attacked there first. The nerves should be trained to enable
the body to be an obedient servant to a healthy mind, and the mind in
giving its attention to such training gains in normal power of
direction.

If you cannot stop thinking, do not try; let your thoughts steam ahead
if they will. Only relax your muscles, and as the attention is more and
more fixed on the interesting process of letting-go of the muscles
(interesting, simply because the end is so well worth gaining), the
imps of thought find less and less to take hold of, and the machinery
in the head must stop its senseless working, because the mind which
allowed it to work has applied itself to something worth accomplishing.

The body should also be at rest in necessary reclining in the day,
where of course all the laws of sleep apply. Five minutes of complete
rest in that way means greater gain than an hour or three hours taken
in the usual manner. I remember watching a woman "resting" on a lounge,
propped up with the downiest of pillows, holding her head perfectly
erect and in a strained position, when it not only would have been
easier to let it fall back on the pillow, but it seemed impossible that
she should not let it go; and yet there it was, held erect with an
evident strain. Hers is not an unusual case, on the contrary quite a
common one. Can we wonder that the German doctor thought he had
discovered a new disease? And must he not be already surprised and
shocked at the precocious growth of the infant monster which he found
and named? "So prone are mortals to their own damnation, it seems as
though a devil's use were gone."

There is no better way of learning to overcome these perversions in
sleep and similar forms of rest, than to study with careful thought the
sleep of a wholesome little child. Having gained the physical freedom
necessary to give perfect repose to the body, the quiet, simple
dropping of all thought and care can be made more easily possible. So
we can approach again the natural sleep and enjoy consciously the
refreshment which through our own babyhood was the unconscious means of
giving us daily strength and power for growth.

To take the regular process, first let go of the muscles,--that will
enable us more easily to drop disturbing thoughts; and as we refuse,
without resistance, admittance to the thoughts, the freedom from care
for the time will follow, and the rest gained will enable us to awaken
with new life for cares to co