We would now direct your attention to habit—one of the most obvious and important elements in the formation of character. Its influence is felt in every sphere of your activity, its power extends to every faculty of your nature, and affects your personal, social, civil, and religious thought, feeling, and conduct. The nature of habit may be considered in two lights: first, an ease and excellence in doing a thing from having done it frequently; and secondly, a disposition to perform certain actions in the same way as you have done them before. Habit is thus the specific law of repetition. Dr. Reid explains the law of association by that of habit, and thus ascribes the effect of habit to a peculiar ultimate principle of the mind. He says, “That the trains of thinking, which, by frequent repetition, have become familiar, should spontaneously offer themselves to our fancy, seems to require no other original quality but the power of habit.” To this error, which others have fallen into, Sir W. Hamilton’s reply is unanswerable: “We can as well explain habit by association, as association by habit.” The first form of the influence of habit, then, which we have to consider, is that by which it occasions greater facility and skill in the performance of particular actions. In the lower animals, habits arise from the force of mere instinct, and, properly speaking, are not acquired by repetition. The bee builds its first cell, and gathers honey from the first flower, as easily and as well as at any future period. The bird selects the same material for its first nest that it selects for its last, and constructs it in the same sort of place, and of the same shape; and all as perfectly and easily the first time as ever afterwards. The beaver fells his first tree, and makes his first dam, with as little difficulty and as much skill as in any after period of his life. You have much more of reason than of instinct, and consequently acquire habits by repetition. Having chosen a certain course of action, you find that as you proceed you get on better, and that what was at first difficult, in course of time becomes easy. The pianist, sweeping the keys of her instrument, and emitting melodious notes and melting harmony; the rope-dancer, performing her wondrous feats, and keeping the exact point of equilibrium and graceful attitude, are illustrations—not so much of native talent, as of the degree to which habit may be developed. The second kind of influence which habit exercises, is a tendency to repeat the same actions under the same circumstances. Dr. Brown thus illustrates the power of indulged habit: “In the corruption of a great city, it is scarcely possible to look around, without perceiving some warning example of that blasting and deadening influence, before which, everything that was generous and benevolent in the heart has withered, while everything which was noxious has flourished with more rapid maturity; like those