Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave… Connected with activity and practical life there are three modes or conditions of mind — impulse, will or purpose, and habit. These represent three stages of experience, and a good deal more. Impulse is a sudden development of feeling with degrees of force. The term itself carries with it, latently, an idea of outspring, of force. It is the clear, distinct working of a desire, of whatever kind, primarily of the lower form, and at last of the higher. In the order of time impulse is primitive. It was with the race primitive. There was a time when men were animals of impulse. As civilization dawned, and the civilizing elements were more and more mixed with the waywardness of life, they became creatures of purpose, of design, of will. The higher and the better of them after a time learned the secret, empirically, perhaps practically, of commuting a definite purpose into a fixed habit, which is the last step of evolution — unless you make the final step the inclusion of them altogether in still a higher sphere. Impulse comes in the children before will, and a long way before habit. In rude and early national life we see the same thing. Design is casual: impulse is universal. It works in the lower forms of national life, in the history of the unfolding of the race, as it works in the household in children. It works with fear, with combativeness, with pleasure, with mirth, and with love in its more circumscribed forms. Thus the household, being itself a miniature of that which is taking place upon national life everywhere, we see that in the earlier stages we are children of feeling, of impulse. The second element is will or purpose. What is will? I do not know. I recognize it when I see it or feel it; but what its component elements are, psychologically, I do not know; and after reading multitudes of books, I do not think anybody else does. But that there is a determining state of feeling, together with intellect, in the soul, there can be no doubt: and we may as well call it will, or purpose, or anything else. It is that which gives direction to the mind, and is itself directed by the impulses out of which, or by the combinations of which, it lives. In the state of will emotion turns to intellect, and uses experience. Now, the will, that it may not fade out, forms itself into habit. What is habit? It is to be described, but not to be defined. When a man first sets type he knows what he wants for a letter. That is one process. He is aware that it is in a particular compartment of the case, and he takes it out, and feels for the nick, to know which end up to put it, and puts it that way, performing three several operations. Little by little, as he goes on through the weary days, the process becomes, as it were, absorbed into itself, till seeing an expert compositor at the case to-day, there is no will, no intelligence in it. What is there in it? Habit. What is that habit? It is the parts that are operating it, doing it out of themselves. Without the recognition of the will, or the purpose of the will, it is automatic, self-done. And when an expert puts his hand to the case, your eye cannot follow the rapidity with which he will compose in this way. The beginning of it was at every step a thought and a purpose, but the completion of it has abolished thought and purpose. The muscle and the mind work together automatically. The complex elements, then, necessary for the purpose and the will acquire a tendency to go on without special stimulus. The mind, acting of itself, greatly condenses action and greatly augments facility dud power. This automatic condition which lies at the root of habit is of transcendent importance in physical things, in all industrial matters, in art, in moral relations. The mind becomes like a machine, which, when first started, must have the valves opened by the engineer's hand, but which has inter-connecting rods, such that when once it has begun it opens and shuts its own valves, and runs night and day, so long as it is supplied with water and fuel. Habit, as in the case of mechanical actions, should, when applied to the foot, to the hand, to the head, or to the mind, condense in itself both emotion and will. It does. But where most we need habit is in the development of moral qualities. A true Christian is like a well-plumbed house. He has but to turn on the light, and it is there always. He has but to turn on the faucet, and rivers and wells are at his service. An untrained man is like a family in the lower countries, where he has to go to a distant spring to bring in every bucket of water that he uses for culinary purposes; and what we want is not to have to pump up right feeling at the right time, but to have the right feeling, as it were, in the very structure of the soul, so that we have it always when needed. A man who has no patience but that which comes from instant reflection will have very little; but a man who has trained his patience so that it acts through habit automatically will, perhaps, not have the reputation of being patient; but if not, it is because the work is so perfect. It is the art of art to conceal art. If this is true in regard to that part of our emotion which develops itself in society, how much more important is it that we should recognize its truth in regard to conscience, the spirit of generosity, benevolence, humility, and meekness! Now, a word or two of criticism and of suggestion arising out of this distinction between impulse, will, and habit. A revival of religion is a revival of impulse in its earlier stages. If emotion, however, is taught in any church to lead on to a higher state, and the church is drilled to it, if the extraordinary work that is performed in a revival of religion is a part of the daily and weekly routine of church life, we can conceive that a church may be in such a state that, so far as its own self is concerned, it will always live in what is better than a revival. The term revival is usually attached to the freshness of the beginning impulse; whereas a condensed methodical church-life ought to have it in the whole force and continuity of habit. I hold that where a church is living a really Christian life there is nothing so converting as for persons from without to come into the community of that church and see its piety. A man listening to the actuality of real religion has a work performed on him that no amount of pulpit exhortation could ever secure. So, impulse ripened is better than impulse raw; but impulse raw is better than nothing; and through every stage of unfolding impulse ought to be continued; there are certain elements in it that are like the leaves of a tree. The fruit could not ripen if it were not for the freshly-coming leaves. When, on the other hand, training without impulse is resorted to, where men have fixed habits of belief, of conduct, and of duty, they are apt to become hard, mechanical, uninteresting, their life being all routine, and no innovation. Indeed, they become afraid of new things. They fear variety. They love to hear the old sounds. They like what is called "sound doctrine," which, half the time, is the doctrine of sound. They are afraid of any variation for they do not know where it will lead to. It will not lead to somnolency, as what may be called the hard and fixed methods do too frequently. What we want is to unite the advantages that come from all these three elements in the machinery of the mind — ever-fresh variety, springing from impulse; then fixity, or the organization of impulse into practical results; and then will, in the form of automatic conduct. When a man has these he is built up in all the departments of life, so that he serves himself with the greatest ease, and exerts the widest influence upon others — and that, too, with agreeableness, with cheer, which is one of the most beneficent elements of Christian life. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. |
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