Applied_, Chapter XIV, also
pp. 187-192 and pp. 370-371.

PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapters V and XI.

PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter XIV.

TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapters IV, VIII, and XI.

CHAPTER VI

HABIT

=The Nature of Habit.= We now turn from man's inherited nature to his
acquired nature. Inherited tendencies to action we have called
instincts; acquired tendencies to action we shall call habits. We can
best form an idea of the nature of habit by considering some concrete
cases.

Let us take first the case of a man forming the habit of turning out the
basement light. It usually happens that when a man has an electric light
in the basement of his house, it is hard for him at first to think to
turn out the light at night when he retires, and as a consequence the
light often burns all night. This is expensive and unnecessary, so there
is a strong incentive for the man to find a plan which will insure the
regular turning-off of the light at bedtime. The plan usually hit upon
is the following: The electric switch that controls the basement light
is beside the basement stairway. The man learns to look at the switch as
he comes up the stairs, after preparing the furnace fire for the night,
and learns to take hold of the switch when he sees it and turn off the
light. Coming up the stairs means to look at the switch. Seeing the
switch means to turn it. Each step of the performance touches off the
next. The man sees that in order to make sure that the light will always
be turned off, the acts must all be made automatic, and each step must
touch off the next in the series. At first, the man leaves the light
burning about as often as he turns it off. After practicing for a time
on the scheme, the different acts become so well connected that he
seldom leaves the light burning. We say that he has formed the _habit_
of turning off the light.

For a second illustration, let us take the process of learning that nine
times nine equals eighty-one. At first, one does not say or write
"eighty-one" when one sees "nine times nine," but one can acquire the
habit of doing so. It does not here concern us how the child learns what
the product of nine times nine is. He may learn it by counting, by being
told, or by reading it in a book. But however he first learns it, he
fixes it and makes it automatic and habitual by _continuing_ to say or
to write, "nine times nine equ