The ideas denoted by such phrases as _my_ friend, _my_ country, _my_ duty, and so on, are just the ones that stand for broad or “unselfish” impulses, and yet they are self-ideas as shown by the first-personal pronoun. In the expression “_my duty_” we have in six letters a refutation of that way of thinking which makes right the opposite of self. That it stands for the right all will admit; and yet no one can pronounce it meaningly without perceiving that it is charged with intense self-feeling. It is always vain to try to separate the outer aspect of a motive, the other people, the cause or the like, which we think of as external, from the private or self aspect, which we think of as internal. The apparent separation is purely illusive. It is surely a very simple truth that what makes us act in an unselfish or devoted manner is always some sort of sentiment in our own minds, and if we cherish this sentiment intimately it is a part of ourselves. We develop the inner life by outwardly directed thought and action, relating mostly to other persons, to causes, and the like. Is there no difference, then, it may be asked, between doing a kind act to please someone else and doing it to please one’s self? I should say regarding this that while it is obvious, if one thinks of it, that pleasing another can exist for me only as a pleasant feeling in my own mind, which is the motive of my action, there is a difference in the meaning of these expressions as commonly used. Pleasing one’s self ordinarily means that we act from some comparatively narrow sentiment not involving penetrating sympathy. Thus, if one gives Christmas presents to make a good impression or from a sense of propriety, he might be said to do it to please himself, while if he really imagined the pleasure the gift would bring to the recipient he would do it to please the latter. But it is clear enough that his own pleasure might be quite as great in the second case. Again, sometimes we do things “to please others” which we declare are painful to ourselves. But this, of course, means merely that there are conflicting impulses in our own minds, some of which are sacrificed to others. The satisfaction, or whatever you choose to call it, that one gets when he prefers his duty to some other course is just as much his own as any pleasure he renounces. No self-sacrifice is admirable that is not the choice of a higher or larger aspect of the self over a lower or partial aspect. If a man’s act is really self-sacrifice, that is, not properly _his own_, he would better not do it.