There is a great diversity in human character, resulting from the diverse proportions and combinations of those powers of mind which the race have in common. [pg 097] At the same time, there is a variety in the scale of being, or relative grade of each mind. While all are alike in the common faculties of the human mind, some have every faculty on a much larger scale than others, while some are of a very humble grade.
The principle of habit has very great influence in modifying and changing these varieties. Thus, by forming habits of intellectual exercise, a mind of naturally humble proportions can be elevated considerably above one more highly endowed by natural constitution. So the training of some particular intellectual faculty, which by nature is deficient, can bring it up nearer to the level of other powers less disciplined by exercise.
In like manner, the natural susceptibilities can be increased, diminished or modified by habit. Certain tastes, that had little power, can be so cultivated as to overtop all others.
So of the moral nature: it can be so exercised that a habit will be formed which will generate a strength and prominency that nature did not impart.
One of the most important results of habit is its influence on faith or belief. Those persons who practice methods of false reasoning, who turn away from evidence and follow their feelings in forming opinions, eventually lose the power of sure, confiding belief.
On the contrary, an honest, conscientious steadiness in seeking the truth and in yielding to evidence, secures the firmest and most reliable convictions, and that peace of mind which alone results from believing the truth.
The will itself is also subject to this same principle. A strong will, that is trained to yield obedience to law [pg 098] in early life, acquires an ease and facility in doing it which belongs ordinarily to weak minds, and yet can retain all its vigor. And a mind that is trained to bring subordinate volitions into strict and ready obedience to a generic purpose, acquires an ease and facility in doing this which was not a natural endowment.
Thus it appears that by the principle of habit every mind is furnished with the power of elevating itself in the scale of being, and of so modifying and perfecting the proportions and combinations of its constitutional powers, that often the result is that there is no mode of distinguishing between the effects of habit and those of natural organization.