If he does hesitate, it is in order to be sure that the suggested act is stealing, not because his character is unstable. From one point, of view the development of character is never complete, because experience is constantly presenting new aspects of life to us, and in consequence of this fact we are always engaged in slight reconstructions of our modes of conduct and oar attitude toward life. But in a practical common-sense way most of our important habits of reaction become fixed at a fairly early and definite time in life. The general manner of speech, the mode of dressing, purely personal manners, etc., are commonly fixed before twenty-one. The general attitude toward moral and religious ideals is likely to be gained sometime during, or just after, adolescence.
Professional habits come somewhat later.
Speaking broadly, however, for the average individual the dominant tone of his habits, social, moral, aesthetic, and intellectual, is set by the time he is thirty. By this time the direction of his desires and his interests is likely to be finally formed, and for the rest of his life he will but elaborate and refine upon this stock of tendencies. When we recall the fact that habit depends ultimately upon the preservation of physical changes in neural tissues, we see how powerful an ally, or how frightful an enemy, one's habits may be. The man who has led a life of kindliness and sobriety not only has a fund of agreeable sentiments upon which his friends and neighbours can rely, he actually could not be mean and selfish and sordid without an herculean effort, for his nervous system contains imbedded in its structures the tendency to altruistic deeds. When we describe the development of character as a process in which our impulses become coordinated with one another, we have in mind a very specific course of events.