n of such a
tendency within the cortical centres will imply, not an habitual act in
the ordinary sense, but a tendency on the part of a conscious experience
to repeat itself. This at once implies an ability to retain and recall
past experiences, or endows the individual with power of memory.
Cortical habit, therefore, or the establishment of permanent
connections within the cortical centres, with their accompanying dynamic
tendency to repeat themselves, will furnish the physiological conditions
for a revival of former experience in memory, or will enable the
individual to turn the past to the service of the present.

=Physical Habits.=--The basis for the formation of physical habits
appears also in this retentive power of nervous tissue. When the young
boy, for instance, first mounts his new bicycle, he is unable, except
with the most attentive effort and in a most laboured and awkward
manner, either to keep his feet on the pedals, or make the handle-bars
respond to the balancing of the wheel. In a short time, however, all
these movements take place in an effective and graceful manner without
any apparent attention being given to them. This efficiency is
conditioned by the fact that all these movements have become habitual,
or take place largely as reflex acts.

In school also, when the child learns to perform such an act as making
the figure 2, the same changes take place. Here an impression must first
proceed from the given copy to a sensory centre in the cortex. As yet,
however, there is no vital connection established between the sensory
centres and the motor centres which must direct the muscles in making
the movement. As the movement is attempted, however, faint connections
are set up between different centres. With each repetition the
connection is made stronger, and the formation of the figure rendered
less difficult. So long, however, as the connection is established
within the cortex, the movement will not take place except under
conscious direction. Ultimately, however, similar connections between
sensory and motor neurons may be established in lower centres, whereupon
the action will be performed as a reflex act, or without the
intervention of a directing act of consciousness. This evidently takes
place when a student, in working a problem, can form the figures, while
his consciousness is fully occupied with the thought phases of the
problem. Thus the neural condition of physical habit is the
establishment