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Natural liberty. — Slavery. — Freedom to think. — Freedom of conscience. — Free will. — Fatality. (Questions 418 to 441 c.)

Are there positions in the world in which man may boast of enjoying absolute liberty? [Question 825.]

“No.”

a. Why?

“Because you all need one another, the small as well as the great.” [Question 825.]

b. Under what conditions could man enjoy absolute liberty? [Question 826.]

“In those of the hermit in the desert.”

There would be absolute liberty only for the man who lived alone, in a land without an owner. From the moment two men are together, there are between them rights to be respected, and therefore neither of them will enjoy absolute liberty.

Does the obligation to respect the rights of others take from man the right to be master of himself? [Question 827.]

“No.”

a. Are there men who are naturally destined to be the property of other men? [Question 829.]

“No; slavery is an abuse of force. It disappears with progress, as all abuses will gradually disappear.”

No one has the natural right to take possession of another man. Every absolute subjection of one man to another man is contrary to the Law of God. The human law that sanctions slavery is contrary to Nature, for it equates man with the animal and degrades him morally and physically.

When slavery is part of the customs of a people, do those who profit from it deserve to be condemned, even though they do so only by conforming to a usage that seems natural to them? [Question 830.] “We have said several times: evil is always evil, and none of your sophisms will make a bad action become good. But responsibility for evil is relative to the means at man’s disposal for understanding it.” He who profits from the law of slavery is always guilty of violating the law of Nature. But there, as in everything, culpability is relative. Slavery having been part of the customs of certain peoples, it was possible for man to take advantage of it, even in good faith, as of something that seemed natural to him. But from the moment his reason, more developed and, above all, enlightened by the light of Christianity, showed him that the slave was his equal before God, he has no further excuse.

Does the natural inequality of aptitudes not place certain human races under the dependence of more intelligent races? 126 [Question 831.]

“Yes, in order to raise them up, and not to brutalize them still further by servitude.”

There are men who treat their slaves humanely, who let them lack for nothing, and who believe that liberty would expose them to greater privations. What do you say of this? [Question 832.]

“I say that those men understand their interests better. They also lavish much care on their oxen and horses, so that they may fetch a good price at market.”

Such men are not as guilty as those who mistreat their slaves, but they nonetheless dispose of them as of a piece of merchandise, depriving them of the right to be masters of themselves.

Is there in man something that escapes all constraint and by which he enjoys absolute liberty? [Question 833.]

“Yes, the freedom to think.”

a. Can the manifestation of thought be prevented?

“Yes, but not thought itself. It is through thought that man enjoys liberty without limits.”

Is man responsible for his thought? [Question 834.]

“Before God, yes. But since God alone is capable of knowing it, He condemns or absolves it according to His justice.”

Is freedom of conscience a consequence of the freedom to think? [Question 835.]

“Yes, for conscience is an intimate thought.”

a. Does man have the right to place obstacles in the way of freedom of conscience? [Question 836.]

“No, just as he does not have it with reference to the freedom to think.”

b. What is the result of the obstacles placed in the way of freedom of conscience? [Question 837.]

“To make hypocrites.”

To God alone belongs the right to judge absolute good and evil. Just as men, by means of their laws, regulate the relations from man to man, God, by the laws of Nature, regulates the relations between Himself and men.

Must man remain bound to a belief that was chosen by others, when he was not yet conscious of himself?

“Good sense answers this question. Why ask useless questions?”

Are all beliefs respectable? [Question 838.]

“Yes, provided they are sincere and when they lead to the practice of good.”

a. Are there condemnable beliefs?

“Yes; those that lead to the practice of evil.”

Is he reprehensible who, on account of his belief, scandalizes another who does not think as he does? [Question 839.]

“That is to fail in charity and to attack freedom of thought.”

Is it an attack on freedom of conscience to place obstacles in the way of beliefs capable of causing disturbances in society? [Question 840.]

“Acts may be repressed, but the intimate belief is inaccessible.”

To repress the outward acts of a belief, when they entail any harm to others, is not to attack freedom of conscience, for such repression leaves the belief its entire liberty.

Out of respect for freedom of conscience, must we let pernicious doctrines spread, or may we, without attacking that liberty, seek to bring back to the path of truth those who have gone astray by obeying false principles? [Question 841.] “Certainly you may, and even must. But teach, after the example of Jesus, by persuasion and by gentleness, and not by force, which would be worse than the belief of the one you would wish to convince. If anything can be imposed, it is good and fraternity; but we do not believe that the best means of having them accepted is to act with violence. Force and persecution make only hypocrites. Conviction cannot be imposed.”

