Habits and Morality

Habits and Morality.—The importance of habits in man’s moral life is very great. (a) Habits are an index to a man’s past career, for the ease and facility he now possesses through them is the result of many struggles and efforts and difficulties overcome, or of defeats and surrenders and neglected opportunities. (b) Habits constitute a man’s moral character. Morally, a person is the sum of his moral habits and dispositions grouped around the central interest or idea of his life. He who would know himself, therefore, cannot do better than to examine what are his habits, and which is the predominant one among them. (e) Habits are a prophecy of the future. Habits are not irresistible and do not destroy freedom, but they produce such ease and readiness for acting in one particular way that the probabilities are, when habits are strong, that a person will continue to follow them in the future as he has done in the past, thus progressing or deteriorating, as the case may be.

Duties as regards Habits.—(a) Bad habits should be avoided and those that have been formed should be destroyed (see 138). The means to accomplish these victories are divine help obtained through prayer and the other instrumentalities of grace, watchfulness through self-examination, and the cultivation of a spirit of self-denial, as well as attack made on the habit that is forming or already formed (see 255 sqq.)

(b) Good habits should be acquired, and those already possessed should be exercised and put to the best advantage. The means to this end, in addition to those that are supernatural, are especially a realization of the importance of good habits, a great desire to have them, and constant and regular effort to practise them (see 137).