, 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.]

Whatever we do with difficulty we are not doing well. When it requires
effort to do our duty this means that a great part of us does not want
to do it. When we get rid of our hidden resistances we work with ease.
As a strong wind