The first step in the Ascent of the Soul is the development of ability
to discriminate between right and wrong. The powers of the soul are
enlarged and vivified with the bodily growth, but whether there is any
necessary connection between the growth of the one and that of the
other, we know not. This alone is sure--clearer vision, with
ever-increasing distinctness, reveals the certainty that moral laws are
universal and unchangeable. The process of adjustment to the moral
order is partly voluntary and partly involuntary. It is hastened by the
hidden forces of vitality, and it may be hindered by its own choices. As
a human being who refuses to eat will starve, so a soul which turns away
from truth will starve. The law in one case is as inexorable as in the
other. This consciousness of the moral order is sometimes dim even in
mature years because neglect always deadens appreciation. Paul said that
the law is a schoolmaster leading to Christ. By that he intended to
teach that we must realize that we are under moral law before we can
know that its violation will result in a state of ruin needing
salvation. First that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.
The phrase "natural law in the spiritual world" means that the
consequences following right and wrong are as inevitable and essential
in the realm of spirit as in that of matter.

The progress of the soul is dependent on the realization that there is
a moral quality in thoughts, emotions, choices; that the consequences
following them grow out of them as flowers from seed, and that they
determine not only the character but the happiness and welfare of the
one exercising them.

The next step in the upward movement of the soul is the realization of
its freedom. It is possible for one to know that he is under law,