assumes a painful tyranny over him that he begins to look for a way of escape, and finally abandons the bad for something better.
No man is helplessly bound. The very law by which he has become a self-bound slave will enable him to become a self-emancipated master. To know this, he has but to act upon it,—that is, deliberately and strenuously to abandon the old lines of thought and conduct, and diligently fashion new and better lines. That he may not accomplish this in a day, a week, a month, a year, or five years, should not dishearten and dismay him. Time is required for the new repetitions to become established, and the old ones to be broken up; but the law of habit is certain and infallible, and a line of effort patiently pursued and never abandoned, is sure to be crowned with success; for if a bad condition, a mere negation, can become fixed and firm, how much more surely can a good condition, a positive prin-
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