 In turning to the rational consideration of the soul, Wolff’s aim is not to determine what can be known completely independently of experience but rather to employ what has been discerned in empirical psychology as principles from which its demonstrations proceed and as cognitions for which reasons are to be given (RP: §§3–4; Richards 1980). Conforming to this, the topics of rational psychology proceed from those which are closest to and draw most heavily from empirical psychology, such as the account of our soul’s nature and essence, to the increasingly more speculative topics, such as the defense of the pre-established harmony to the demonstration of the soul’s immortality and consideration of its state after death.