Considering that all doctrines claim to be the sole expression of truth, by what signs may we recognize the one that has the right to present itself as such? [Question 842.]

“It will be the one that makes more men of good and fewer hypocrites, that is, men who practice the Law of God toward their fellow men in its greatest purity.” 127

Does man have free will over his acts? [Question 843.]

“Yes, since he has the freedom to think.”

To deny man free will would be to deny in him the existence of an intelligent soul and to identify him with the animal, from both the moral and the physical point of view.

Does man, at birth, bring with him, by means of his physical organization, the predisposition to such or such acts?

“Yes.”

a. Does the natural predisposition that impels man to the practice of certain acts annul his free will? [Question 845.]

“No, for it was he himself who asked to have this or that predisposition. If you asked to have the inclinations to murder, it was so that you would have to struggle against this propensity.”

b. Can man tame all his inclinations, however strong they may be?

“Yes; to will is to be able.”

Man’s physical organization predisposes him to such and such acts, to which he is impelled by a force one might call instinctive. If this natural inclination leads him to evil, it may make good more difficult for him, but it does not take from him the liberty to do or not to do. With firm will and the help of God, and provided he prays with fervor and sincerity, there are no inclinations that he cannot overcome, however strong they may be. Thus man could not seek excuses in his physical organization without abdicating reason and the condition of the human being that he is, in order to make himself resemble the animal.

Does the aberration of the faculties take from man the responsibility for his acts? [Question 847.]

“Yes; but as we have already told you, this aberration often constitutes a punishment for the Spirit who, in another existence, was frivolous and proud, and made bad use of his faculties. In such a case, that Spirit may be reborn in the body of an idiot, as the despot in the body of a slave and the wicked rich man in that of a beggar.”

Will the aberration of the intellectual faculties through drunkenness serve as an excuse for reprehensible acts? [Question 848.]

“No, because it was voluntarily that the drunkard deprived himself of his reason in order to satisfy brutal passions. Instead of one fault, he commits two.”

Do animals enjoy free will for the practice of their acts? [Question 595.]

“Animals are not mere machines, as you suppose. However, the freedom of action they enjoy is limited to their needs and cannot be compared to that of man. Being far inferior to him, they do not have the same duties.” Animals follow more blindly the impulse of the instinct that Nature gave them for their own preservation, which does not mean that they are wholly deprived of the liberty to act. But the liberty they enjoy is restricted to the acts of material life.

Since animals have an intelligence that grants them a certain freedom of action, is there in them some principle independent of matter? [Question 597.]

“Yes, and one that survives the body.”

a. Does this principle preserve its individuality?

“Yes.”

b. Is it a soul similar to that of man? [Question 597 a.]

“No; the soul of man is an incarnated Spirit. But, for animals, it is also a soul, if you will, depending on the sense given to this word; however, it is always inferior to that of man. There is as much distance between the soul of animals and that of man as there is between the soul of man and God.”

c. Are animals subject to a progressive law, like men? [Question 601.]

“Yes, and that is why in the higher worlds, where men are more advanced, the animals are too, although always inferior and subordinate to man.”

d. In the higher worlds do animals know God? [Question 603.]

“No; for them man is a God.”

e. Would animals be the incarnation of an inferior order of Spirits, constituting a separate category in the spirit world?

“Yes, and one that cannot pass beyond a certain degree of perfection.”

f. Do animals progress, like man, by an act of their own will, or by the force of things? [Question 602.]

“By the force of things, which is why there is no expiation for them.”

Which faculty is predominant in man in the state of savagery: instinct or free will? [Question 849.]

“Instinct.”

a. Does the development of intelligence increase the liberty of acts?

“Certainly, and that is why you are more enlightened than the savage, and also more responsible than he.”

Does the social position not sometimes constitute, for man, an obstacle to the full liberty of his acts? [Question 850.]

“Yes, sometimes; the world has its demands.”

a. Is the responsibility, in this case, also great?

“God is just. He takes everything into account, but He leaves you the responsibility for the efforts you make to overcome the obstacles, however insignificant they may be.”

Is free will not also subordinate to the physical organization, and may it not be hindered in some cases by the predominance of matter?

