It requires many days to bring the whole frame and constitution into good fit order.

Here there can be no evasion, for more than ordinary temperance in food and drink is _absolutely indispensable_.
It is a principle, recognized by all physiologists, that digestion and fixed thought cannot go on together; it is even unadvisable to read while eating.

Thus in all the old magical operations, which were, in fact, self-hypnotism, a perfect fast is insisted on with reason.

This is all so self-evident that I need not dwell on it.

It will be needless for anyone to take up this subject as a trifling pastime, or attempt self-suggestion and development of will with as little earnestness as one would give to a game of cards; for in such a half-way effort time will be lost and nothing come of it.