12 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
tween them, meeting and overcoming at first a certain resist ance; but the connection between the cells becomes more firmly established with every passage of the impulse over that track, and so the resistance becomes less and less until after a while it practically ceases. As the connections are more securely fixed and the resistance declines, conscious ness disappears. After a time the impulse passes through, almost automatically, along this line of no resistance. Doubtless this is as nearly as we can describe the process. It leaves much to be desired in the way of explanation. The existence of so many established connections or " path ways " involving, it would seem, the same nervous elements it rather difficult to conceive; but as yet no other hypothe sis so plausible has been suggested. We are not concerned, however, with the physiological basis but only with the great significance of the fact of habit. There is no capability of the organism of greater practical importance than this. The reflexes and instincts represent the individual life as or ganized at birth; the habits represent the life as organ ized under the control of consciousness. As pointed out above, the habits may modify the strength of the in stincts, and, possibly, in some small measure, of the reflexes also, though the reflexes and instincts are not thereby elim inated. The habits are superimposed upon them, and act as organized reinforcements or inhibitions of them. One may, therefore, through the formation of habits organize his life to an almost unlimited extent. The true psycholo gist will not deny that new impartations of life may be made to the individual life from the psychical universe; but such impartations will in some way be conditioned by the adaptation of the individual life to that part of its envir onment, and the organization of these newly imparted im pulses or forces will be subject to the law of habit-formation, and the formation of habits takes place under the control of consciousness. When once the habit is thoroughly estab lished, consciousness is not concerned with it longer, except when the performance of its characteristic act is interfered
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