When there exists an inherited or instinctive tendency to the
performance of an action, or an inherited taste for certain kinds of
food, some degree of habit in the individual is often or generally
requisite. We find this in the paces of the horse, and to a certain
extent in the pointing of dogs; although some young dogs point
excellently the first time they are taken out, yet they often associate
the proper inherited attitude with a wrong odour, and even with
eyesight. I have heard it asserted that if a calf be allowed to suck
its mother only once, it is much more difficult afterwards to rear it
by hand.[103] Caterpillars which have been fed on the leaves of one
kind of tree, have been known to perish from hunger rather than to eat
the leaves of another tree, although this afforded them their proper
food, under a state of nature;[104] and so it is in many other cases.
The power of Association is admitted by everyone. Mr. Bain remarks,
that “actions, sensations and states of feeling, occurring together or
in close succession, tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a way
that when any one of them is afterwards presented to the mind, the
others are apt to be brought up in idea.”[105] It is so important for
our purpose fully to recognize that actions readily become associated
with other actions and with various states of the mind, that I will
give a good many instances, in the first place relating to man, and
afterwards to the lower animals. Some of the instances are of a very
trifling nature, but they are as good for our purpose as more important
habits. It is known to everyone how difficult, or even impossible it
is, without repeated trials, to move the limbs in certain opposed
directions which have never been practised. Analogous cases occur with
sensations, as in the common experiment of rolling a marble beneath the
tips of two crossed fingers, when it feels exactly like two marbles.
Everyone protects himself when falling to the ground by extending his
arms, and as Professor Alison has remarked, few can resist acting thus,
when voluntarily falling on a soft bed. A man when going out of doors
puts on his gloves quite unconsciously; and this may seem an extremely
simple operation, but he who has taught a child to put on gloves, knows
that this is by no means the case.
When our minds are much affected, so are the movements of our bodies;
but here another principle besides habit, namely the undirected
overflow of nerve-force, partially comes into play. Norfolk, in
speaking of Cardinal Wolsey, says—
“Some strange commotion
Is in his brain; he bites his lip and starts;
Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,
Then, lays his finger on his temple: straight,
Springs out into fast gait; then, stops again,
Strikes his breast hard; and anon, he casts
His eye against the moon: in most strange postures
We have seen him set himself.”—_Hen. VIII_., act iii, sc. 2.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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