HABIT AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON. It is difficult to overesti mate the importance of habit in our every-day life and the part that must be assigned to it in the explanation of both thought and action. In the adult practically no act is independent of habit. Few social phenomena can be under stood without taking the common habits of the individuals into consideration. Habit frees the individual from the need of constant thought and enables him to devote himself to the gen eral ends to be attained and to the acquisi tion of new skill. Habit in others makes it possible to rely upon the action of one's fellows and to forecast the social events of days to come. All business depends upon knowledge of the set of habits in the men with whom one deals.
All complex acts depend upon earlier formed habits which co-ordinate the different move ments to the accomplishment of a single end. In learning to drive a car one must at first think of each act, of each lever to be moved, of each movement of the steering wheel. Af ter learning is complete one merely decides to turn and the steering gear is adjusted by sight of the road to be taken. One decides to stop and the clutch is released and the brakes are applied as parts of a single movement and with out other thought. The more complicated move ments learned in infancy, such as speech, de pend in the same way upon groups of habits. Speaking a word requires the simultaneous or suitably successive activity of a large number of muscles in many different combinations. Were it necessary to think of each movement or of each element in the movement and adjust its response in strength and time to the whole, accurate speech would be impossible. One may assert with confidence that no one of the ap parently simple acts could be executed were it not for the mass of habits at the individual's command.
In its wider effects habit bolds mankind as a whole and the individual in particular to a regular routine, to consistent lines of conduct. Hours of labor and of recreation, hours of sleep and time of waking, are all determined by habits which, it is true, are broken from time to time but hold in general for all. So firmly set is this daily rhythm of habits that when the community desires to adapt itself better to the setting or the rising of the sun, it turns the clock forward or back rather than break the connection that has been established between the position of the hands of the clock and the actions of its members. Very many
of the more important social functions, the ac ceptance of the results of an election in a well ordered democracy, or obedience to the com mand of a monarch or of the military author ities in an autocracy, are matters of habit. Only a great common emotion, great pain or stress of other kind can break the habits sufficiently for disobedience or disorder to be even con sidered. It is in this sense that habit is the great conservative force that makes orderly govern ment possible, that keeps each individual in society in his place and to his allotted task.
In the social whole as in the individual the formation of habit saves thought and prevents confusion. The well-drilled soldier or mili tary unit needs no time to agree upon a course of action or even to decide to carry out a suggested plan. Earlier drill has fused all into a single unit responsive to any signal or com mand and capable of adjusting the acts of each to those of all the others. Fire-drills and all similar training of masses to respond to antici pated signals rob the critical moments of the uncertain, hesitating, and even contradictory movements which constitute such a large part of the disturbing emotion, and the actual danger in great accidents. Frequent repetition makes possible calm, effective action in almost any emergency. The fully prepared man has a habit ready for each situation, a response for each stimulus. Few men have such comprehensive habits, but each has habits which adapt him to his own profession and to the general demands of life. One can frequently determine the pro fession to which an individual belongs by ob servation of his habits. Much of the action that we call moral is determined in the last analysis by habit. The honest man does not think whether he shall or shall not return a purse that he finds. The honest act is a mat ter of course. Habits also distinguish the in dividual as well-bred or ill-bred. The boor cannot acquire good manners from reading or from personal directions. Only slowly acquired habits can work the change and these must ordinarily be acquired early in life.