the fulfillment of instinctive and habitual
impulses, and those unpleasantly toned which accompany
their frustration, it becomes, as Aristotle pointed out, of the
most "serious importance" early to habituate men to the
performance of socially useful actions. If good or useful
actions are early made habitual, their performance will bring
pleasure, and will thereby be better insured than by any
amount of preaching or punishment. If the actions which
the group approves are not early made habitual in the younger
members of the group, they will not be enforced either through
logic or electrocution. It is not enough to give people reasons
for doing good, they will only do it consistently if the opposite
arouses in them more or less abhorrence. People learn to
modify their actions on the basis of the pleasure or pain they
find in their performance, and the pleasure or pain they will
experience depends on the actions to which they are habituated
and the emotions which have come to be their characteristic
accompaniments.

CHAPTER III

REFLECTION.

INSTINCT AND HABIT _VERSUS_ REFLECTION. In the two types of
behavior already discussed, man is, as it were, "pushed from
behind." In the case of instinct he performs an action simply
because he _must_ perform it. Willy-nilly he withdraws his
hand from fire, eats when hungry, and sleeps when tired. In
the case of habits, once they are acquired, he is also largely
dominated by circumstances beyond his own control. The
bottle is to the confirmed drunkard almost an irresistible command
to drink, the alarm clock to one accustomed to it an
equally imperative and not-to-be-disregarded order to arise.
The story of the old veteran who was carrying home his dinner
and who dropped his hands to his side and his dinner to the
gutter when a practical joker called "Attention"; the pathetic
plight of the superannuated business man who is totally at a
loss away from his familiar duties, are often quoted illustrations
of how completely habit may determine a man's actions.

But while in a large portion of our daily duties we are thus
at the beck and call of the instincts which are our inheritance
and the habits which we have acquired, we may also _control_
our actions. Instead of performing actions as immediate and
automatic responses to accustomed stimuli, we may determine
our actions, single or consecutive, in the light of absent
and future results. To act thus is to act reflectively, a