pleasure')
'urges me thereto, but it pleases me so to behave: what should we think, I
say, of such a soul? Should we not find it more imperfect and more unhappy
than if it had not this freedom of indifference?

313. 'Not only does the doctrine that subjects the will to the final acts
of the understanding give a more favourable idea of the state of the soul,
but it shows also that it is easier to lead man to happiness along that
road than along the road of indifference. It will suffice to enlighten his
mind upon his true interests, and straightway his will will comply with the
judgements that reason shall have pronounced. But if he has a freedom
independent of reason and of the quality of objects clearly recognized, he
will be the most intractable of all animals, and it will never be possible
to rely upon making him choose the right course. All the counsels, all the
arguments in the world may prove unavailing; you will give him
explanations, you will convince his mind, and yet his will will play the
haughty madam and remain motionless as a rock. Vergil, _Aen_., lib. 6, v.
470:

_Non magis incepto vultum sermone movetur,_
_Quam si dura silex, aut stet Marpesia cautes_.

A caprice, an empty whim will make her stiffen against reasons of all
kinds; it will not please her to love her clearly recognized good, it will
please her to hate it. Do you consider such a faculty, sir, to be the
richest present God can have made to man, and the sole instrument of our
happiness? Is it not rather an obstacle to our felicity? Is there cause for
boasting in being able to say: "I have scorned all the judgements of [316]
my reason, and I have followed an altogether different path, simply from
considerations of my own good pleasure?" With what regrets would one not be
torn, in that case, if the determination made had an ill result? Such a
freedom would therefore be more harmful than profitable to men, because the
understanding would not present all the goodness of the objects clearly
enough to deprive the will of the power of rejection. It would be therefore
infinitely better for man to be always of necessity determined by the
judgement of the understanding, than to permit the will to suspend its
action. For by this means it would achieve its aim with greater ease and
certainty.'

314. Upon this discourse I make the further observation, that it is very
true that a freedom of indifference, undefined and without any determining
reason,