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think thoughts, and hold opinions, simply because we have

thought so in the past, although the circumstances may have
altered materially. We get into a jog-trot of habit we fall into
the rut of routine and lose initiative thereby. The Suggestion
of Habit is strong with the majority of us.
There is a very good excuse for this development of the
Suggestion of Habit, for the majority of our daily actions and
activities are possible only through having learned them by
heart. In order to perform our tasks we must have first learned
them consciously, and with much expenditure of concentrated
attention; and then, having learned them, we have passed them
over to the habit-mind of the subconsciousness, that they
thereafter be performed automatically, and thus easily. The
New Psychology recognizes the important part played by habit
in mental operations and physical activities, and therefore urges
its students to cultivate the habits which will be beneficial to
them, and to inhibit those which may prove detrimental. And
it is in this same spirit that we are now calling your attention to
the effect of the Suggestion of Habit. We are not advising that
you do away with habit but that you select good habits of
thought and action, and then trust to them.
The mind of man is plastic, particularly in youth, the period
in which the majority of our mental and physical habits are
formed. As Romanes well states:
No change in childhood s early day,
No storm that raged, no thought that ran,
But leaves a track upon the clay,
Which slowly hardens into man.
In our book on The New Psychology we have given
directions whereby habits may be cultivated, restrained or
inhibited, which we shall not repeat here. The realization of the
effect of Suggestion of Habit will call your attention to the need
of taking account of the same, in the direction of restraint and
Suggestion of Habit and Repetition.