eedom.

Of course the laws of a man's being are infinitely above the laws of a
beast's. The laws of a man's being are spiritual, and the animal in man
is meant to be the servant of his soul. Man's true guiding instincts
are in his soul,--he can obey them or not, as he chooses; but the
beast's instincts are in his body, and he has no choice but to obey.
Man can, so to speak, get up and look down on himself. He can be his
own father and his own mother. From his true instinct he can say to
himself, "you must do this" or "You must not do that." He can see and
understand his tendency to disobedience, and _he can force himself to
obey._ Man can see the good and wholesome animal instincts in himself
that lead to lasting health and strength, and he can make them all the
good servants of his soul. He can see the tendency to overindulgence,
and how it leads to disease and to evil, and he can refuse to permit
that wrong tendency to rule him.

Every man has his own power of distinguishing between right and wrong,
and his own power of choosing which way he shall follow. He is left
free to choose God's way or to choose his own. Through past and present
perversions, of natural habit he has lost the delicate power of
distinguishing the normal from the abnormal, and needs to be educated
back to it. The benefit of this education is an intelligent
consciousness of the laws of life, which not only adds to his own
strength of mind and body, but increases immeasurably his power of use
to others. Many customs of to-day fix and perpetuate abnormal habits to
such an extent that, combined with our own selfish inheritances and
personal perversions, they dim the light of our minds so that many of
us are working all the time in a fog, more or less dense, of ignorance
and bondage. When a man chooses the right and refuses the wrong, in so
far as he sees it, he becomes wise from within and from without, his
power for distinguishing gradually improves, the fog lifts, and he
finds within himself a sure and delicate instinct which was formerly
atrophied for want of use.

The first thing to understand without the shadow of a doubt, is that,
man is not in freedom when he is following his own selfish instincts.
He is only in the appearance of freedom, and the appearance of freedom,
without the reality, leads invariably to the worst bondage. A man who
loves drink feels that he is free if he can drink as much as he wants,
but that leads to degradation and