The proofs advanced, in the previous pages, for the spirituality of the human soul are based upon the superorganic function of rational thought. A parallel series of arguments can be drawn from the superorganic function of rational volition. The cognitive intellect has for its necessary sequel the appetitive will, which may be defined as spiritual tendency inclining us toward that which the intellect apprehends as good. The objects of such volition are frequently abstract and immaterial ideals transcendent to the sphere of concrete and material goods, _e. g._, virtue, glory, religion, etc. The will of man, moreover, is free, in the sense that it can choose among various motives, and is not compelled to follow the line of least resistance, as is the electric current when passing through a shunt of steel and copper wire. Like the self-knowing intellect, the self-determining will is capable of reflective action, that is, it can will to will. Having its own actions within its own control, it is itself the principal cause of its own decisions, and thus becomes responsible for its conduct, wherever its choice has been conscious and deliberate. External actions, which escape the control of the will, and even internal actions of the will itself, which are indeliberate, are not free and do not entail responsibility. Our courts of law and our whole legal system rests on the recognition of man’s full responsibility for his deliberate voluntary acts. The distinction between premeditated murder, which is punished, and unpremeditated homicide, which is not, is purely moral, and not physical, depending for its validity upon the fact of human freedom. It is this exemption from physical determinism, that makes man a moral agent, subject to duties, amenable to moral suasion, and capable of merit or demerit. Finally, the will of man is insatiable, invincible, and inexhaustible. The aspirations of the will are boundless, whereas our animal appetites are easily cloyed by gratification. There is no freezing point for human courage. The animal or sensual appetites wear out and decline with old age, but virtue and will-power do not necessarily diminish with the gradual deterioration of the material organism. Willing, therefore, is a superorganic or spiritual function. Activity which is bound to a material organ cannot tend towards supersensible ideals, cannot escape physical determinism, cannot achieve the reflective feat of spurring itself to action, cannot avoid exhaustion, cannot elude rigid regulation by the laws of organic metabolism. For this reason, the brute, whose psychic functions are of the organic type exclusively, is destitute of freedom, morality, and responsibility. Deliberate volition, therefore, like conceptual thought, has its source and subject in man’s spiritual soul, and is not a function of the material organism.[12]