"Washing the hands with invisible soap In a bowl of invisible water."
"We are continually denying that we have habits which we have been practising all our lives," says Beecher. "Here is a man who has lived forty or fifty years; and a chance shot sentence or word lances him, and reveals to him a trait which he has always possessed, but which, until now, he had not the remotest idea that he possessed. For forty or fifty years he has been fooling himself about a matter as plain as the nose on his face."
Had the angels been consulted, whether to create man, with this principle introduced, that, _if a man did a thing once, if would be easier the second time, and at length would be done without effort_, they would have said, "Create!"
Remember that habit is an arrangement, a principle of human nature, which we must use to increase the efficiency and ease of our work in life.
"Make sobriety a habit, and intemperance will be hateful; make prudence a habit, and reckless profligacy will be as contrary to the course of nature in the child, or in the adult, as the most atrocious crimes are to any of us."
Out of hundreds of replies from successful men as to the probable cause of failure, "bad habits" was in almost every one.
How easy it is to be n.o.body; it is the simplest thing in the world to drift down the stream, into bad company, into the saloon; just a little beer, just a little gambling, just a little bad company, just a little killing of time, and the work is done.
New Orleans is from five to fifteen feet below high water in the Mississippi River. The only protection to the city from the river is the levee. In May, 1883, a small break was observed in the levee, and the water was running through. A few bags of sand or loads of dirt would have stopped the water at first; but it was neglected for a few hours, and the current became so strong that all efforts to stop it were fruitless. A reward of five hundred thousand dollars was offered to any man who would stop it; but it was too late--it could not be done.
Beware of "small sins" and "white lies."
A man of experience says: "There are four good habits,--punctuality, accuracy, steadiness, and dispatch. Without the first, time is wasted; without the second, mistakes the most hurtful to our own credit and interest, and those of others, may be committed; without the third, nothing can be well done; and without the fourth, opportunities of great advantage are lost, which it is impossible to recall."
Abraham Lincoln gained his clear precision of statement of propositions by practise, and Wendell Phillips his wonderful English diction by always thinking and conversing in excellent style.
"Family customs exercise a vast influence over the world. Children go forth from the parent-nest, spreading the habits they have imbibed over every phase of society. These can easily be traced to their sources."
"To be sure, this is only a trifle in itself; but, then, the manner in which I do every trifling thing is of very great consequence, because it is just in these little things that I am forming my business habits.
I must see to it that I do not fail here, even if this is only a small task."
"A physical habit is like a tree grown crooked. You can not go to the orchard, and take hold of a tree grown thus, and straighten it, and say, "Now keep straight!" and have it obey you. What can you do? You can drive down a stake, and bind the tree to it, bending it back a little, and scarifying the bark on one side. And if, after that, you bend it back a little more every month, keeping it taut through the season, and from season to season, at length you will succeed in making it permanently straight. You can straighten it, but you can not do it immediately; you must take one or two years for it."
Sir George Staunton visited a man in India who had committed murder; and in order not only to save his life, but what was of much greater consequence to him, his caste, he had submitted to a terrible penalty,--to sleep for seven years on a bed, the entire top of which was studded with iron points, as sharp as they could be without penetrating the flesh. Sir George saw him during the fifth year of his sentence. His skin then was like the hide of a rhinoceros; and he could sleep comfortably on his bed of thorns, and he said that at the end of the seven years he thought he should use the same bed from choice. What a vivid parable of a sinful life! Sin, at first a bed of thorns, after a time becomes comfortable through the deadening of moral sensibility.
When the suspension bridge over Niagara River was to be erected, the question was, how to get the cable over. With a favoring wind a kite was elevated, which alighted on the opposite sh.o.r.es. To its insignificant string a cord was attached, which was drawn over, then a rope, then a larger one, then a cable; finally the great bridge was completed, connecting the United States with Canada.
First across the gulf we cast Kite-borne threads till lines are pa.s.sed, And habit builds the bridge at last.
"Launch your bark on the Niagara River," said John B. Gough; "it is bright, smooth, and beautiful, Down the stream you glide on your pleasure excursion. Suddenly some one cries out from the bank, "Young men, ahoy!" "What is it?"
