us clutch the arms, push with our feet, and hold ourselves off the
chair to the best of our ability. Every nerve is alive with the
expectation of being hurt

The fatigue which results from an hour or more of this dentist
tension is too well known to need description. Most of the nervous
fatigue suffered from the dentist's work is in consequence of the
unnecessary strain of expecting a hurt and not from any actual pain
inflicted. The result obtained by insisting upon making yourself a
dead weight in the chair, if you succeed only partially, will prove
this. It will also be a preliminary means of getting well rid of the
dentist fright,--that peculiar dread which is so well known to most
of us. The effect of fright is nervous strain, which again contracts
the muscles. If we drop the muscular tension, and so the nervous
strain, thus working our way into the cause by means of the effect,
there will be no nerves or muscles to hold the fright, which then so
far as the physique is concerned cannot exist. _So far as the
physique is concerned,--_that is emphatic; for as we work inward
from the effect to the cause we must be met by the true philosophy
inside, to accomplish the whole work. I might relax my body out of
the nervous strain of fright all day; if my mind insisted upon being
frightened it would simply be a process of freeing my nerves and
muscles that they might be made more effectually tense by an
unbalanced, miserably controlled mind. In training to bring body and
mind to a more normal state, the teacher must often begin with the
body only, and use his own mind to gently lead the pupil to clearer
sight. Then when the pupil can strike the equilibrium between mind
and body,--he must be left to acquire the habit for himself.

The same principles by which bearing the work of the dentist is made