 Although Schiller describes the beautiful soul as an ideal of human harmony, he acknowledges that circumstances sometimes make that harmony impossible. Because humans are natural creatures, they are susceptible to pleasure and pain. But whereas other animals are motivated solely by this susceptibility, humans in addition have reason. We also have a “suprasensual faculty”, namely the will, which is subject neither to nature nor to reason (NA XX, 290/GD 155; Roehr 2003:  126).[4]  This means that while animals must fight to free themselves from pain, humans “can decide to hold on to it” (NA XX, 290/GD 155). When pain threatens to force a human to act against reason, her ethical nature must resist (NA XX, 293/GD 157–8). In such a moment, harmony is impossible and the person in question cannot achieve moral beauty. But such a moment also creates the possibility of a “moral greatness” that gives “evidence of superiority of the higher faculties over the sensuous” (NA XX, 294/GD 158). In refusing to succumb to pain, “the beautiful soul becomes heroic” and “transforms into a sublime soul” (NA XX, 294/GD 158). The appearance of such a soul, its embodiment in action, is not grace but dignity.