“Free will may be hindered, but not annulled. He who annihilates the mind in order to occupy himself only with matter becomes like the animal; worse still, for he no longer takes care to guard himself against evil, and it is in this that he is guilty.” Detached from matter, the Spirit chooses his future corporeal existences according to the degree of perfection he has reached. As we have already said, it is principally in this choice that his free will consists. This liberty is in no way annulled by incarnation; if he yields to the influence of matter, it is because he succumbs to the weight of the very trials he chose. To help him overcome them, he can invoke the assistance of the good Spirits.

Is there fatality in the events of life, according to the sense attributed to this word? In other words, are all events predetermined? In that case, what becomes of free will? [Question 851.]

“Fatality exists only through the choice the Spirit made, in incarnating, to undergo this or that trial; then, joined to this choice of such trials are the knowledge that you must acquire, the one being so bound to the other that it constitutes what you call fatality. As we were saying a moment ago, man, having more freedom of action, gives himself excessively to matter, drawing upon those around him a portion of troubles. But this will diminish when the vices of your society are rooted out.”

a. Is the instant of death invariably fixed?

“Yes, the hour is set.”

b. That being so, whatever danger may threaten us, will we not die if the hour of death has not yet come? [Question 853 a.]

“No; you will not perish, and you have thousands of examples of this. But when the hour of your departure comes, nothing can prevent you from departing. God knows beforehand the kind of death that will take you from the Earth, and often your Spirit also knows it, since it was revealed to him when he made the choice of this or that existence.”

c. If death cannot be avoided when it must occur, is the same true of all the accidents that befall us in the course of life? [Question 859.]

“No; these are often things too small for us to warn you about them, and sometimes we make you avoid them by directing your thought, for material suffering displeases us. But this is of little importance to the life you chose. Fatality, truly, exists only as regards the moment at which you must appear and disappear from this world. Since you must put on your envelope in order to be able to bear your trials and receive our teachings, which is why you cling to life, you consider this a fatality, when it is a happiness.” As it is commonly understood, fatality supposes the prior and irrevocable decision of all the events of life, whatever their importance. If this were the order of things, man would be like a machine without a will of his own. Of what use would his intelligence be to him if he were invariably dominated, in all his acts, by the force of destiny? If true, such a doctrine would be the destruction of all moral liberty; there would be no further responsibility for man and, consequently, neither good, nor evil, nor crimes, nor virtues. God being supremely just, He could not punish His creatures for faults that it did not depend on them to commit, nor reward them for virtues of which they had no merit. Such a law would, moreover, be the negation of the law of progress, considering that man, expecting everything from fate, would not try to do anything to improve his position, since he could be neither better nor worse. Despite this, fatality is not a word without value. It exists in the position that man occupies on Earth and in the functions he performs there, as a consequence of the kind of existence that his Spirit chose as trial, expiation, or mission. He fatally undergoes all the vicissitudes of that existence and all the good or bad tendencies that are inherent in it. There, however, fatality ends, for it depends on his will whether or not he yields to those tendencies. The details of events are subordinate to the circumstances that he himself creates by his acts, and over which the Spirits can have an influence through the thoughts they suggest to him. There is fatality, therefore, in the events that present themselves, since they are the consequence of the choice made by the Spirit before incarnating. There may cease to be fatality in the result of such events, since it depends on man, by his prudence, to modify the course of things.

It is in death that man finds himself submitted in an absolute and inexorable manner to the law of fatality, for he cannot escape the sentence that marks the end of his existence, nor the kind of death that must interrupt its course (Note 15). [Question 872.] [126] E. N.: See “Explanatory note,” p. 551.

[127] T. N.: This question is much more comprehensive, as may be gathered from the text transcribed below: “God is good and just; He wills only good; the best of all religions is the one that teaches only what is in accordance with the goodness and the justice of God; that gives of God the greatest and most sublime idea and does not lower Him by attributing to Him the weaknesses and the passions of Humanity; that makes men good and virtuous and teaches them to love one another all as brothers; that condemns every evil done to one’s neighbor; that does not permit injustice under any form or pretext whatsoever; that prescribes nothing contrary to the immutable Laws of Nature, because God cannot contradict Himself; the one whose ministers give the best example of goodness, charity, and morality; the one that best seeks to combat selfishness and least satisfies the pride and vanity of men; the one, finally, in whose name the least evil is committed, because a good religion cannot serve as a pretext for any evil; it must leave no door open to it, neither directly nor by interpretation. See, judge, and choose” (KARDEC, Allan. What Is Spiritism, ch. I, p. 118). [128] T. N.: In the definitive edition of 1860, Allan Kardec concludes this paragraph with the following statement: “There is never fatality in the acts of moral life.”