Habituation

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not only the obscene speech, the unholy acts; that which signifies is the manner of thoughts we think; speech, act, are the mere outcome; it is the habitual thought of a man which shapes that which we call his character. And these, can we reasonably doubt that every imagination of their heart is only evil continually? We say, use is second nature, but let us consider what we mean by the phrase; what is the philosophy of habit so far as it has been discovered to us. The seat of habit is the brain; the actual grey nervous matter of the cerebrum. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Habit rules ninety-nine in a hundred of our Thoughts and Acts.--In the first place, whether you choose or no to take any trouble about the formation of his habits, it is habit, all the same, which will govern ninety-nine one-hundredths of the child's life: he is the mere automaton you describe. As for the child's becoming the creature of habit, that is not left with the parent to determine. We are all mere creatures of habit. We think our accustomed thoughts, make our usual small talk, go through the trivial round, the common task, without any self-determining effort of will at all. ”

“ Every established mental condition is an acquired habit, and it has become such by continuous repetition of thought. Despondency and cheerfulness, anger and calmness, covetousness and generosity—indeed, all states of mind—are habits built up by choice, until they have become automatic. A thought constantly repeated at last becomes a fixed habit of the mind, and from such habits proceeds the life. ”

“ In my last talk, in treating of Habit, I chiefly had in mind our motor habits,—habits of external conduct. But our thinking and feeling processes are also largely subject to the law of habit, and one result of this is a phenomenon which you all know under the name of 'the association of ideas.' To that phenomenon I ask you now to turn.
You remember that consciousness is an ever-flowing stream of objects, feelings, and impulsive tendencies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A BUNDLE OF HABITS.—Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and habit is second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong an opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought, that he said, "All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself." Evil habits must be conquered, or they will conquer us and destroy our peace and happiness. ”

“ But Habit may be a Lever.--But habit, to be the lever to lift the child, must work contrary to nature, or at any rate, independently of her.
Directly we begin to look out for the working of habit on these lines, examples crowd upon us: there are the children trained in careful habits, who never soil their clothes; those trained in reticent habits, who never speak of what is done at home, and answer indiscreet questions with 'I don't know' ”

“ 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,67 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. ”

“ In scientific studies of the soul and the mind, habit is usually passed over—either as something contemptible—or rather for the further reason that it is one of the most difficult questions of psychology. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That is to say, in a general way, the most ancient and ingrained of the habits which govern the individual's life—those habits that touch his existence as an organism—are the most persistent and imperative. ”

“ While we vividly experience joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure—inwoven as these are with the change of seasons, of the weather, &c.—with the alternation of life and death, of happiness and misery, we ought nevertheless to harden ourselves against them so that at the same time in our consciousness of the supreme worth of the mind we shall build up the inaccessible stronghold of Freedom in ourselves.—Active habit [or behavior] is found realized in a wide range of activity which appears in manifold forms, such as skill, Formation of Habits.17 dexterity, readiness of information, &c. ”

“ Concrete habits do all the perceiving, recognizing, imagining, recalling, judging, conceiving and reasoning that is done. "Consciousness," whether as a stream or as special sensations and images, expresses functions of habits, phenomena of their formation, operation, their interruption and reorganization.
Yet habit does not, of itself, know, for it does not of itself stop to think, observe or remember. Neither does impulse of itself engage in reflection or contemplation. ”

“ Habits are like paths beaten hard and clear by the multitude of light footsteps which go to and fro. The daily restraint or indulgence of the nature, in the business, in the hope, in the imagination, which is the inner laboratory of the life, creates the character which, whether it be here or there, settles the destiny.—J. Baldwin Brown. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And thus we attain a conception of pleasure as that form of feeling accompanying forms of physiological motion with which there is a minimum of interference. Pleasure appears as the accompaniment of unimpaired and unimpeded function everywhere as far as our knowledge extends. Function and habit are essentially the same; habit is merely function. The functions of the species furnish the foundation of the habits of the individual, which vary according to individual surroundings and the family peculiarities acquired through peculiar circumstances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I want to help YOU to form the habit of thinking over each day's activities in the quiet, [Pg 13] relaxed, uncolored, unprejudiced, secluded environment of your home. When the day's work is over, spend fifteen or twenty minutes each evening in seclusion, and with closed eyes, size yourself up. Think over your daily round and the work you are doing. Are you getting the best out of yourself? Or are you plodding along aimlessly, scattering your energy in a haphazard, hit-or-miss fashion that benefits nobody? Are you growing, or are you standing still? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As is the ‘habit’ which determines the expectation, such must be the expectation itself; and as have been the sequences of feeling in each man’s past, such must be the habit which results from them. Now no one’s feelings have always occurred to him in the same relative order. ”

“ A Mind at the Mercy of Associations.--We will consider, then, the nature and the functions of attention. The mind--with the possible exception of the state of coma--is never idle; ideas are for ever passing through the brain, by day and by night, sleeping or walking, mad or sane. We take a great deal too much upon ourselves when we suppose that we are the authors and intenders of the thoughts we think. ”

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

“ Now the thing which is closest to us, the means within our power, is a habit. Some habit impeded by circumstances is the source of the projection of the end. It is also the primary means in its realization. The habit is propulsive and moves anyway toward some end, or result, whether it is projected as an end-in-view or not. The man who can walk does walk; the man who can talk does converse—if only with himself. ”

“ As you may be aware, the power of habit is very strong. For years, no doubt, your subconsciousness has carried that device, and in moments of deep abstraction with wholly unrelated things your hand has traced it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now the way of life that I preach is a habit to be acquired gradually by long and steady repetition. It is the practice of living for the day only, and for the day's work, Life in day-tight compartments. ”

“ As the keenness of first sensations producing transitory pleasure diminishes, habit strengthens the important relation which grows up between faculties and the objects which modify them. It is the superior power of the new relation thus established by habit between the individual and the objects that have modified his nature, that have even caused the Swiss mountaineer to die of home-sickness, or the bereaved partner in a lifelong union to follow the beloved object to the grave. ”

“ We can form habits—both bodily and mental. As these operate in producing radical changes in human character, we will look for a moment at the process. —Neither perceptions, nor knowledge, are habits; though necessary to forming them. —There are habits of perception, however, and habits of action: the former are passive, the latter active. —Habits of body are produced by external acts, and habits of mind by the exertion of principles ”

“ 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. ”