nd, on the other hand, he is conscious of his perfect
freedom of choosing good, however disagreeable to the senses, and of
abhorring evil, however tempting it may appear; he has, then, the
faculty of directing his action to one or other of these two courses;
his soul is endowed with _free-will_.

XIII. A being endowed with intellect, reason, and free-will cannot be
composed of parts, because the operations proceeding from such faculties
presuppose a comparison of various relations with each other, and a
deduction of consequences from their principles; and these operations
require such a unity and simplicity in their subject as are absolutely
incompatible with the nature of matter, composed, as it is, of parts.
The human soul is therefore a simple being, a _spirit_, and, as such,
indestructible, _immortal_.

XIV. Man, then, unites in himself two natures, belongs to two classes of
beings very different from one another, is a citizen of two worlds. In
his body he is linked to the material world, undergoes all the
vicissitudes of matter, is subject to the incentives of the senses, and
is impelled to gratify the wants and cravings of physical enjoyment. As
regards his soul, he enters into the sphere of intelligences, he feels
himself attracted by the ideas of the beautiful, of the true, of the
just; he participates in the condition of the spiritual beings, aspires
to the immense, to the infinite; and is susceptible of an
ever-increasing perfectibility, finding within himself the power of
abhorring moral evil, viz., vice, and of cleaving to moral good, viz.,
virtue.

XV. Man has, therefore, within himself a germ of discord between the two
principles of which he is constituted, a contrast between the exigencies
of the body and those of the soul--between the appetites of the senses
and the dictates of reason; and as this latter alone is competent to
form a judgment on what he ought or ought not to do, it follows that
reason alone should be consulted and obeyed in determining upon every
action.

XVI. Now, by freely and spontaneously resolving to conform all the
actions of his life to the dictates of reason, which commands him to be
wise in his self-government, upright with others, and pious towards the
supreme Author, man will have worthily corresponded to the end for which
he was created--he will have fulfilled his _destination_; for it is
clearly the destination of man to make the best possible use of the
sublime