Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/488

 474 T^HE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

stances and very different customary conduct. While the force of the original nature should not be utterly disregarded, and some regard must be had to the influence of exceptional flowering reason, new dominating tendencies like an acquired or second nature may be created.

Nature — custom — reason: the greatest of these is custom. Criminal behavior may but express a want of regulated channels for the flow of vital force or lack of force. As the stagnant pools of a barren rivulet exhale malaria, and, as the freshet serves to spread pollution, so a low rate of vitality may account for vagrant impulses, and, when under even normal pressure, insufficiency or irregularity of ducts of habit may produce per- nicious conduct. Habit is formed by practice. By practice new nervous paths are made and connected. Movements of body and mind become more and more under conscious direction of the subject — from mere automatism through various stages until permanent change is wrought. Repeated efforts and movements which tend to produce right habits and, at the same time, disuse of every unsuitable activity may become so fixed in the constitu- tion that when any spring of action is touched, desirable action will follow and with reasonable certainty of result as a conse- quence of collaborated forces of mind and body. The degree of perfection of habit may be fairly estimated by the promptness and uniformity of the action responsive to the stimulus.

A signally distinguishing characteristic of the American Re- formatory Prison System is the importance attached and the attention given to methodical treatment of the material organism for renovation — mayhap a little of refining effect and adjust- ment of sense to mind. Such physical training is believed to be a rational basal principle of reformatory procedure.

ECONOMICS

Another distinguishing feature, still more important because it is the germinal, all-embracing principle from which every progress proceeds, is the use of the economic motive and training to thriftiness. This principle which is inherent in human nature and in the nature of things, plainly written in history, manifest