If the reader’s interest can be aroused in this connexion, all-important benefits must accrue in even the simplest spheres of daily life. Furthermore, the more difficult problems of living will be sensibly considered without fear of the disastrous results which are now so common. VII NOTES AND INSTANCES Since this book was published in England, I have received a steady flow of letters from interested readers, lay and professional, which have been of great value to me. Among this correspondence, three pertinent questions occur again and again, and I am forced to infer (1) that these points are of peculiar interest to my readers and (2) that no satisfactory explanation of them is suggested by the application of the broad principles I have laid down. I feel, therefore, that in this, the American edition of my work, it may be well to treat these questions and various other matters which arise out of them for the benefit of future readers. The three main questions—two of which occur in about eighty per cent. of letters I have received—are these: (1) What is the correct standing position, and the position of mechanical advantage? (2) How is the reader to apply the principles of conscious control as here laid down, to specific bad habits such as overindulgence, whether in tobacco, alcohol, particular foods, etc., or to the cure of such diseases as asthma, tuberculosis, constipation, spinal curvature, appendicitis? (3) What are the outward signs of improvement to be noted during treatment, and are there scientific reasons for these results? In this connection I have several times been asked to give particulars of some of my more striking and representative cases. I will take these three questions _seriatim_, and devote as much space as possible to each of them. I. “_What is the correct standing position, and the position of mechanical advantage?_”