Perhaps we are now prepared to sum up our descriptive account and throw what we have observed into a sort of definition. I mean by self- sacrifice any diminution of my own possessions, pleasures, or powers, in order to increase those of others. Naturally what we first think of is the parting with possessions. That is what the word charity most readily suggests, the giving up of some physical object owned by us which, even at the moment of giving, we ourselves desire. But the gift may be other than a physical object. When I would gladly sit, I may stand in the car for the sake of giving another ease. But the greatest conceivable self-sacrifice is when I give myself: when, that is, I in some way allow my own powers to be narrowed in order that those of some one else may be enlarged. Parents are familiar with such exquisite charity, parents who put themselves to daily hardship because they want education for their boys. But they have no monopoly in this kind. I who stand in the guardianship of youth have frequent occasion to miss a favorite pupil, boy or girl, who throws up a college training and goes home--often, in my judgment, mistakenly--to support, or merely to cheer, the family there. Of course such gifts are incomparable. No parting with one's goods, no abandonment of one's pleasures, can be measured against them. Yet this is what is going on all over the country where devoted mother, gallant son, loyal husband, are limiting their own range of existence for the sake of broadening that of certain whom they hold dear. VIII But when we have thus assembled our omnipresent facts and set them in order for cool assessment, the enigma of self-sacrifice only appears the more clearly. Why _should_ a man sacrifice himself? Why voluntarily accept loss? Each of us has but a single life. Each feels the pressure of his own needs and desires. These point the way to enlargement. How, then, can I disinterestedly prefer another's gain? Each of us is penned within the range of his solitary consciousness, which may be broadened or narrowed but cannot be passed. It is incumbent on us, therefore, to study our own enrichment. Anticipating whatever might confirm or crumble our being, we should strenuously seize the one and reject the other. Deliberately to turn toward loss would seem to be crazy. What should a man accept in exchange for his life?