he benefits the treatment had already
conferred on them. A woman with a painful swelling in her breast,
which a doctor had diagnosed (in Coue's opinion wrongly), as of a
cancerous nature, had found complete relief after less than three
weeks' treatment. Another woman had enriched her impoverished blood,
and increased her weight by over nine pounds. A man had been cured of
a varicose ulcer, another in a single sitting had rid himself of a
lifelong habit of stammering. Only one of the former patients failed
to report an improvement. "Monsieur," said Coue, "you have been making
efforts. You must put your trust in the imagination, not in the will.
Think you are better and you will become so."

Coue now proceeded to outline the theory given in the pages which
follow. It is sufficient here to state his main conclusions, which
were these: (1) Every idea which exclusively occupies the mind is
transformed into an actual physical or mental state. (2) The efforts
we make to conquer an idea by exerting the will only serve to make that
idea more powerful. To demonstrate these truths he requested one of
his patients, a young anaemic-looking woman, to carry out a small
experiment. She extended her arms in front of her, and clasped the
hands firmly together with the fingers interlaced, increasing the force
of her grip until a slight tremor set in. "Look at your hands," said
Coue, "and think you would like to open them but you cannot. Now try
and pull them apart. Pull hard. You find that the more you try the
more tightly they become clasped together."

The girl made little convulsive movements of her wrists, really doing
her best by physical force to separate her hands, but the harder she
tried the more her grip increased in strength, until the knuckles
turned white with the pressure. Her hands seemed locked together by a
force outside her own control.

"Now think," said Cone, "'I can open my hands.'"

Slowly her grasp relaxed and, in response to a little pull, the cramped
fingers came apart. She smiled shyly at the attention she had
attracted, and sat down.

Coue pointed out that the two main points of his theory were thus
demonstrated simultaneously: when the patient's mind was filled with
the thought "I cannot," she could not in very fact unclasp her hands.
Further, the efforts she made to wrench them apart by exerting her will
only fixed them more firmly together.

Each patient was now called on in turn to per