HABIT
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HABIT
take root there, since otherwise it would be necessary
later on to eradicate them and perhaps transplant
them somewhere else. Hence all habits necessary to
human perfection must be cultivated so as to be
grooved into one another. Hence also the principle
of negative education advocated by Rousseau is inad-
missible. In early years, according to him, " the only
habit which the child should be allowed to form is that
of contracting no habit whatsoever ", not even that of
using one hand rather than the other, or that of eating,
sleeping, acting at the same regular hours. Up to
twelve, the child should not be able to distinguish its
right from its left hand. With regard to intelhgence
and will, " the first education must be purely negative.
It consists not in teaching virtue or truth, but in
guarding the heart against vice and the mind against
error". To judge this principle, it must be remem-
bered that there are three perioils in the development
of activity: one of diffusion during which actions take
place largely at random, and the energy is dispersed in
many channels; the second of effort at co-ordination
during which the proper modes of functioning are
selected and practised; the third of habit which re-
moves everything superfluous, and greatly facilitates
correct modes of functioning. To prolong the first of
these periods, since the last is the most perfect, would
be an injustice against the child, who has a right not
only to the necessaries of life, but also to the help re-
quired for its development. Moreover, it may be
asked, how can the heart be guarded against vice, and
the mind against error, without showing what vice and
error are, and without teaching virtue and truth?
How in general can a bad habit be avoided or combat ed
more effectively than by the acquisition of the con-
trary habit? Experience shows that many good
habits, if not cultivated in childhood, are never ac-
quired at all, or not so perfectly, and defects in the
adult may often be traced back to early education.
To obtain the best results, it is important for the teacher to know the natural aptitudes of every pupil, for the effort which is possible for one might be, if re- quired of another, a source of discouragement, or exercise even a still more deleterious influence on the mind of the child. The use of rewards and punish- ments must always be made in a manner suited to the child's dispositions, and directed by the general effects of habit upon pleasurable and painful impressions and emotions. At the same time that habits grow, atten- tion has to be paid to their dangers, and the child must not be allowed to become a mere automaton. Habits of reflection and attention, together with de- termination and strength of will, will enable the child to control, direct, and govern other habits.
VI. In Aristotelean and Scholastic metaphysics habit comes untler the category called quality. To be the subject of habits a being must be in polcntia (see Actus et Potentia), i. e. capable of determination and perfection; and this potentia must not be re- stricted to only one mode of activity or receptivity, for, where there is absolute fixity, where one and the same line is invariably followed, there is no room for habit, which implies adaptation and specification. On the strength of this condition. Saint Thomas holds that habit properly so-called cannot be foimd in the material world, but only in the spiritual faculties of intellect and will. In man, however, we may speak of organic habits for such functions as are under the de- pendence of these spiritual faculties. Matter, even in plants and animals, is the subject merely of disposi- tions, and the difference between habit and disposition is that the former is more stable, the latter more easily changed. Against this position several objections have been urged. In the first place, the proposed dis- tinction of habit and disposition is not based on any- thing essential, but on a difference of degree, which seems insufficient to draw a strict line between beings that are the subjects of habits and those that are the
subjects of dispositions only. If it is clear that moral
habits of will differ from merely organic habits, it is
impossible to say why e. g. the habit of a horse of stop-
ping at certain places, or the habits of trained animals
differ radically from human habits of skill and dexter-
ity and why to the latter alone the name of habits can
be given. Furthermore it is true, as Aristotle re-
marks, that, bj' being thrown in the air, a stone will
never acquire any facility for taking the same direc-
tion, but will always tend to fall toward the centre of
attraction according to a vertical line; and that after
any number of revolutions in the same direction
a mill-stone acquires no facility for that special
movement, unless it be an extrinsic one due to the
adaptation of the mechanism. Nevertheless, in
proportion as the elements of a material system
are more varied, there is room for different ar-
rangements, and consequently for new permanent
aptitudes. In the sheet of paper which, after being
folded, is more easily folded again; in the clothes or
shoes which fit better after being worn for some time;
in the mechanism which gives the best results after
some functioning; in the violin which good use im-
proves and bad use deteriorates, in domestic or
trained animals, etc., there is something at least ana-
logical to habit, and which cannot be distinguished
from it on the mere ground of greater changeableness.
Hence if habit is considered exclusively from the point of view of retentiveness, there is no reason to deny its e.xistence in the material world. It has been even said that, being simply an application of the law of inertia, it finds its maximum of application in inor- ganic matter, which, unless acted on by some contrary force, keeps indefinitely its modifications and condi- tions of rest or movement. Hence James writes that " the philosophy of haljit is thus, in the first instance, a chapter in physics rather than in physiology or psy- chology" (Principles of Psychology, I, 105), How- ever, since habit means essentially the specificizing of that which was indetermined, and the fixating of that which was indifferent, from this point of view of plas- ticity, adaptability, indetermination, .selectiveness, it applies more strictly to organic than to inorganic mat- ter, and more strictly still to the will which is capable even of such contrary determinations as temperance and intemperance, speaking the truth and lying, and, in general, of acting in one or another way and of ab- staining entirely from action.
VII. In theologj', the question of habits has several important applications. In fundamental morals, its discussion is necessary for the determination of the degree of responsibility in human actions, and the treatise dc panitcntid deals with the attitude to be taken by the confessor toward penitents who habit- ually fall into the same sins, with the rules for granting or denying absolution, and with the advice to be given such persons in order to help them out of their habits. The scholastics, using a terminology which is little in accordance with the modern meaning of habit and somewhat confusing to the lay reader, make a distinc- tion between natural and supernatural, and between acquired and infused habits. Of the natural habits some are acquired by practice, others are innate like the hnbilus primorum principioriim, that is, the innate aptitude of the human mind to gra.sp at once the truth of self-evident principles as soon as their meaning is understood. Supernatural habits cannot be acquired, since they direct man to his supernatural end, and, therefore, are above the exigencies and the forces of nature. They suppose a higher principle, given by God, which is sanctifying or "habitual" grace. With ha- bitual grace the three theological virtues, which are also hubituts supernaturalef:, and, according to the more common opinion, the four cardinal virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, are infused in the soul. Of themselves, such " habitus" give no facility to act, but only the power, the mere potentia. The facility —
