Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 111, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1916 — HOW NERVES CONTROL HABIT [ARTICLE]

HOW NERVES CONTROL HABIT

System Must Be Trained to Follow Called-For Motions Along a Certain Path. Those who think a habit is just something you remember —that is, is purely a mental proposition, are mistaken. Habit is a question of mechanics as much as the smooth drawing of a piston rod. Habit is the action of nerve motions along a beaten path. A muscle somewhere in the body contracts and a nerve moves because it cannot help iL and so on until the process is complete, and the thing we call habit is done. There are as many of these paths in the nervous system as there are habits. The impression which one nerve center receives awakens another and the whole path of the action is traveled over. The first time the action is performed the nerve centers do not awaken their successors readily. For this reason some things are hard to learn. Everything that employs a great many nerve centers is hard to learn, because the path must be worn, the nerve centers trained to act in sequence. Once they are trained the habit is formed. The second call upon them is easier than the first, the third easier than the second, etc.