In 1890, author William James published the book “The Principles of Psychology” and in it, a chapter titled Habit.
The book starts by describing creatures in nature and how they are a bundle of habits. Their daily behavior is cultivated by habits that were implanted at birth. He goes on to make other observations of nature and the plasticity of physical things. How things become immovable over time due to the shape that they are molded into. He talks of physics within the natural world.
He builds up to this simple premise: things grow into the model in which it has been exercised.