Habit (philosophy)

“ HABIT. The Vicious by Inveterate Habit––Use is second nature, we say. Habit is ten natures; habit begins as a cobweb, and ends as a cable. 'Oh, you'll get used to it,' whatever it is. Dare we face the habits in which these people have their being? ”

“ We would now direct your attention to habit—one of the most obvious and important elements in the formation of character. Its influence is felt in every sphere of your activity, its power extends to every faculty of your nature, and affects your personal, social, civil, and religious thought, feeling, and conduct. The nature of habit may be considered in two lights: first, an ease and excellence in doing a thing from having done it frequently ”

“ Let one boy have been playing at rolling snowballs, and another have been roasting himself before a great fire, and let them meet in the porch of the house;—if you ask them how they feel, I will answer for it you will find them as different in their accounts as the travellers on the Andes. But this is only one example of the operation of a universal principle belonging to human nature: for the power of habit is the same thing whatever be the circumstance which calls it forth, whether relating to the mind or the body. ”

“ They talk of the smoking-habit and the swearing-habit and the drinking-habit, but not of the abstention-habit or the moderation-habit or the courage-habit. But the fact is that our virtues are habits as much as our vices. All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional, and intellectual,—systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be. ”

“ Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and have it is second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong and opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought, that he said, “All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself.” ”

“ This law of habit we may reasonably regard as exemplified in the life of every individual [Pg 75] in the long line of genealogical ascent that connects us with our humblest ancestors, in so far as every permanent advance in the scale of life implies a basis of habit embodied in a structure which has been perfected by practice. ”

“ HABIT
Few people realize how powerful a factor for physical, as well as moral, good and evil is habit. The old expression that habit is second nature is amply illustrated in the most familiar experiences. ”

“ We are once for all so made that when certain impressions come before our mind, one of them will seem to call for or repel the others as its companions. To a certain extent the principle of habit will explain these æsthetic connections. ”

“ Indeed, either to believe by habit, or to doubt by habit, must be regarded as the symptom of a feeble or diseased mind. And yet the former is vastly more congruous to the actual condition of mankind, and to the ordinary course of human affairs, and is more safe, and is more reasonable, than the latter. ”

“ When, on the other hand, we say that right is largely determined by habit, we only emphasize the other aspect of that progressive mingling of continuity with change, which we see in mental life in all its phases. Habit, we know, makes lines of less resistance in thought, feeling, and action ”

“ These traits of a bad habit are precisely the things which are most instructive about all habits and about ourselves. They teach us that all habits are affections, that all have projectile power, and that a predisposition formed by a number of specific acts is an immensely more intimate and fundamental part of ourselves than are vague, general, conscious choices. All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self. ”

“ Habit runs on the Lines of Nature.--But habit runs on the lines of nature: the cowardly child habitually lies that he may escape blame; the loving child has a hundred endearing habits; the good-natured child has a habit of giving; the selfish child, a habit of keeping. Habit, working thus according to nature, is simply nature in action, growing strong by exercise. ”

“ Character being, as we have seen above, a habit, and virtue, on the other hand, being also a habit, the problem which presents itself to him who wishes to improve his character and exchange his vices for virtues, is to know how one habit may be substituted for another, and how even a painful habit may be substituted for an agreeable habit, sometimes for a habit which has lost its charm, but not yet its empire over one. ”

“ Parents and Teachers must lay down Lines of Habit.--All this is nothing new; we have always known that 'use is second nature,' and that 'man is a bundle of habits.' It was not the fact, but the application of the fact, and the physiology of habit, that were new and exceedingly valuable ideas to me, and I hope they may be of some use to the reader. ”

“ In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one’s maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. ”

“ We are creatures of habit, and by knowing the laws of its formation we can, in a little while, build up a network of habit about us, which will protect us from most of the ugly, selfish and degrading things of life. ”

“ The habits we encourage or suffer, we are aware of or might be aware of; we know their moral quality, and hence are responsible for them. Our character formed by habit is the present state of our will, and, though we may not be fully aware of its nature, yet morally it makes us what we are. [16] Our will is not this, that, or the other conscious volition, nor does it exist just so far as we reflect upon it. ”

“ IV.--Habit May Supplant 'Nature'
'Habit is ten natures.' If that be true, strong as nature is, habit is not only as strong, but tenfold as strong. Here, then, have we a stronger than he, able to overcome this strong man armed. ”

“ Think over this a little and you will see the truth of it. You do certain things without a thought, because you have gotten into the habit of doing them. You act in certain ways because you have established the habit. You are in the habit of being truthful, honest, virtuous, because you have established the habit of being so. Do you doubt this? Then look around you—or look within your own heart, and you will see that you have lost some of your old habits of action, and have acquired new ones. The building up of Character is the building up of Habits. ”

“ Habits are the beaten track over which the will travels. The beaten path of habit is the line of least resistance to the will. One who would train his will must needs pay attention to providing it with the proper mental paths over which to travel. ”

“ Speaking in general terms, it may be affirmed that thought makes habit and if sufficiently strong breaks habit. That our habits make or unmake us may be true, but is it not likewise true that our thoughts make or unmake our habits? ”

“ If things be attentively considered, it will be found that almost the whole conduct of man—the entire system of his actions—his occupations—his connexions—his studies—his amusements—his manners—his customs—his very garments—even his aliments, are the effect of habit. He owes equally to habit, the facility with which he exercises his mental faculties of thought—of judgment—of wit—of reason—of taste, &c. It is to habit he owes the greater part of his inclinations—of his desires—of his opinions—of his prejudices—of the ideas, true or false, he forms to himself of his welfare. ”

