The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1900-04-25
OUR HABITS OF LIFE.
THEY TEND TO TRANSFORM MEN
INTO MERE AuTOMATONS.


n Rut Than Living In the snme Way.
Day by Dny Without Chnnge-Tho !
Be7ett of Novelty.
A man with O habit Of life whose
parts are made UP of repetitlons Of acts
day by day and year by year may In
time become almost automatic. He
who SO lives may have some powers
OF adaptation to new changes or may
not, but In either case the habit of life
which cramps his thoughts. restricts
his narrow field of action to certain
places and acts through an indefinite
time and engenders prejudices against
all else that Is different, comes from
living In groove instead OF living in
the world.
All men are more or less subject to
the dominion Of habit, but there Is n
wide difference between the habits OF
thought and action which give men
greater breadth Of view mentally with
greater usefulness In the material af-
fairs Of life and those which reduce
men to life within horizon limited
by their homes and their business in
terests.
In an environment Of life made up
Of repetitions Of daily acts WHICH are
Interchangeable. man will necessarily
become more or less automatic In
thought and action. His standards of
measurements and values are all with
In his own narrow world. Things out
side his little horizon are seen through
glasses which distort. The sailor, long
ut sea, has supreme contempt for the
landsman, and the older the sailor and
the more he is Mt seq the more firmly
is he convinced that the landsman Is
an inferior creature, worthy of nothing
but contempt.
The environment Of the sailor has SO
engrossed his mind and his attention.
and he has come to know his trnde so
we'll, with tie immense benefits and
vnlue Of ships constantly to his minds
eye, that the rest of the world suffers
by the comparison as he views It, On
the other hand. the iandsrncn consider
with amusement the whinls Of the sail
or. though they may nave equally RI
diculous ideas concerning each other.
The farmer may believe that the
dwellcrs In cities are erreminate and
given to certain financial jugglings
which are unjust to him: II he lives
IN rut, he will grow to believe that
his prejudices are facts as immutable
as the laws Of matter.
Habit may become SO strong after q
time that 1t Is beyond the power Of the
man to break 1t. He thinks In certain
lines as he has been habitunted to
think. reasons after a certain habitual
fashion and reaches conclusions he has
already established and believed from
habit.
Nothing Is more conducive to life In
q rut than living In the same way day
by day without change. man rises,
eats. works, returns home, sleeps.
meets s.;s Eaizie people and hears the
same things said in the same way day
after day till there is no stimulus to
thought or action. There is no novelty
because there is no change.
There Is no great breadth of mental
horizon needed to the man who lives in
rut He may be pretudiced In eavor
OF 80 living because the rut is In evi-
dence before him, while all other rusz
msss necessarily De worse because he
does not nse them s11 cannoE see them.
Sections drift into rut as men do.
The west may, by self communing, ex-
alt Itself above the east. The east may
by like process consider that elsewhere
all else Is lacking in the essentials of
civilization. The south may look upon
the north as a section filled with men
who swap jnckknives and whittle out
gimcracks, while the north, ON the 9TH
hn <fo< ff,o H4,f f~a to-
dustry or the south La the making of
mint 5uleps and the oppression OF the
humble black man.
The man In q rut and the section In q
rut are lifted out OF their narrowness
by change of environment. Railroads
and steamboats, are breaking up the
rutS OF sectionalism ana ipdlvidualism.
People go east and south and north and
west and find there e 10 ground Tor
prejudice and that there wac mu2h
that was misunderstood and much more
to admire.
The growth Gf sport has In like man
ner served the purpose Of broadening
Views destroying prejudices, correct
Ing opinions and cultivating a greater
charity. for men ana women who Jour.
ney to waters where fish are caught or
cruise IL yachts or penetrate into the
Wild haunts Of game break away from
the narrow lines which mature into
narrow lives and thus avoid the dwarf
ed life OF him whose horizon never
changes and which bounds his own
house and his own interests.
All that is to be said Of travel as an
agency OF enlightenment, broadening
and cultivation of tolerance may be
said Of the sports Of rod and gun and
more. For the sportsman tourist gets
closer to the heart Of the stranger COM
munity into which he penetrates In his
expeditions than does the ordinary
traveller, whether on business or pleas
urc bent, and this intimacy gives q
sympathetic insight into the lives and
characters OF those with whom he min.
giles. The friendships which hold be-
tween visiting sportsman and host may
appear individually of slight impor-
.tance In this resDect. but collectively