education and imitation, nor yet of legal enactment. They seem to be natural, rather than artificial and acquired. Yet we cannot trace them to the action of the sensitive part of our nature. They are not the product of a special sense, nor yet of the combined and associated action of certain natural emotions, much less of any one emotion, as sympathy. And yet they are a part of our nature. Place man where you will, surround him with what influences you will, you still find in him, to some extent at least, indications of a moral nature; a nature modified, indeed, by circumstances, but never wholly obliterated. Evidently we must refer the ideas in question, then, to the intellectual, since they do not belong to the sensitive part of our nature.

5. Judgment. Are they then the product and operation of the faculty of judgment? But the judgment does not originate ideas. It compares, distributes, estimates, decides to what class and category a thing belongs, but creates nothing. I have in mind the idea of a triangle, a circle, etc. So soon as certain figures are presented to the eye, I refer them at once, by an act of judgment, to the class to which they belong. I affirm that to be a triangle, this, a circle, etc.; the judgment does this. But judgment does not furnish my mind with the primary idea of a circle, etc. It deals with this idea already in the mind. So in our judg ment of the beauty and deformity of objects. The percep tion that a landscape or painting is beautiful, is, in one sense, an act of judgment; but it is an act which presupposes the idea of the beautiful already in the mind that so judges. So also of moral distinctions. Whence comes the idea of right and wrong which lies at the foundation of every parti cular judgment as to the moral character of actions? This is the question before us, still unanswered; and to this there remains but one reply.

6. These Ideas intuitive. The ideas in question are intuitive; suggestions or perceptions of reason. The view now proposed may be thus stated: It is the office of reason

to discern the right and the wrong, as well as the true and the false, the beautiful and the reverse. Regarded subjectively, as conceptions of the human mind, right and wrong, as well as beauty and its opposite, truth and its opposite, are simple ideas, incapable of analysis or definition; intuitions of reason. Regarded as objective, right and wrong are realities, qualities absolute, and inherent in the nature of things, not fictitious, not the play of human fancy or human feeling, not relative merely to the human mind, but inde pendent, essential, universal, absolute. As such, reason recognizes their existence. Judgment decides that such and such actions do possess the one or the other of these qualities; are right or wrong actions. There follows the sense of obligation to do or not to do, and the consciousness of merit or demerit as we comply, or fail to comply, with the same. In view of these perceptions emotions arise, but only as based upon them. The emotions do not, as the sentimental school affirm, originate the idea, the perception; but the idea, the perception, gives rise to the emotion. We are so constituted as to feel certain emotions in view of the moral quality of actions, but the idea and perception of that moral quality must precede, and it is the office of reason to produce this.

First Truths.-There are certain simple ideas which must be regarded as first truths, or first principles, of the human understanding, essential to its operations, ideas universal, absolute, necessary. Such are the ideas of personal existence, and identity, of time and space, as conditions of material existence; of number, cause, and mathematical relation. Into this class fall the ideas of the true, the beautiful, the right, and their opposites. The fundamental maxims of reasoning and morals find here their place.

How awakened.· These are, in a sense, intuitive perceptions; not strictly innate, yet connate; the foundation for them being laid in our nature and constitution. So soon as the mind reaches a certain stage of development they pre

sent themselves. Circumstances may promote or retard their appearance. They depend on opportunity to furnish the occasion of their springing up, yet they are, nevertheless, the natural, spontaneous development of the human soul, as really a part of our nature as are any of our instinctive impulses, or our mental attributes. They are a part of that native intelligence with which we are endowed by the author of our being. These intuitions of ours, are not themselves the foundation of right and wrong; they do not make one thing right and another wrong; but they are simply the reason why we so regard them. Such we believe to be the true account of the origin of our moral perceptions.

§ II.-COGNIZANCE OF THE RIGHT.

