Now to revert to the experiences of John Doe. I have already stated that when he first tried physical exercises at home or in the gymnasium as a remedy for his digestive disorders, he experienced a sense of relief. This was only natural, seeing that he was leading a more or less sedentary life. Why, then, was the effect of these exercises gradually diminished until he considered the physical treatment a comparative failure? This brings us to the point of real interest. The fact is that any increased amount of exercise does give a sense of relief to those who lead sedentary lives, but unfortunately this sense of relief is too often a delusive mental exaggeration of the real changes in the right direction. It is not often a reliable register of benefits derived which make for permanent relief. Students of these questions know that the man whose conditions we are analysing has already developed debauched _kinæsthetic_ systems which permit defective registrations of different sensations or feeling-tones, and hence it is very difficult for the person so constituted to arrive at a reliable estimate of the extent of his improvement through such faulty senses. We know, too, that, so far as he is concerned, the improvement is not permanent, a fact which he readily admits. There are scientific reasons for accepting the accuracy of this conclusion, and I will endeavour to explain the position. Let us admit, for the sake of our explanation, that benefits actually accrued in various directions in the early stages of his physical exercises. Whatever these benefits may have been, and however great they were, I contend that it was always certain that sooner or later if he persisted in the physical exercises, he would gradually develop defects which would counterbalance and finally outweigh the benefits we have admitted. The following are some of the reasons which support these contentions. I shall deal more fully with them in later chapters. 1. _A Defective Kinæsthetic System._ Experience has proved to us that the conditions present, when he took up the exercises, go hand in hand with an incorrect and defective kinæsthetic system. The mere performance of physical exercises could not give him a new and correct kinæsthetic sense in connexion with the use of the mental and physical organism in his acts of everyday life. 2. _Erroneous Preconceived Ideas._ It is impossible for me to set down the myriad dangers with which he is beset in consequence of erroneous preconceptions during his daily practice on “physical culture” lines. The pages of a fairly large book will be necessary to do even meagre justice to this subject. But I can assure my readers that this is demonstrably true and I am daily convincing the most sceptical by practical procedures. 3. _Defective Sense-Registration and Delusions._ This serious defect is in practice linked up with erroneous preconceptions resulting in mental and physical delusions which are far-reaching and dangerous.