So many people, I find, seem to regard the principles of conscious control as a kind of magic which may be worked by some suitable incantation. They appear to think that we may obtain conscious control of, say, the secretive glands, that we may be able to give an order to secrete more or less bile or gastric juice by a command of the objective mind. If such a thing were possible, and if I could endow any person with such power to-morrow, I should know perfectly well that I should, by so doing, be signing that person’s death warrant; I might equally well give him a dose of poison. To refer to my metaphor of the sovereign ruler, you might as well expect a king to order and superintend the detail of his subjects’ private life as expect the conscious mind directly to order and superintend every function of the body. If the king will ordain good and just laws, his policy will prosper; the detail of organisation must be left to inferior officers. In the care of the body the organisation is there, aptly and perfectly adjusted to its functions, and when the ruling power of conscious control has ordained the sane laws which shall establish peace and prosperity within the assembly, the organisation already in force will work in harmony to its fit and proper ends. On the other hand, there is great danger in underrating the power of conscious control which, if it must not be prematurely forced and made to intrude on automatic functions, must in no way be undervalued or delimited. For instance, though it may not be possible to control directly each separate part of the abdominal viscera, we can control directly the muscles of the abdominal wall which encloses the viscera, and in reducing a protruding abdomen we can control many other muscles, notably those of the back, which when they are properly employed and co-ordinated will, by widening and altering the shape of the back, make place for the protruded stomach, allow it to occupy the natural position from which it has been ousted, and so give free play once more to the natural functions of the viscera that have been distorted and pinched by the forced positions they have had to assume. Here we see that though conscious control does not affect by a process of direct command, as it were, the lower automatic functions, there is great danger in assuming that such functions are beyond the reach of my methods. This danger was brought before me when I read, in the _British Medical Journal_ for December, 1909, an article on one side of my teaching contributed by Dr. S——, an old pupil of mine. In this article Dr. S—— says: “Man’s education does not always demand conscious instruction; in the absence of unfavourable circumstances he can learn by unconscious imitation of good models.” Now this is not demonstrably untrue, but at the same time it is, as I shall show, extraordinarily misleading, and is, in effect, just as valuable as the prescription of champagne and hothouse grapes for a pauper patient.