equal indifference on the patriot and the assassin, the philanthropist and the parricide. "There are philosophers," as has been eloquently remarked, “and philosophers, too, who consider themselves peculiarly worthy of that name, from the nicety of their analysis of all that is complex in action,-who can look on the millions of mankind, in every climate and age, mingling together in a society that subsists only by the continued belief of the moral duties of all to all,who can mark everywhere, sacrifices made by the generous to the happiness of those whom they love, and everywhere an admiration of such sacrifices,not the voices of the timid and the ignorant only mingling in the praise, but warriors, statesmen, poets, philosophers bearing, with the peasant and the child, their united testimonies to the great truth, that man is virtuous in promoting the happiness of man ;-there are minds which can see and hear all this, and which can turn away, to seek, in some savage island, a few indistinct murmurs that may seem to be discordant with the whole great harmony of mankind*."

Because these few indistinct murmurs are heard, and because man comes not into the world with the notion of right and wrong, or with notions of any kind, such philosophers conclude, that a belief in the existence of an original moral faculty in human nature, and in the universality and immutability of moral distinctions, is a prejudice of education. We would reply; "It is not contended, that we come into the world with a knowledge of certain actions, which we are afterwards to approve or disapprove; for we enter * Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, v. iii.

p. 592,

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into the world ignorant of every thing which is to happen in it; but that we come into existence with certain susceptibilities of emotion, in consequence of which it will be impossible for us in after-life, but for the influences of counteracting circumstances, momentary or permanent, not to be pleased with the contemplation of certain actions, as soon as they shall have become fully known to us, and not to have feelings of disgust in the contemplation of certain other actions. I am astonished, therefore, that Paley, in stating the objection, that, if we be prompted by nature to the approbation of particular actions, we must have received also from nature a distinct conception of the action we are thus prompted to approve, which we certainly have not received," should have stated this as an objection to which it is difficult to find an answer, since there is no objection to which the answer is more obvious. There is not a feeling of the mind, however universal, to the existence of which precisely the same objection might not be opposed. "Four are to twenty as twenty to a hundred, wherever those numbers are distinctly conceived; but, though we come into the world capable of feeling the truth of this proportion, when the numbers themselves shall have been previously conceived by us, no one surely contends, that it is necessary for this capacity, that we should come into the world with an accurate knowledge of particular numbers *."

In consequence of that moral capacity, power, or sense,-call it by what name we please, with which

* Brown's Lectures, &c., vol. iii. p. 606.

man is endowed by Him that made him, it is as impossible for us not to approve of virtue as such, and to abhor vice as such, as it is for us not to perceive that twice two are four, or, that four are to twenty as twenty are to a hundred. Our moral powers, like all our powers, may be influenced by education, by passion, by habit, by association, and by political arrangement; but by no circumstances can man be brought to view pure benevolence and deliberate malice with the same feelings, or to regard all the actions of voluntary agents with the same equal indifference. Through the weakness and corruption of his nature, he is indeed often led to desire what he knows is inconsistent with moral rectitude, and what his own heart, in his calmer moments, condemns.

Video meliora, proboque ;
Deteriora sequor :

but this circumstance, so far from proving him to be destitute of an original capacity to discern between right and wrong, furnishes the strongest evidence of its existence. If there were no such power, no such law, why should he approve of that virtue which he does not practice, and disapprove of that vice by which he is captivated and enslaved?

These observations, viewed in connexion with the history of man, serve to establish the following positions.

I. That conscience is an original and inherent faculty in man, and is universal in its operation. Had the influence of this power been merely a prejudice of education, it would have been shaken off by men of strong

minds, and especially by those of the most enlightened and improved understanding. The effort to treat it as a prejudice has often been made, but with little success. Men have employed the various means by which they had hoped to silence its voice, the sophis try of acute and powerful minds, "sporting with their own deceivings," and the unrestrained indulgence of sensual pleasure; and they may perhaps for a time have succeeded in their aim,-but it has awakened to smite them with greater severity; and they have found it as impossible to command it to be still as to hush the thunders of heaven. They have felt themselves as incapable of fleeing from this criminating monitor, as to flee from their own nature. Even when seated on a throne, and elevated above the fear of punishment from man, they found in themselves an accuser whose testimony they could not controvert, and a judge whose sentence they could not escape. In all ages, and in all circumstances, when there has been no cause of fear from man, and when their wickedness was unknown to any but themselves, have men been found to feel that they cannot sin with impunity, since they have the avenger of the law in their own breast.

II. Though conscience is an original and inherent faculty in man, and universal in its operation, it requires, in order to discharge its office fully, to be enlightened by moral and religious truth. It is not to be denied that this power of human nature is affected with the corruption of the race; and that this corruption shews itself by moral insensibility. Hence, in the Scriptures, persons under the dominion of hardness and impenitency of heart, are likened to

the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely; and they are said to have the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart,-and who are past feeling. If doubt had remained as to the existence of the moral faculty, or conscience, as an original power in human nature, that doubt would be removed by the explicit testimony of the Apostle, which I am about to quote. The passage which contains this testimony must have escaped the notice of Paley, otherwise he would not have hesitated, as he has done, in admitting that man is endowed with a moral capacity.

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any

For, when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another." The argument of the Apostle is this,-If the Gentiles, who had not the written law, performed some of the duties which the law requires, under the direction of conscience, and of those moral principles in regard to right and wrong which are common to our nature,they came nearer to the rule of righteousness with which they were favoured, than the Jews did to that law which was made known to them by divine revelation. The Gentiles who had not the law by revelation, shewed that its substance was engraven on their hearts, by the influence which conscience exerted over them.