fication forms
a predisposition to easier and more effective action in a like direction
in the future. Thus it also has the function of making one experience
available in subsequent experiences. Within certain limits, it performs
this function successfully. But habit, apart from knowledge, does not
make allowance for change of conditions, for novelty. Prevision of
change is not part of its scope, for habit assumes the essential
likeness of the new situation with the old. Consequently it often leads
astray, or comes between a person and the successful performance of
his task, just as the skill, based on habit alone, of the mechanic
will desert him when something unexpected occurs in the running of the
machine. But a man who understands the machine is the man who knows what
he is about. He knows the conditions under which a given habit works,
and is in a position to introduce the changes which will readapt it to
new conditions.

In other words, knowledge is a perception of those connections of an
object which determine its applicability in a given situation. To
take an extreme example; savages react to a flaming comet as they are
accustomed to react to other events which threaten the security of
their life. Since they try to frighten wild animals or their enemies by
shrieks, beating of gongs, brandishing of weapons, etc., they use the
same methods to scare away the comet. To us, the method is plainly
absurd--so absurd that we fail to note that savages are simply falling
back upon habit in a way which exhibits its limitations. The only reason
we do not act in some analogous fashion is because we do not take
the comet as an isolated, disconnected event, but apprehend it in
its connections with other events. We place it, as we say, in the
astronomical system. We respond to its connections and not simply to
the immediate occurrence. Thus our attitude to it is much freer. We may
approach it, so to speak, from any one of the angles provided by its
connections. We can bring into play, as we deem wise, any one of the
habits appropriate to any one of the connected objects. Thus we get at
a new event indirectly instead of immediately--by invention, ingenuity,
resourcefulness. An ideally perfect knowledge would represent such a
network of interconnections that any past experience would offer a
point of advantage from which to get at the problem presented in a new
experience. In fine, while a habit apart from knowledge supplies us wi