CHAPTER III.

OF HABIT.

HABIT differs from instinct, not in its nature, but in its origin; the latter being natural, the former acquired. Both operate without will or intention, without thought, and therefore may be called mechanical principles.

Habit is commonly defined, a facility of doing a thing, acquired by having done it frequently. This definition is sufficient for habits of art; but the habits which may, with propriety, be called principles of action, must give more than a facility, they must give an inclination or impulse to do the action; and that, in many cases, habits have this force, cannot be doubted.

How many awkward habits, by frequenting improper company, are children apt to learn, in their address, motion, looks, gesture, and pronunciation. They acquire such habits commonly from an undesigned and instinctive imitation, before they can judge of what is proper and becoming.

When they are a little advanced in understanding, they may easily be convinced that such a thing is unbecoming, they may resolve to forbear it, but when the habit is formed, such a general resolution is not of itself sufficient; for the habit will operate without intention; and particular attention is necessary, on every occasion, to resist its impulse, until it be undone by the habit of opposing it.

It is owing to the force of habits, early acquired by imitation, that a man who has grown up to manhood in the lowest rank of life, if fortune raise him to a higher rank, very rarely acquires the air and manners of a gentleman.

When to that instinctive imitation, which I spoke of before, we join the force of habit, it is easy to see, that these mechanical principles have no small share in forming the manners and character of most men.

The difficulty of overcoming vicious habits has, in all ages, been a common topic of theologians and moralists; and we see too many sad examples to permit us to doubt of it.

There are good habits, in a moral sense, as well as bad; and it is certain, that the stated and regular performance of what we approve, not only makes it easy, but makes us uneasy in the omission of it. This is the case, even when the action derives all its goodness from the opinion of the performer. A good illiterate Roman Catholic does not sleep sound if he goes to bed without telling his beads, and repeating prayers which he does not understand.

Aristotle makes wisdom, prudence, good sense, science, and art, as well as the moral virtues and vices, to be habits. If he meant no more, by giving this name to all those intellectual and moral qualities, than that they are all strengthened and confirmed by repeated acts, this is undoubtedly true. I take the word in a less extensive sense, when I consider habits as principles of action. I conceive it to be a part of our constitution, that what we have been accustomed to do, we acquire, not only a facility, but a proneness to do on like occasions; so that it requires a particular will and effort to forbear it; but to do it, requires very often no will at all. We are carried by habit as by a stream in swimming, if we make no resistance.

Every art furnishes examples, both of the power of habits and of their utility; no one more than the most common of all arts, the art of speaking.

Articulate language is spoken, not by nature, but by art. It is no easy matter to children, to learn the sim

ple sounds of language; I mean, to learn to pronounce the vowels and consonants. It would be much more difficult, if they were not led by instinct to imitate the sounds they hear; for the difficulty is vastly greater of teaching the deaf to pronounce the letters and words, though experience shows that it can be done.

What is it that makes this pronunciation so easy at last which was so difficult at first? It is habit.

But from what cause does it happen, that a good speaker no sooner conceives what he would express, than the letters, syllables, and words arrange themselves according to innumerable rules of speech, while he never thinks of these rules? He means to express certain sentiments; in order to do this properly, a selection must be made of the materials, out of many thousands. He makes this selection without any expense of time or thought. The materials selected must be arranged in a particular order, according to innumerable rules of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and accompanied with a particular tone and emphasis. He does all this as it were by inspiration, without thinking of any of these rules, and without breaking one of them.

This art, if it were not more common, would appear more wonderful, than that a man should dance blindfold amidst a thousand burning ploughshares, without being burnt; yet all this may be done by habit.

It appears evident, that as, without instinct, the infant could not live to become a man, so, without habit, man would remain an infant through life, and would be as helpless, as unhandy, as speechless, and as much a child in understanding at threescore as at three.

I see no reason to think, that we shall ever be able to assign the physical cause, either of instinct, or of the power of habit.

Both seem to be parts of our original constitution. Their end and use is evident; but we can assign no cause of them, but the will of him who made us.

With regard to instinct, which is a natural propensity, this will perhaps be easily granted; but it is no less true with regard to that power and inclination which we acquire by habit.

No man can show a reason why our doing a thing frequently should produce either facility or inclination to do it.

The fact is so notorious, and so constantly in our eye, that we are apt to think no reason should be sought for it, any more than why the sun shines. But there must be a cause of the sun's shining, and there must be a cause of the power of habit.

We see nothing analogous to it in inanimate matter, or in things made by human art. A clock or a watch, a waggon or a plough, by the custom of going, does not learn to go better, or require less moving force. The earth does not increase in fertility by the custom of bearing crops.

It is said, that trees and other vegetables, by growing long in an unkindly soil or climate, sometimes acquire qualities by which they can bear its inclemency with less hurt. This, in the vegetable kingdom, has some resemblance to the power of habit; but, in inanimate matter, I know nothing that resembles it.

A stone loses nothing of its weight by being long supported, or made to move upward. A body, by being tossed about ever so long, or ever so violently, loses nothing of its inertia, nor acquires the least disposition to change its state.

ESSAY III.

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

PART II.

OF ANIMAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

CHAP. I.

OF APPETITES.

HAVING discoursed of the mechanical principles of action, I proceed to consider those I called animal.

They are such as operate upon the will and intention, but do not suppose any exercise of judgment or reason; and are most of them to be found in some brute animals, as well as in man.

In this class, the first kind I shall call appetites, taking that word in a stricter sense than it is sometimes taken, even by good writers.

The word appetite is sometimes limited, so as to signify only the desire of food when we hunger; sometimes it is extended so as to signify any strong desire, whatever be its object. Without pretending to censure any use of the word which custom has authorized, I beg leave to limit it to a particular class of desires, which are distinguished from all others by the following marks.