“In the meantime, however, if it is not asking too much, I should be extremely grateful to you if you could very kindly indicate the method you propose by which the principles could be applied in such cases as I have suggested....” Now, I may be doing the writer of this letter an injustice, but I am inclined to class him among the many enquirers who seem confidently to anticipate a miracle. In my introduction I have said, “In this brochure will be found no mention of royal roads, panaceas, or grand specifics,” yet I feel sure that some of my readers have, nevertheless, imagined that by some marvellous means they may be cured by taking thought, despite all that I have written with regard to that procedure. We see in one paragraph of the letter quoted above a nice example of the desire to lean towards any mechanical method. “The great attraction ... of the popular books on so-called ‘New Thought,’” we read, “is that they lay down clear and precise rules which can be put into practice.” It is true that I have not laid down any “clear and precise rules” which may cover every conceivable form of physical and mental trouble, as do the exponents of “New Thought” and “faith-healing,” and I think that my reason should be plain enough, for in my experience I have never found two cases exactly alike, and the detailed instructions which I might lay down for A might be extremely detrimental to B or C. Nevertheless, since I see that some further explanation is needed, I will adumbrate the general principles which embrace the rule of application, however diverse the method may be in practice. In the first place, all specific bad habits such as overindulgence in food, drink, tobacco, etc., evidence a lack of “control” in a certain direction, and the greater number of specific disorders such as asthma, tuberculosis, cancer, nervous complaints, etc., indicate interference with the normal conditions of the body, lack of control, and imperfect working of the human mechanisms, with displacement of the different parts of that mechanism, loss of vitality and its inevitable concomitant, lower activity of functioning in all the vital organs. When the subject has arrived at this condition, harmful habits become established and the standard of resistance to disease is seriously lowered.