concern us. Neither is the question if the impulse be good or bad.

Yielding to the impulse, doing the thing impelled, makes it very much more probable that the next time that same impulse is felt, the action will follow. This establishes a path of motor discharge, which is perhaps the best physiological definition of habit. All reflex arcs follow this law, the sensation having gotten in, the efferent impulse probably follows the path of least resistance. We can imagine that with the initial impulse, like the brook trickling from a snow-bank, the slightest obstacle may divert its course, but the grooving effect soon converts this slight obstruction into a high bank, so that nothing less than a freshet can overcome the barrier.

It is not claimed that the psychical is absolutely predestined like the physical. Were it so, effort at a change would be unavailing. Here comes in the human will, the impulse from without, if you please. Given the impulse to change a habit, or to form a new one, the one essential is the immediate action, the breaking down of the barrier for this once. As Emerson puts it: "When the divine moment of the soul comes, leave your theory like Joseph his coat in the hands of the harlot and flee." I

The next time this same impulse is felt, the previous action serves as a groove, be it ever so shallow. The moral implication is so much in evidence that it is difficult to wholly exclude it. Perhaps the 'Essay on Self-reliance.

easiest way to surmount the difficulty is to enlarge our definition of morals. Such aphorisms as " Man is a mere bundle of habits," and " Order is Heaven's first law," show that, after all, the really important thing is care in forming one's habits.

There is also an economic side to the question. Take, for example, the act of buttoning one's coat, it is really a very complicated composite of afferent and efferent impulses, and all done unconsciously. Watch the young child as he painfully learns each part of the process.

With the adult all that is necessary is the initial impulse, either conscious or unconscious. The resulting action of the contact of the finger with the buttonhole becomes the impulse for the next specific act, and so on thru the whole series. The psychological term for this is a concatenated impulse. The word is derived from con (together) and catena (a chain), meaning literally chained together.

It thus becomes apparent that, after the formation of the habit, cerebration has simply to concern itself with one impulse instead of the many to bring about a complicated series of movements. Were it not for this fact we could accomplish very little during a lifetime. But the act of yesterday becoming the habit of to-day, leaves time for further research and progress. Just in proportion as habit may become a strong ally, so it may also become a terrible enemy.

Professor James tells us that professional habits become fixed between the twentieth and thirtieth

years. What shall these habits be? Reading and study must occupy a large part of the physician's spare time. He should form the habit of extracting the important items from a mass of unimportant detail. Certain general principles apply, whether it be a current magazine or an exhaustive treatise. Euclid is credited with the saying, "There is no royal road to geometry." Yet there is a royal habit to be cultivated, which will make the road easy to the acquisition of any subject. Nearly every book has a preface and a table of contents. Many people form the very bad habit of skipping both. This plunges one into the details of a subject without any comprehensive view. The logical habit is just the reverse. A general idea of a subject as a whole is the first essential.

One can seldom do better than to commence with the title-page, which furnishes information about the author, his position in the professional world, and some hint as to the reliability of his statements. The table of contents gives in a broad way the matter presented, and, what is also of equal importance, the logical sequence of the data and argument. Intelligent reading is said to be wise skipping, but wise skipping requires a general grasp, else the skipping is a dangerous habit. This habit will ensure the student against plodding thru a mass of detail, which he soon forgets because he fails to see its relation to the whole. The secret of remembering is this. Details are important only as they cluster

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around and attach themselves to the main thoughts. This method of study will enable one to retain. An educated man has been defined as one who knows where to go to get information." This is in distinction from the person whose brain is full of jumbled incoherent facts. The relationship between phenomena should be carefully noted, perhaps it would be better to say the relationships between different sets of phenomena. Let them all be concatenated, then recollection becomes literally a recollection. One idea suggests another with which we have associated it, and so on thru the series. It is only necessary to remember the beginning of the chain, and the rest is suggested. This is the principle in most of the so-called "memory helps."

But above all is it necessary to read understandingly. One chapter read well is better than the whole book read badly. Evidently each man's ability to digest a given subject will depend upon his education and previous habit. Emerson has said: "He must take himself for better for worse as his portion, though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."

The economic value of intellectual habits becomes apparent when it is understood that habits of mind, as well as of body functions, are soon relegated to the domain of the subconscious. Idiosyncrasies of I 1 Essay on Self-reliance.

thinking and talking are so much a matter of common experience that the importance of the subject has been very generally overlooked. The next time you are at a club meeting and some one is called upon to discuss a paper, it will be of interest to you to forecast and predict, not only the little mannerisms of address and phraseology, yes, even the argumentative machinery.

You may not know this man's opinion on the special subject at hand, but if he be a person to whom you have often listened, you can safely infer his method of taking up the subject. The relationships of any fact are so numerous, that one is almost sure to see this thing from the same point of view, as on other occasions he has seen other things. And the interesting part of it all is that the man himself seldom realizes that he has well-defined campaign plans ready made for all ordinary occasions.

The soldier knows, unconsciously (if you will allow that a thing can be known unconsciously), just what maneuvers a certain charge or retreat demand. His whole education from private to officer is a recognition of this principle. The story is told of an old soldier going home with his dinner. Altho having long since retired from service, the old subconscious habit was so strong, that when some one shouted "Attention!" his arms came down to the sides and his dinner dropped to the gutter. The ordinary explanation would be that he did it "without thinking." This is not far from the truth, if it