Habits are no new things under the sun. We have always been subject to them. They are the tyrants which have always ruled us, with silken scepters when they have been good, with iron ones when they have been bad. They are the ways of action into which men educate themselves. Habits are the things of education. They are made by repeated actions of the same kind. The hand of the pianist is educated by long drills to touch the right keys for a known tune. The hand of the mechanic is trained to do its familiar work deftly and almost without thought. The hand of the ready writer is habituated to the act of making letters and words. Men learn to walk so that they walk without thinking of it. Much of our routine life is habit. It is usually called automatic action, that is, machine-like action, or action without apparent thought. Talking, like walking, is very largely automatic action, or habit of the vocal organs. All automatic action is simply habitual action, and all habitual action is that to which we are educated. Habit, therefore, is education. It is illustrated in singing. It is wonderful to what skill the voice may be trained, how it may be habituated trill and quaver, to be soft or to be loud, tender or passionate, as sentiment of the song requires.

In the beginning of this article, therefore, we fix it that habit is an educated action of the mind or body, or both. Any faculty of the mind may be trained to a habit. Any appetite, or passion, or taste may be trained to a habit. We have our habits of thinking, feeling, laughing, weeping, walking, talking, sleeping, waking, eating, drinking, greeting and parting, as well as in most everything we do. We are creatures of habit, far more than we realize till we carefully study the matter.

We repeat, this is no new thing. Jeremiah gave this counsel twenty-five hundred years ago: "make your ways and your doing good." Habit is a well-trodden way, a worn path for the feet, a uniform style of doing.

Make your own ways--your own habits--good, is what Jeremiah meant. And this accords with our experience and observation of life. We largely make our own ways--our own habits. We are, in a sense, creators. We create thought, will, purpose, character, action, habit, ways in which to walk. We determine many things for ourselves, and nothing more than the habits we adopt. Our habits are our own, self-made.

We never buy habits as we buy goods. No merchant keeps habits for sale. No banker uses habits for currency. No neighbor has habits to lend, so they cannot be borrowed any more than bought. Though every man has habits of his own, he never sells or lends them. We may learn habits of others, but we do not buy them nor borrow them. Whether we take up habits of ourselves or learn them from others, we have to make them anew before they become our own. Yes, we make our own habits for the most part. Parents lead their children to form many habits before they have any will in the matter, and we all show others our most common habits, that they may choose them or refuse them, but after all they are not ours, till they have become ingrained in our life by our acceptance of them. As much as we make anything, we make our own habits.