The Cognition distinguished from the Idea of Right. — Having, in the preceding section, discussed the idea of the right, in itself considered, as a conception of the mind, we proceed now to consider the action of the mind as cognizant of right. The theme is one of no little difficulty, but, at the same time, of highest importance.

Existence of this Power. After what has been already said, it is hardly necessary to raise the preliminary inquiry, as to the existence of a moral faculty in man. That we do possess the power of making moral distinctions, that we do discriminate between the right and the wrong in human conduct, is an obvious fact in the history and psychology of the race. Consciousness, observation, the form of language, the literature of the world, the usages of society, all attest and confirm this truth. We are conscious of the operation of this principle in ourselves, whenever we contemplate our own conduct, or that of others. We find ourselves, involun tarily, and as by instinct, pronouncing this act to be right that, wrong. We recognize the obligation to do, or to have done, otherwise. We approve, or condemn. We are sus

tained by the calm sense of that self-approval, or cast down by the fearful strength and bitterness of that remorse. And what we find in ourselves, we observe, also, in others. In like circumstances, they recognize the same distinctions, and exhibit the same emotions. At the story or the sight of some flagrant injustice and wrong, the child and the savage are not less indignant than the philosopher. Nor is this a matter peculiar to one age or people. The languages and the literature of the world indicate, that, at all times, and among all nations, the distinction between right and wrong has been recognized and felt. The τὸ δίκαιον and το καλόν of the Greeks, the honestum and the pulchrum of the Latins, are specimens of a class of words, to be found in all languages, the proper use and significance of which is to express the distinctions in question.

Since, then, we do unquestionably recognize moral distinctions, it is clear that we have a moral faculty.

Questions which present themselves. Without further consideration of this point, we pass at once to the investigation of the subject itself. Our inquiries relate principally to the nature and authority of this faculty. On these points, it is hardly necessary to say, great difference of opinion has existed among philosophers and theologians, and grave questions have arisen. What is this faculty as exercised; a judgment, a process of reasoning, or an emotion? Does it belong to the rational or sensitive part of our nature: to the domain of intellect, or of feeling, or both? What is the value and correctness of our moral perceptions, and especially of that verdict of approbation or censure, which we pass upon ourselves and others, according as the conduct conforms to, or violates, recognized obligation? Such are some of the questions which have arisen respecting the nature and authority of conscience.

I. The Nature of Conscience.· What is it? A matter of intellect, or of feeling; a judgment, or an emotion?

A careful analysis of the phenomena of conscience, with a

view to determine the several elements, or mental processes, that constitute its operation, may aid us in the solution of this question.

ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF CONSCIENCE.

Cognition of Right. Whenever the conduct of intelli. gent and rational beings is made the subject of contempla tion, whether the act thus contemplated be our own or nother's, and whether it be an act already performed, or only proposed, we are cognizant of certain ideas awakened in the mind, and of certain impressions made upon it. First of all, the act contemplated strikes us as right or wrong. This involves a double element, an idea, and a perception or judgment. The idea of right and its opposite are, in the mind, simple ideas, and, therefore, indefinable. In the act contemplated, we recognize the one or the other of these simple elements, and pronounce it, accordingly, a right o wrong act. This is simply a judgment, a perception, an exercise of the understanding.

Of Obligation. -No sooner is this idea, this cognition, of the rightness or wrongness of the given act, fairly entertained by the mind, than another idea, another cognition, presents itself, given along with the former, and inseparable from it, viz., that of obligation to do, or not to do, the given act: the ought, and the ought not-also simple ideas, and indefinable. This applies equally to the future and to the past, to ourselves and to others: I ought to do this thing; I ought to have done it yesterday. He ought, or ought not to do, or to have done it. This, like the former, is an intel. lectual act, a perception or cognition of a truth, of a reality, for which we have the same voucher as for any other reality or apprehended fact, viz., the reliability of our mental facul ties in general, and the correctness of their operation in the specific instance. It is a conviction of the mind inseparable from the perception of right. Given, a clear perception of the one, and we cannot escape the other.