er to be undone.
Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little
scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses
himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this
time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not
count it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among his
nerve cells and fibres, the molecules are counting it, registering and
storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.
Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.[1]

[Footnote 1: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 127.]

SOCIAL INERTIA. If the acquisition of bad, that is, disserviceable
habits, is disastrous to the individual, it is in some respects
even worse in the group. The inertia of the nervous
system, the tendency to go on repeating connections that
have once been made is one of the strongest obstacles to
change, however desirable. It is not only that habits of
action have been established, but that with them go deep-seated
habits of thought and feeling. The repression of people's
accustomed ways of doing things may bring with it a sense of
frustration almost as complete and painful as if these
obstructed activities were instinctive. This is not true merely
in the melodramatic instances of drug addicts and drunkards.
It is true in the case of social habits which have become
established in a large group. Any Utopian that dreams of revolutionizing
society overnight fails to take into account the
enormous control of habits over groups which have acquired
them, and the powerful emotions, amounting sometimes to
passion, which are aroused by their frustration.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LEARNING HABIT. That habit is at
once the conserver and the petrifier of society has long been
recognized by social philosophers. There is one habit, however,
the acquisition of which is itself a preventive of the
complete domination of the individual or the group by hard and
fast routine. This is the habit of learning, which is necessary
to the acquisition of any habits at all. Man in learning new
habits, "learns to learn." This ability to learn is, of course,
correlated with a plasticity of brain and nerve fiber which is
most present in early youth. The disappearance of this
capacity is hastened by the pressure which forces individuals in
their business and professional life to cling fast to certain
habits which are prized and rewarded by the group. A sedul