""The rapids are below you." "Ha! ha! we have heard of the rapids, but we are not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then we shall up with the helm, and steer to the sh.o.r.e. Then on, boys, don"t be alarmed--there is no danger."
""Young men, ahoy there!" "What is it?" "The rapids are below you!"
"Ha! ha! we will laugh and quaff. What care we for the future? No man ever saw it. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will enjoy life while we may, will catch pleasure as it flies. There"s time enough to steer out of danger."
""Young men, ahoy!" "What is it?" "Beware! Beware! The rapids are below you!"
"Now you see the water foaming all around. See how fast you pa.s.s that point! Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard! Quick, quick! Pull for your lives! Pull till the blood starts from the nostrils, and the veins stand like whip-cords upon the brow! Set the mast in the socket!
hoist the sail--ah! ah! it is too late! Shrieking, cursing, howling, blaspheming, over you go.
"Thousands go over the rapids every year, through the power of habit, crying all the while, "When I find out that it is injuring me, I will give it up!""
A community is often surprised and shocked at some crime. The man was seen on the street yesterday, or in his store, but he showed no indication that he would commit such crime to-day. Yet the crime committed to-day is but a regular and natural sequence of what the man did yesterday and the day before. It was but a result of the fearful momentum of all his past habits.
A painter once wanted a picture of innocence, and drew from life the likeness of a child at prayer. The little suppliant was kneeling by his mother. The palms of his hands were reverently pressed together, and his mild blue eyes were upturned with the expression of devotion and peace. The portrait was much prized by the painter, who hung it up on his wall, and called it "Innocence." Years pa.s.sed away, and the artist became an old man. Still the picture hung there. He had often thought of painting a counterpart,--the picture of guilt,--but had not found the opportunity. At last he effected his purpose by paying a visit to a neighboring jail. On the damp floor of his cell lay a wretched culprit heavily ironed. Wasted was his body, and hollow his eyes; vice was visible in his face. The painter succeeded admirably; and the portraits were hung side by side for "Innocence" and "Guilt."
The two originals of the pictures were discovered to be one and the same person,--first, in the innocence of childhood! second, in the degradation of guilt and sin and evil habits.
Will-power can be so educated that it will focus the thought upon the bright side of things, upon objects which lift and elevate. Habits of contentment and goodness may be formed the same as any others.
Walking upon the quarter-deck of a vessel, though at first intolerably confining, becomes by custom so agreeable to a sailor that on sh.o.r.e he often hems himself within the same bounds. Lord Kames tells of a man who, having relinquished the sea for a country life, reared an artificial mount, with a level summit, resembling a quarter-deck not only in shape, but in size, where he generally walked. When Franklin was superintending the erection of some forts on the frontier, as a defense against the Indians, he slept at night in a blanket on a hard floor; and, on his first return to civilized life, he could hardly sleep in a bed. Captain Ross and his crew, having been accustomed, during their polar wanderings, to lie on the frozen snow or a bare rock, afterwards found the accommodations of a whaler too luxurious for them, and the captain exchanged his hammock for a chair.
Two sailors, who had been drinking, took a boat off to their ship.
They rowed but made no progress; and presently each began to accuse the other of not working hard enough. l.u.s.tily they plied the oars, but after another hour"s work still found themselves no farther advanced.
By this time they had become tolerably sober; and one of them, looking over the side, said to the other, "Why, Tom, we haven"t pulled the anchor up yet." And thus it is with those who are anch.o.r.ed to something of which they are not conscious, perhaps, but which impedes their efforts, even though they do their very best.
"A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the chances or the pa.s.sions of an hour!" exclaims Ruskin.
"A youth thoughtless, when his every act is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now,--though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be n.o.bly thoughtless,--his deathbed.
No thinking should ever be left to be done there."
Sir James Paget tells us that a practised musician can play on the piano at the rate of twenty-four notes a second. For each note a nerve current must be transmitted from the brain to the fingers, and from the fingers to the brain. Each note requires three movements of a finger, the bending down and raising up, and at least one lateral, making no less than seventy-two motions in a second, each requiring a distinct effort of the will, and directed unerringly with a certain speed, and a certain force, to a certain place.
