SEVENTH LECTURE
Freedom (freedom of choice) can be defined: "that property of human will which enables it to determine, by a judgment of reason, its own act in regard to every object that, not being able to satiate here and now its desire for absolute happiness, does not attract it in a necessary and irresistible way." -- Second definition: "Freedom is the domination which the human will possesses upon its own act, and upon judgment efficaciously determining this act, in regard to every object unequal to the desire of the will for the absolute Good."
It is to be noted that the theoretical judgment on practical matters, unable to determine action, is able to forbid the will from producing the act contrary to its judgment, as long as the intellect looks at such a judgment. Therefore the will cannot produce an act contrary to the law that man recognizes, unless first the mind ceases to consider this law (voluntary lack of consideration of the intellectual rule).
Similarly, the will cannot produce an act contrary to the actual theoretical judgment representing the inconveniences for the human subject of an act good in itself, unless first the mind ceases to consider this judgment.