We learn by conscious effort to talk and
write, to sing, or play the piano. Afterward we frame each letter or
note automatically, and think only of the idea and its expression.
So also in our moral and spiritual nature.[A]
[Footnote A: Mr. James Freeman Clarke has stated this better than I
can. "We may state the law thus: 'Any habitual course of conduct
changes voluntary actions into automatic or involuntary (_i.e._,
reflex) actions.' By practice man forms habits, and habitual action
is automatic action, requiring no exercise of will except at the
beginning of the series of acts. The law of association does the
rest. As voluntary acts are transformed into automatic, the will is
set free to devote itself to higher efforts and larger attainments.
After telling the truth a while by an effort, we tell the truth
naturally, necessarily, automatically. After giving to good objects
for a while from principle, we give as a matter of course. Honesty
becomes automatic; self-control becomes automatic. We rule over our
spirit, repress ill-temper, keep down bad feelings, first by an
effort, afterwards as a matter of course.
"Possibly these virtues really become incarnate in the bodily
organization. Possibly goodness is made flesh and becomes
consolidate in the fibres of the brain.
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