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

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ALLAN KARDEC
for, if the incarnated spirit yields to the influence of matter, it is always to the very trials
previously chosen by him that he succumbs, and he is always free to invoke the assistance of
God and of good spirits to help him to surmount them. (337.)
Without free-will there would be for man neither guilt in doing wrong, nor merit in doing
right-a principle so fully recognised in this life, that the world always apportions its blame or
its praise of any deed to the intention-that is to say, to the will of the doer; and will is but
another term for freedom. Man, therefore, could hot seek an excuse for his misdeeds in his
organisation, without abdicating his reason and his condition as a human being, and
assimilating himself to the condition of the brute. If he could do so in regard to what is
wrong, he would have to do the same in regard to what is wrong, he would have to do the
same in regard to what is right; but, whenever a man does what is right. he takes good care to
claim the merit of his action, and never thinks of attributing that merit to his organs, which
proves that he instinctively refuses to renounce, at the bidding of certain theory-builders, the
most glorious privilege of his species, viz., freedom of thought.
Fatality, as commonly understood, supposes an anterior and irrevocable ordaining of all the
events of human life, whatever their degree of importance. If such were the order of things,
man would be a machine, without a will of his own. Of what use would his intelligence be to
him, seeing that he would be invariably overruled in all his acts by the power of destiny ?
Such pre-ordination, if it took place, would be the destruction of all moral freedom; there
would be no such thing as human responsibility, and consequently neither good nor evil,
neither virtues nor crimes. God, being sovereignly just, could not chastise His creatures for
faults which they had not the option of not committing, nor could He reward them for virtues
which would constitute for them no merit. It would be, moreover, the negation of the law of
progress; for, if man were thus dependent on fate, he would make no attempt to ameliorate
his position, since his action would be both unnecessary and unavailing.
On the other hand, fatality is not a mere empty word; it really exists in regard to the position
occupied by each man upon the earth and the part which he plays in it, as a consequence of
the kind of existence previously made choice of by his spirit, as trial, expiation, or mission,
for, in virtue of that choice, he is necessarily