Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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ALLAN KARDEC
until then, his narrowness of thought causes him to look at every thing from a low and petty
point of view. Know that God cannot contradict Himself, and that everything in nature is
harmonised by the action of general laws that never deviate from the sublime wisdom of the
Creator."
- Intelligence, then, is a common property, and a point of contact, between the soul of the
beast and that of man?
"Yes, but the animals have only the intelligence of material life; in man, intelligence gives
moral life."
605. If we consider all the points of contact that exist between man and the animals, does it
not seem as though man possessed two souls-viz., an animal soul and a spiritual soul, and
that, if he had not the latter, he might still live, but as a brute; in other words, that the animal
is a being similar to man, minus the spiritual soul? From which it would follow that the good
and bad instincts of man result from the predominance of one or other of these two souls.
"No; man has not two souls; but the body has its instincts resulting from the sensation of its
organs. There is in him only a double nature-the animal nature and the spiritual nature. By his
body he participates in the nature of the animals and their instincts; by his soul he participates
in the nature of spirits."
- Thus, besides his own imperfection, which he has to get rid of, a spirit has also to struggle
against the influence of matter?
"Yes, the lower a spirit's degree of advancement, the closer are the bonds which united him
with matter. Do you not see that it must necessarily be so? No; man has not two souls: the
soul is always one in a single being. The soul of the animal and that of man are distinct from
one another, so that the soul of the one cannot animate the body created for the other. But if
man have not an animal soul, placing him, by its passions, on a level with the animals, he has
his body, which often drags him down to them; for his body is a being that is endowed with
vitality, and that has its instincts, but unintelligent, and limited to the care of its own
preservation."
A spirit. in incarnating himself in a human body, brings to it the intellectual and moral principle that
renders it superior to the animals. The two natures in man constitute for him two distinct sources of
passions; one set of passions springing from the instincts of his animal nature, and the other set being due
to the impurities of the spirit of which he is the incarnation, and which are in sympathy with the grossness
of the animal appetites. A spirit. as he becomes purified, frees himself gradually from the influence of
matter. While under that influence, he approaches the