There is another element in this selfhood, to be considered, besides its conscious importance, and that is free will--itself also unmoral, but indispensable. For imagine a rational being to be placed in this world, _without_ free will. He can choose neither wrong nor right. He has a conscience, but no freedom; no power to choose any thing. It is, I think, an incongruous and impossible kind of existence; but imagine it. Evils, troubles, temptations press against this being, and he can do nothing; he cannot even will to resist. Could there be a condition more horrible? No; man is a nobler and happier being than this amounts to. Free will is put in him, on purpose to fight the great battle against evil. He could not fight, if he could not will. He could not choose the right, without being free to choose the wrong; for choosing one path without being at liberty to take the other, would be no choosing. Free will is to fight the battle. It is a glorious prerogative. And man, I believe, is out of all proportion, happier, with this power, all its aberrations included, than he would be without it. I am glad for my part, that I am not passing through this world, like a car on a railroad, or turning round like a wheel in a mill; that I can go, this way or that, take one path or another; that I can read, or write, or study, or labor, or do business; and that when the great trial-hour, between right and wrong, comes, though I may choose the wrong, yet that I _can_ choose the right. What better would there be for me than this--what better constitution of a rational nature? I know of no better possible. Selfhood, then--this interest in ourselves, being seen to be right, and the play of free will which is a part of it desirable; let us turn finally to the useful working of the principle. You may have said in listening to me thus far, "What need of insisting so much upon self-regard, which we all perfectly well understand?" I doubt whether it is so well understood; and this must be my apology. We have seen that the principle is native and necessary to us; let us look a moment, at its utility. I am put in charge of myself--of my life, first of all. So strong is the impulse to keep and defend it, that self-preservation has been called the first law of our being. But that argues an antecedent fact--self-appreciation. Why preserve that which we value not? We defend ourself, because we prize ourself. We defend our life, with the instant rush of all our faculties to the rescue. "Very selfish," one may say; "And why does a man care so much for himself; he isn't worth it." He can't help it. He obeys the primal bond; he is a law to himself. Is it not well? Man's life would perish in a thousand ways, if he did not thus care for it. The great, universal and most effective guardianship over human life everywhere, is--not government nor law, not guns nor battlements, not sympathy, not society--but this self-care.