PART I. MAN’S SUPREME INHERITANCE PAGE I. FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS TO PRESENT NEEDS 3 II. PRIMITIVE REMEDIES AND THEIR DEFECTS 13 III. SUBCONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 29 IV. CONSCIOUS CONTROL 44 V. APPLIED CONSCIOUS CONTROL 57 VI. HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 73 VII. RACE CULTURE AND THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN 108 VIII. EVOLUTIONARY STANDARDS AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN THE CRISIS OF 1914 157 PART II. CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL I. SYNOPSIS OF CLAIM 181 II. THE ARGUMENT 193 III. THE PROCESSES OF CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL 199 IV. CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL IN PRACTICE 237 V. APPREHENSION AND RE-EDUCATION 249 VI. INDIVIDUAL ERRORS AND DELUSIONS 260 VII. NOTES AND INSTANCES 273 PART III. THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF A NEW METHOD OF RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION I. THE THEORY OF RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 317 II. ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED IN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 323 III. THE PRACTICE OF RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 332 INTRODUCTORY WORD Many persons have pointed out the strain which has come upon human nature in the change from a state of animal savagery to present civilisation. No one, it seems to me, has grasped the meaning, dangers and possibilities of this change more lucidly and completely than Mr. Alexander. His account of the crises which have ensued upon this evolution is a contribution to a better understanding of every phase of contemporary life. His interpretation centres primarily about the crisis in the physical and moral health of the individual produced by the conflict between the functions of the brain and the nervous system on one side and the functions of digestion, circulation, respiration and the muscular system on the other; but there is no aspect of the maladjustments of modern life which does not receive illumination.