quasi-reflex in character. The intellectual phase is abbreviated away.
Habits are once voluntary and deliberated actions becoming
mechanical in this way, and slipping out of the sphere of mind. For
instance, many of the detailed movements of writing and walking
are performed without any attention to the details. An excessive
concentration of the attention upon one thing leads to
absent-mindedness, and to its consequent absurdities of
inappropriate, because imperfectly acquired, reflexes.