In defining rigidity of mind, I must hark back for a moment to that suggestive phrase of Mr. Trine’s, _In Tune with the Infinite_, although in the present application the rigidity I am concerned with is considered in a physical connexion and does not involve interference with any non-spatial conceptions. It is rather the first half of the phrase that is here of importance, for to be “In Tune” conveys to my mind, and I wish it to convey the same meaning to others, the idea of sensitiveness to impressions and responsiveness to the touch, when “all the functions of life are becoming an intelligent harmony.” In a word, I want by this phrase to suggest the idea of being open-minded. For even in reading this, if the individual deliberately puts himself in opposition to my point of view, he can by no possibility hope to benefit. Wherefore I desire above all things that he or she will read at least with an open mind, form no conclusion until I have finished, and will perhaps, more particularly, subdue the interference of that great and ruling predisposition which has in the past so long impeded the advance of science, and with which I will deal in my next chapter. Let us consider for a moment the application of rigidity of mind to physical functions. A person comes to me with some crippling defect due to the improper use of some organ or set of muscles. When I have diagnosed the defect and shown the patient _how_ to use the organ or muscles in the proper way, I am always met at once with the reply, “But I can’t.” Let me ask any one who is reading this and who suffers in any way, whether his or her attitude to the defect they suffer from is not precisely the same? This reply indicates directly that the control of the part affected is entirely subconscious; if it were not, we should merely have to substitute the hopeful “I can” for that despondent “I can’t,” to remove the trouble. By (a) hypnotic treatment, by (b) faith-healing, or by (c) the application of the principles of the “New Thought,” the patient in such a case would have the subconscious control influenced, either (a) by the mechanical means of trance and suggestion by the hypnotist, which leaves the conscious mind in exactly the original condition and merely changes, and it may be only temporarily, the habit of the subconscious control, or (b) and (c) by reiterated commands of the objective mind. Even if these commands have been reinforced by the influencing suggestion of the healer, they either substitute by repetition one habit for another without any apprehension by the intelligence of the true method of the exchange, or, what is quite as frequent and far more harmful, they shut out the sensitiveness to pain from the cerebral centres, and so leave the radical evil, no longer labelled by nature’s warning, to work the patient’s destruction in secret. Briefly, all three methods seek to reach the subjective mind by deadening the objective or conscious mind, and the centre and