“ Their memories set, their opinions set, their methods of expression set, their delights recur and recur, they convert initiative into mechanical habit day by day. Let them taste any pleasure and each time they taste it they deepen a need. At last their habits become imperative needs. With such a disposition, external circumstances and suggestions, I venture to believe, may make a man either into an habitual church-goer or an habitual drunkard, an habitual toiler or an habitual rake. ”

“ What we are less prepared to admit is, that habits which do not appear to be in any sense physical--a flippant habit, a truthful habit, an orderly habit--should also make their mark upon a physical tissue, and that it is to this physical effect the enormous strength of habit is probably due. ”

“ For, as we have said, habit primarily and of itself implies a relation to the thing's nature. If therefore the nature of a thing, in which the habit is, consists in this very relation to an act, it follows that the habit principally implies relation to an act. ”

“ For habit is within its subject like a second nature; wherefore it is pleasant to act from habit. Now so long as a thing is, its nature is not corrupted. Therefore neither can a habit be corrupted so long as its subject remains. ”

“ Habits graduate from the essential processes which constitute life rather than maintain it, and which are, for the most part, automatic, to the most superficial and transitory. In order that the proposition "This habit is a bad one" may have any real meaning, we must assume that the organism can exist without it. A habit cannot be removed as one takes off a coat, as has been too often assumed; the whole character of the man is affected by its removal. ”

“ Again, ii. 3, he says that “the symptom of a perfect habit is the pleasure or pain which ensues upon the performance of the acts in which the habit consists: for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and rejoices in doing so, is temperate, while he who does it reluctantly and painfully, is intemperate. ”

“ It overrides our formal resolutions, our conscious decisions. When we are honest with ourselves we acknowledge that a habit has this power because it is so intimately a part of ourselves. It has a hold upon us because we are the habit. ”

“ What, again, shall we say of the phrase, 'a fixed and settled habit?' Habit is a course of action characterized by constancy, as distinguished from courses of action that are inconstant. If the word 'settled' were unobjectionable, we might define habit as a settled, course of action ”

“ Give heed to the admonition of the wise man—'Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.'"
The admonition of the text is important in reference to the Habits and Amusements of the youthful. We are all more or less the creatures of habit. Our ways, from earliest infancy, are more the result of the force of habit, than we are generally aware. The actions, words, and thoughts of men, form for themselves certain channels, in which they continually seek to flow, unless turned aside by a strong hand, and a painful effort. ”

“ What psychologists have laboriously treated under the caption of association of ideas has little to do with ideas and everything to do with the influence of habit upon recollection and perception. A habit, a routine habit, when interfered with generates uneasiness, sets up a protest in favor of restoration and a sense of need of some expiatory act, or else it goes off in casual reminiscence. ”

“ CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO NEWGATE
‘The force of habit’ is a trite phrase in everybody’s mouth; and it is not a little remarkable that those who use it most as applied to others, unconsciously afford in their own persons singular examples of the power which habit and custom exercise over the minds of men, and of the little reflection they are apt to bestow on subjects with which every day’s experience has rendered them familiar. ”

“ I remarked, “held back the thought: habit is a strong force for good or evil, for it perpetuates itself by a form, as it were, of auto-suggestion. You know all suggestions are powerful.”
“It is good pie, isn’t it?” he asked, irrelevantly.
[75]
FRITZ AND HIS SUN DIAL
“The small task—well performed—opens the door to larger opportunity.” ”

“ Custom, habit.—Custom denotes the frequent repetition of the same act, and may be used of a number of persons taken together. Habit is the effect of custom in a person. Custom is voluntary; habit is involuntary, often uncontrollable, sometimes unconscious. ”

“ Discipline, habit, and character, appear to be activity crystallized in seeking adaptation to our environments. What is the truth that stands out in relief? Clearly, that character, habit, and discipline, are the reflex upon ourselves of activity, moral, mental, or physical. Whence it seems to follow that useless or vicious activity will appear as useless or vicious character and discipline. ”

“ Now it has been shown from the very nature of act and habit, that act surpasses habit both in goodness and in badness. Whereas the fact that habit is more lasting than act, is accidental to them, and is due to the fact that they are both found in a nature such that it cannot always be in action, and whose action consists in a transient movement. Consequently act simply excels in goodness and badness, but habit excels in a certain respect. ”

“ Nature may certainly produce whatever can arise from habit: Nay, habit is nothing but one of the principles of nature, and derives all its force from that origin. ”

“ Evidently habit does wonders! God knows what habit can do with any one. ”

“ Let them develop Genius—and use it; heaven knows it is needed!
IMPROVED METHODS OF HABIT CULTURE Most of us recognize that common force, "the power of habit." Most of us have been rigorously, often painfully, almost always annoyingly, trained into what our parents and guardians considered good habits. Most of us know something of the insidious nature of "bad habits"—how easily they slip in, how hard they are to eject. ”

“ One important consideration, finally, that must be brought to consideration is that habits are, like instincts, specific. They are not general "open sesames" which, learned in one situation, will apply with indiscriminate miraculousness to a variety of others. Just as an instinct is a definite response to a definite stimulus, so is a habit. ”

“ It is not at all in our power to say whether we will form habits or not; for, once started, they go on forming70 themselves by day and night, steadily and relentlessly. Habit is, therefore, one of the great factors to be reckoned with in our lives, and the question becomes not, Shall we form habits? but What habits we shall form. And we have the determining of this question largely in our own power, for habits do not just happen, nor do they come to us ready made. ”