say our prayers or perform other religious exercises
as matters of habit. But while habit is the veriest tyrant, yet its good
offices far exceed the bad even in the most fruitless or depraved life.

1. THE NATURE OF HABIT

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, 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_.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HABIT.--Habit is to be explained from the
standpoint of its physical basis. Habits are formed because the tissues
of our brains are capable of being modified by use, and of so retaining
the effects of this modification that the same act is easier of
performance each succeeding time. This results in the old act being
repeated instead of a new one being selected, and hence the old act is
perpetuated.

Even dead and inert matter obeys the same principles in this regard as
does living matter. Says M. Leon Dumont: "Everyone knows how a garment,
having been worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body better
than when it was new; there has been a change in the tissue, and this
change is a new habit of cohesion; a lock works better after having been
used some time; at the outset more force was required to overcome
certain roughness in the mechanism. The overcoming of this resistance is
a phenomenon of habituation. It costs less trouble to fold a paper when
it has been folded already. This saving of trouble is due to the
essential nature of habit, which brings it about that, to reproduce the
effect, a less amount of the outward cause is required. The sounds of a
violin improve by use in the hands of an able artist, because the fibers
of the wood at last contract habits of vibration conformed to harmonic
relations. This is what gives such inestimable value to instruments that
have belonged to great masters. Water, in flowing, hollows out for
itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having
ceased to flow, it resumes when it flows again the path traced for
itself before. Just so, the impressions of outer objects fashion for
themselves in the nervous s