The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1903-04-30
POWER OF HABIT.

follow without eff )rt or thought,
and is applicable to mental, NOR.
al and physical things. La Bru.
yere has a witty saying to the eff
feet that a slave has but one mas
ter, but that the ambitious man
has as many masters as there are
persons in the world who have it
in their power to contribute to
his coveted advancement. So it
is with habit; a man is verita ble
slave TO habit that is inveterate
and confirmed, for habit is, as
Montaigne says, second nature;
and when habits of every kind
and in all relations are consider
ed there will be no disputing the
weighty dictum of Bacon that
'custom is the principal magis-
trate of man s life"
The power of habit, even the
tyranny of habit, is Illustrated in
the daily life Of almost any man.
One man, for instance, has con-
tracted the habit of drinking to
excess; the more he drinks the
more he wants TO drink, and long
after the practice has ceased to
yield him any qualification of any
kind, and, indeed, when 1t is the
source Of the greatest mental and
physical anguish, he still contin-
ues to drink merely from the
force of a habit that has become
irresistible from frequent repeti-
ton, until he has lost self-con-
trol. A smoker who knows he is
smoking to excess feels that to.
bacco is bane to him and suf-
fers from the use of tobacco
while he is using it and from the
effects Of it afterward, yet con
times from the mere force of un-
reasoning habit to punish him
self.
"Whatever you would make
habitual," said an old Roman,
practice it; and if you would not
make a thing habltual do not
practice it, but habituate your
self TO something else" 1t is a
characteristic of habit that, like
sin, it is never at stay; if we do
not retreat from it we shall ad-
vance in it; and the farther on we
go the more We have to come
back. J." When the habit is fixed
the mans character is made for
good or evil, for says Bacon:
mems thoughts are much
according to their inclina-
tion; their discourse and
speeches according to their
learning and infused opln.
ions; but their deeds are aft
er as they have been accus-
toned.
AS the older the habit the
stronger it's hold, the Importance
of stunning evil habits and of
forming good ones in youth is vi.
tai, because it is easier to dig up
by the loots an oak tree than to
root out pad habits that have
''grown up with our growth"
they are a part of us. The for.
nation of habits is then the true
education; right habits make the
good man, and wrong habits the
bad man. Professor William
James, who holds the Chair of
Philosophy at Harvard, has a
suggestive sentence in his Talks
TO Teachers:
''The fact is that our vir.
tues are habits as much as
our vices. All our life, so far
as it has a definite form, is but
a mass OF habits-practical,
emotional and intellectual
systematically organized for
our veal or woe and bearing
US irresistibly toward our :
destiny, whatever the latter
may be. "
This is great truth, which is
inspiring tothose who wouldgrow
morally. The most astonishing
genius among the Greek philoso.
piers pointed out more than two
thousand years ago that virtue ID
not the result Of mere disposition
planted in US, but is the result OF
"doing." Nature he said gives us
the capacity of receiving virtues
and that capacity is perfected by