Book 4 (Part I)

58 of less frequent, the student must not be discouraged; this is partially caused by his increased accuracy of observation. In exactly the same way, the introduction of vaccination resulted in an apparent increase in the number of cases of smallpox, the reason being that people began to tell the truth about the disease instead of faking. Soon, however, the control will improve faster than the observation. When this occurs the improvementwill become apparent in the record. Any variation will probably be due to accidental circumstances; for example, one night you may be very tired when you start; another night you may have headache or indigestion. You will do well to avoid practising at such times. We will suppose, then, that you have reached the stage when your average practice on one subject is about half an hour, and the average number of breaks between ten and twenty. One would suppose that this implied that during the periods between the breaks one was really concentrated, but this is not the case. The mind is flickering, although imperceptibly. However, there may be sufficient real steadiness even at this early stage to cause some very striking phenomena, of which the most marked is one which will possibly make you think that you have gone to sleep. Or, it may seem quite inexplicable, and in any case with a flickering of the eyelid, and can be seen by him. With practice he could detect even very small breaks.