That the limits imposed by the present work render it wofully inadequate I am quite willing to admit, but the necessity for a certain urgency has been forced upon me, and I have deemed it wiser to outline my subject at once rather than wait for the time when I shall be ready to publish my larger work. Indeed, when I think of the material even now at my command, of the wonderful and ever-increasing list of illustrative cases that have passed and are still passing through my hands, it seems to me that this preliminary treatise might well grow, like Frazer’s _Golden Bough_, from one volume to twelve. In the present volume, however, I must confine myself to the primary argument and to indicating the direction in which we may find physical completeness. In the work which will follow I shall deal with the detailed evidence of the application of my theory to life, of cases and cures, and all the substance of experience. And there are many reasons why I should hesitate no longer in making my preliminary appeal, chief among them being the appalling physical deterioration that can be seen by any intelligent observer who will walk the streets of London or New York, for example, and note the form and aspect of the average individuals who make up the crowd. So much for the surface signs. What inferences can we not draw from the statistics? To take three instances only: What of the disproportionate and apparently undeniable increase in the cases of cancer, appendicitis, and insanity? For that increase goes on despite the fact that we have taken the subject seriously to heart. Now I would not fall into the common fallacy of _post hoc ergo propter hoc_, and say that because the increase of these evils has gone hand in hand with our endeavours to raise the standard by physical culture theories, relaxation exercises, rest cures, and _hoc genus omne_, therefore the one is the result of the other; but, lacking more definite proof on the first point, I do maintain that if physical culture exercises, etc., had done all that was expected of them they must be considered a complete failure in the checking of the three evils I have instanced.