hich impedes the curative power of its healing forces. The
contraction of the nerves and muscles of the body is caused by
resistance in the mind, and resistance in the mind is unwillingness:
unwillingness to endure the distress of the cold, the pain, or the
illness, whatever it may be; and the more unwilling we are to suffer
from illness, the more we are hindering nature from bringing about a
cure.

One of the greatest difficulties in life is illness when the hands are
full of work, and of business requiring attention. In many eases the
strain and anxiety, which causes resistance to the illness, is even
more severe, and makes more trouble than the illness itself.

Suppose, for instance, that a man is taken down with the measles, when
he feels that he ought to be at his office, and that his absence may
result in serious loss to himself and others. If he begins by letting
go, in his body and in his mind, and realizing that the illness is
beyond his own power, it will soon occur to him that he might as well
turn his illness to account by getting a good rest out of it. In this
frame of mind his chances of early recovery will be increased, and he
may even get up from his illness with so much new life and with his
mind so much refreshed as to make up, in part, for his temporary
absence from business. But, on the other hand, if he resists, worries,
complains and gets irritable, he irritates his nervous system and, by
so doing is likely to bring on any one of the disagreeable troubles
that are known to follow measles; and thus he may keep himself housed
for weeks, perhaps months, instead of days.

Another advantage in dropping all resistance to illness, is that the
relaxation encourages a restful attitude of mind, which enables us to
take the right amount of time for recovery, and so prevents either a
possible relapse, or our feeling only half well for a long time, when
we might have felt wholly well from the time we first began to take up
our life again. Indeed the advantages of nonresistance in such cases
are innumerable, and there are no advantages whatever in resistance and
unwillingness.

Clear as these things must be to any intelligent person whose attention
is turned in the right direction, it seems most singular that not in
one case in a thousand are they deliberately practised. People seem to
have lost their common sense with regard to them, because for
generations the desire for having our own way has held us in b