The influence of habit in reference to _emotions_ deserves special attention as having a direct influence upon character and happiness. All pleasurable emotions of mind, being grateful, are indulged and cherished, and are not weakened by repetition unless they become excessive. If the pleasures of sense are indulged beyond a certain extent, the bodily system is exhausted, and satiety is the consequence. If the love of power and admiration is indulged to excess, so as to become the leading purpose of life, they are found to be cloying. But, within certain limits, all pleasurable emotions do not seem to lessen in power by repetition. But in regard to painful emotions the reverse is true. The mind instinctively resists or flies from them, so that often a habit of suppressing such emotions is formed, until the susceptibility diminishes, and sometimes appears almost entirely destroyed. Thus a person often exposed to danger ceases to be troubled by fear, because he forms a habit of suppressing it. A person frequently in scenes of distress and suffering learns to suppress the emotions of painful sympathy. The surgeon is an example of the last case, where, by repeated operations, he has learned to suppress emotions until they seldom recur. A person inured to guilt gradually deadens the pangs of remorse, until the conscience becomes “seared as with a hot iron.” Thus, also, with the emotion of shame. After a person has been repeatedly exposed to contempt, and feels that he is universally despised, he grows callous to any such emotions. The mode by which the mind succeeds in forming such a habit seems to be by that implanted principle which makes ideas that are most in consonance with the leading desire of the mind become vivid and distinct, while those that are less interesting fade away. Now no person desires to witness pain except from the hope of relieving it, unless it be that, in anger, the mind is sometimes gratified with the infliction of suffering. But, in ordinary cases, the sight of suffering is avoided except where relief can be administered. In such cases, the desire of administering relief becomes the leading one, so that the mind is turned off from the view of the suffering to dwell on conceptions of modes of relief. Thus the surgeon and physician gradually form such habits that the sight of pain and suffering lead the mind to the conception of modes of relief, whereas a mind not thus interested dwells on the more painful ideas.