Parents and teachers who try to “break a child’s will” and to punish every evidence of independence and self-assertion little know that they are undermining the foundations of morality itself, and doing their utmost to leave the child at the mercy of his chance whims and emotions.  There can be no strength of character without self-regard, and self-regard is built on the instinctive desire of self-assertion.

=Education and Religion.= It is easy to see how important education is in this process of giving the right content to the self-regarding sentiment.  The child trained to regard “temper” as a disgrace, self-pity as a vice, over-sensitiveness as a sign of selfishness, and all forms of exaggerated emotionalism as a token of weakness, has acquired a powerful weapon against temptation in later life.  Indulgence in any of these forms of gratification he will regard as unworthy and out of keeping with his personality.

It is easy, too, to see how central a place a vital religious faith has in enriching and ennobling the ego-ideal, and in giving it driving-power.  A force which makes a high ideal seem both imperative and possible of achievement could hardly fail to be a deciding factor.  Every student of human nature knows in how many countless lives the Christian religion has made all the difference between mere good intentions and the power to realize those intentions; how many times it has furnished the motive power which nothing else seemed able to supply.  Moral sentiments which have been merely sentiments become, through the magic of a new faith, incorporated into conscience and endowed with new power.

Just here lies the value of any great love, or any intense devotion to a cause.  As Royce says:  “To have a conscience, then, is to have a cause; to unify your life by means of an ideal determined by this cause, and to compare this ideal and the life."[67]

[Footnote 67:  Royce:  Philosophy of Loyalty, p. 175.]

=Avoiding the Strain.= It seems that a human being is to a large extent controlled by will, and that will is in itself the highest kind of choice.  But too often will is crippled because it does not speak for the whole personality.  Knowledge helps a person to relate conscience with hitherto hidden parts of himself, to assert his will, and to choose only those emotions and outlets which the connected-up, the unified personality wants.  Sometimes, indeed, a little knowledge makes the exercise of the will power unnecessary.  Using will power is, after all, likely to be a strenuous business.  It implies the presence of conflict, and the strain of defeating the desire which has to be denied.[68] Why struggle to subdue emotional bad habits when a little insight dispels the desire back of them, and makes them melt away as if by magic?  For example, why use our will to keep down fear or anger when a little understanding dissipates these emotions without effort?

[Footnote 68:  Freud:  Introduction to Psychoanalysis, p. 42.]