Physical education, then, is not superadded to the education of the spirit, but is itself education of the spirit. It is the fundamental part of this education, in as much as the body is, in the sense we have used the words, the seat of our spiritual personality. Living means constructing one's own body, because living is thinking, and thinking is self-consciousness; but this consciousness is possible only if we make it objective, and the object as such is the body (our body). For as consciousness is, so is the body. There is no thinking which is not also doing. Thinking not only builds up the brain, but the rest of the body besides. We may call it will, but then there is not one single act of thought which is not the mental activity indicated by this word "will." Without will we should have no bodily substance, in as much as the body is always and primarily life, and living is impossible without willing. What are called involuntary movements are not really such; they differ from the so-called voluntary in that they are constant, immanent, so much so that we can after all interrupt them. Without the exercise of our will we could never hold ourselves erect and keep our feet, but would forever be stumbling and falling; unless we willed it, the power which keeps every organ in its place, and maintains all the organs in the circle of life, would be annihilated. Therefore _morale_, as they say, is a very considerable aid in curing the diseases of the body. It is on this account that societies and religious sects have arisen which make of moral faith an instrument of physical well-being. For the same reason, also, it is impossible for the psychiatrists to draw a line separating mental troubles from bodily ailments. The force of the will, the vigour of the personality, the impulse of the spirit in its becoming, this is the wondrous power which galvanises matter and organically quickens it; which sustains life, equips it, and fits it for its march towards ever renewed, ever improved finalities. It is not temperament which is the basis of character, but character which is the basis of temperament. If we reverse this proposition, every moral conception of life becomes absurd, and every spiritual value appears ineffectual. Don Abbondio then ceases to be wrong, and Cardinal Federico Borromeo is no longer right.