gratuitous exercise every
day._ That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do
every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so
that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not
unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is
like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does
him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But,
if the fire _does_ come, his having paid it will be his salvation from
ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of
concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in
unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks
around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the
blast.

* * * * *

I have been accused, when talking of the subject of habit, of making old
habits appear so strong that the acquiring of new ones, and particularly
anything like a sudden reform or conversion, would be made impossible by
my doctrine. Of course, this would suffice to condemn the latter; for
sudden conversions, however infrequent they may be, unquestionably do
occur. But there is no incompatibility between the general laws I have
laid down and the most startling sudden alterations in the way of
character. New habits _can_ be launched, I have expressly said, on
condition of there being new stimuli and new excitements. Now life
abounds in these, and sometimes they are such critical and revolutionary
experiences that they change a man's whole scale of values and system of
ideas. In such cases, the old order of his habits will be ruptured; and,
if the new motives are lasting, new habits will be formed, and build up
in him a new or regenerate 'nature.'

All this kind of fact I fully allow. But the general laws of habit are
no wise altered thereby, and the physiological study of mental
conditions still remains on the whole the most powerful ally of
hortatory ethics. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology
tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by
habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young
but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits,
they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.
Every smallest stroke of virtue or of v