child after repeated attempts at educating the muscles to hold the child in an upright attitude. By the repeated efforts of the child to stand erect, the muscles take on forms of development, which enable them to hold this attitude without effort; just so, any sequence of mental action, frequently repeated, tends to perpetuate itself,-we are automatically prompted to think, feel and do what we have been accustomed to think, feel or do under like circumstances, without any consciously formed purpose. A song heard in the morning may travel over its nerve path repeatedly and "ring in the ears" all day.

Nothing is easier than to imagine that when a current has once traversed a path,

The right habit being formed, no matter how weak the will power, or directing energy, it is easier to follow the line of least resistance, and one does not deliberately and consciously try to do wrong.

The molecules in the brain cells become fixed in shape and arrangements, to conform to the character of thought in the growing child, as his bones or the contour of his muscles form their shapes.

Just as it takes definite, conscious, persistent effort to change the contour of a muscle, so does it take definite persistent effort to change a trend of thought and the resultant arrangement and shape of brain cells-hence one's nature.

Happily no habit or shape of brain and nerve cell is so fixed that it cannot be changed by conscious, persistent effort, else, started wrong, there would be no redirecting the thought, or correcting a wrong habit.

✓ Cheerful thoughts, hence happiness, may become just as fixed a habit as the carriage of the shoulders or the manner of walk.

The purpose here is to show that morals or habits of thought-hence characterhave a sound physiological basis.

The manner of movement, with the body in an upright attitude, is a muscular habit, formed by man, in distinction to the muscular movement of other animals. It is a habit acquired by each child after repeated attempts at educating the muscles to hold the child in an upright attitude. By the repeated efforts of the child to stand erect, the muscles take on forms of development, which enable them to hold this attitude without effort; just so, any sequence of mental action, frequently repeated, tends to perpetuate itself, we are automatically prompted to think, feel and do what we have been accustomed to think, feel or do under like circumstances, without any consciously formed purpose. A song heard in the morning may travel over its nerve path repeatedly and "ring in the ears" all day.

Nothing is easier than to imagine that when a current has once traversed a path,

it will traverse it more easily, with each succeeding instigation.

In this way one memorizes. A child learns poem after poem and long passages which have no meaning to him, just by the repetition of sentences. It is supposed that the first nerve current must have been impulsive or reflex, and next have been a voluntary act of consciousness, or of the will.

The entire nervous organism is merely a system of paths, for conducting nerve impulse, through the sensory nerves to the nerve centers in the spinal cord and the brain, and back through the motor nerves to the part causing the sensation; or a path for the conveyance of conscious impulse from the brain, directed by thought. Just how this current is conveyed and the path formed, as explained later, under the chapter upon "Nerve Impulse," is not known.

Dr. Carpenter's statement that "our nervous system grows to the modes in which it has been exercised,"-just as a muscle changes its shape by exercise-ex

presses the formation of habit concisely. This is particularly true of the nervous system, as is evidenced by the difficulty experienced in the effort to change a habit of thought current. The difficulty is partly because its very functional activity is occasioned by its incessant regeneration,its tendency to reproduce itself; this tendency to reproduction is in the form and along the lines previously made,-the lines of least resistance.

Professor Wm. James says: "The most plausible view of the nerve current is that it is a wave of re-arrangement of matter which does not displace itself, but merely changes chemically, or vibrates across the line or turns itself around in its place."

The nerves are in states of varying tension, and the nervous system is constantly tending to equalize their states. If an obstruction to equalization occur in any part of the system, currents may shoot through new paths and new habits be formed, much as a stream, if the accustomed channel be blocked, would work for itself a new channel along the lines of least

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