Some can do this easily, and be at the same time busily employed in intelligent conversation. Thus, by obeying the law of habit until repet.i.tion has formed a second nature, we are able to pa.s.s the technique of life almost wholly over to the nerve centers, leaving our minds free to act or enjoy.
All through our lives the brain is constantly educating different parts of the body to form habits which will work automatically from reflex action, and thus is delegated to the nervous system a large part of life"s duties. This is nature"s wonderful economy to release the brain from the drudgery of individual acts, and leave it free to command all its forces for higher service.
Man"s life-work is a masterpiece or a botch, according as each little habit has been perfectly or carelessly formed.
It is said that if you invite one of the devil"s children to your home the whole family will follow. So one bad habit seems to have a relationship with all the others. For instance, the one habit of negligence, slovenliness, makes it easier to form others equally bad, until the entire character is honeycombed by the invasion of a family of bad habits.
A man is often shocked when he suddenly discovers that he is considered a liar. He never dreamed of forming such a habit; but the little misrepresentations to gain some temporary end, had, before he was aware of it, made a beaten track in the nerve and brain tissue, until lying has become almost a physical necessity. He thinks he can easily overcome this habit, but he will not. He is bound to it with cords of steel; and only by painful, watchful, and careful repet.i.tion of the exact truth, with a special effort of the will-power at each act, can he form a counter trunk-line in the nerve and brain tissue. Society is often shocked by the criminal act of a man who has always been considered upright and true. But, if they could examine the habit-map in his nervous mechanism and brain, they would find the beginnings of a path leading directly to his deed, in the tiny repet.i.tions of what he regarded as trivial acts. All expert and technical education is built upon the theory that these trunk-lines of habit become more and more sensitive to their accustomed stimuli, and respond more and more readily.
We are apt to overlook the physical basis of habit. Every repet.i.tion of an act makes us more likely to perform that act, and discovers in our wonderful mechanism a tendency to perpetual repet.i.tion, whose facility increases in exact proportion to the repet.i.tion. Finally the original act becomes voluntary from a natural reaction.
It is cruel to teach the vicious that they can, by mere force of will-power, turn "about face," and go in the other direction, without explaining to them the scientific process of character-building, through habit-formation. What we do to-day is practically what we did yesterday; and, in spite of resolutions, unless carried out in this scientific way, we shall repeat to-morrow what we have done to-day.
How unfortunate that the science of habit-forming is not known by mothers, and taught in our schools, colleges, and universities! It is a science compared with which other departments of education sink into insignificance. The converted man is not always told that the great battle is yet before him; that he must persistently, painfully, prayerfully, and with all the will-power he possesses, break up the old habits, and lay counter lines which will lead to the temple of virtue.
He is not told that, in spite of all his efforts, in some unguarded moment, some old switch may be left open, some old desire may flash along the line, and that, possibly before he is aware of it, he may find himself yielding to the old temptation which he had supposed to be conquered forever.
An old soldier was walking home with a beefsteak in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other, when some one yelled, "Halt! Attention!"
Instantly the veteran came to a stand; and, as his arms took the position of "attention," eggs and meat went tumbling into the street, the accustomed nerves responding involuntarily to the old stimulus.
Paul evidently understood the force of habit. "I find, then," he declares, "the law, that to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of G.o.d after the inward man; but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law in my mind, and bringing me into captivity, under the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" He referred to the ancient custom of binding a murderer face to face with the dead body of his victim, until suffocated by its stench and dissolution.
"I would give a world, if I had it," said an unfortunate wretch, "to be a true man; yet in twenty-four hours I may be overcome and disgraced with a shilling"s worth of sin."
"How shall I a habit break?"
As you did that habit make.
As you gathered, you must lose; As you yielded, now refuse.
Thread by thread the strands we twist, Till they bind us, neck and wrist; Thread by thread the patient hand Must untwine, ere free we stand; As we builded, stone by stone, We must toil unhelped, alone, Till the wall is overthrown.