This reference to absent objects is possible through association and habit.

Though Releston's face remained emotionless, as it did through habit, his eyes told their story.

People continually follow scripts which are acquired through habit, practice and simple routine.

Tm tired and I was going on merely through habit.

It is a part of man's nature to adapt itself through habit even to pain and sorrow.

Through mood, through habit, one could build one's own face.

Population turnover was small, and people clung through habit to the same physicians they had been doing business with for years.

Through long habit, the women ignored him, raising their voices.

Long ago he had worked out a "random" selection of bunks for special attention and now followed it through habit.

They don't simply come through repetitive habit do they?