the habitual use of certain stimulants, or the
need of salvation (in the eschatological sense), or of good repute, may
in some cases take precedence of the lower or more elementary wants. In
general, the longer the habituation, the more unbroken the habit, and
the more nearly it coincides with previous habitual forms of the life
process, the more persistently will the given habit assert itself. The
habit will be stronger if the particular traits of human nature which
its action involves, or the particular aptitudes that find exercise
in it, are traits or aptitudes that are already largely and profoundly
concerned in the life process or that are intimately bound up with the
life history of the particular racial stock. The varying degrees of ease
with which different habits are formed by different persons, as well as
the varying degrees of reluctance with which different habits are given
up, goes to say that the formation of specific habits is not a matter
of length of habituation simply. Inherited aptitudes and traits of
temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding
what range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of
life. And the prevalent type of transmitted aptitudes, or in other words
the type of temperament belonging to the dominant ethnic element in
any community, will go far to decide what will be the scope and form
of expression of the community's habitual life process. How greatly the
transmitted idiosyncrasies of aptitude may count in the way of a rapid
and definitive formation of habit in individuals is illustrated by the
extreme facility with which an all-dominating habit of alcoholism
is sometimes formed; or in the similar facility and the similarly
inevitable formation of a habit of devout observances in the case of
persons gifted with a special aptitude in that direction. Much the same
meaning attaches to that peculiar facility of habituation to a specific
human environment that is called romantic love.

Men differ in respect of transmitted aptitudes, or in respect of
the relative facility with which they unfold their life activity in
particular directions; and the habits which coincide with or proceed
upon a relatively strong specific aptitude or a relatively great
specific facility of expression become of great consequence to the man's
well-being. The part played by this element of aptitude in determining
the relative tenacity of the several habits which consti