of a Universal Parent, who acknowledges the inhabitants of the whole earth as his children; who is himself their only Judge; and who exacts no more service from any mortal than he has given ability to perform, nor a greater measure of obedience than he has afforded light and knowledge of duty. For, without presuming to anticipate the righteous decisions of a Being excellent in wisdom, confiding nevertheless in the faith of his own declarations, and moreover persuaded that the Gospel of Christ is the most glorious revelation of God's will to man;-I speak it with reverence-it is still possible that the scattered tribes of the human family most remote from civilized society, and least acquainted with the real condition of man, may rise up in judgment against the most enlightened; if the first obey the few precepts enjoined by their simple consciences; and the last, possessing all knowledge, all faith, and all Scripture, are yet wanting in their obedience to the light they have received.

But I am anticipating a discussion that is to follow in another place,

Enough is said to show that Conscience is usually taken in that latitude of meaning which comprehends the only principle by which man can have access to his Maker; and it directly involves the notion of natural or ordinary Revelation. And however it may include that knowledge of duty which properly belongs to the understanding, (which, it must however be allowed, agrees best with the etymology of the

word) it invariably includes that instinctive perception of vice and virtue, or moral beauty and deformity-that internal sense of right and wrong, prompting the will-which is implanted by the Deity, and is to be accounted the foundation of Morality and Religion.

SECT. II.

Of Conscience-its limited Signification.

When Conscience is stated to be an insufficient Guide without the light of Scripture, or independent of holy writ; and when it is also stated that different moral rules are held conscientiously sacred in different countries; it is evidently brought somewhat lower in our estimation as a regulating principle of the mind; in one case, requiring help which is often casual or incidental; and in the other, from an umpire and witness for God, being reduced to the state of an uncertain rule, that varies its standard according to the customs and local institutions of men.

Now, there can be no doubt that, by a law of our nature, the human mind may be brought to that state in which it shall regard as a sacred obligation what is not the dictate of immutable truth. And the fact proves two things-First, The facility with which mankind bind themselves to acts of supposed duty; and secondly, the docility with which they tacitly submit, or at least acknowledge, themselves to be creatures accountable to some invisible Supreme

Power.

These are natural tendencies independent

of all creeds, forms, notions, and modes of worship. And so far the existence of this Law may be safely affirmed.

But it is a very different thing to affirm that the variable moral maxims so received in different countries, are the dictates of the pure infallible principle of Truth itself; or, on the other hand, to contend that these variable moral maxims disprove the existence of such a principle altogether. I apprehend that neither of these conclusions can be drawn from a fair statement of the argument. It is, unquestionably, true, that the name of Conscience has been abused and applied to sanction some frightful enormities; and also true, that the purest principle of the soulthe light of life-the secret guide and unerring witness, may be slighted, resisted, despitefully treated, and, as it were, trampled under foot. But, admitting that this rightful Governor and King may at times seem to be absolutely dethroned, as in the complete anarchy of více; or to be innocently drawn (as a royal prince surrounded from the cradle with crafty attendants) to give his sanction to many absurd usages; or to be laid asleep as the mind is given up to natural indolence and outward ease; or to be treated with studied neglect and despised, so that his voice is no longer heeded; or to be seduced to compliance with established forms, because practiced by near kindred and those to whom reverence is naturally due; or to be roused to acts of cruelty by the rage

of bigotry and fanaticism, or to acts of wild enthusiasm by mistaken zeal for the cause of religion :— though all these things may be done, and, some of them, under pretence of being done for Conscience' sake; they surely do not afford any good ground for supposing that the legitimate Sovereign is really dispossessed, or that the mind, in which so much moral disorder prevails, is all this while actually without a supremely wise Director and unerring Judge, provided the state of anarchy would admit its lawful interference.

Now it is not a little strange, that, because this principle does not first discover itself in every human being with a regular series of what are called practical principles or moral maxims, commanding implicit assent, and forbidding any deviation, its existence should be denied, and no other source of moral obligation admitted, than Reason, Education, or Scripture. It is strange that the only true basis on which Conscience can found its right to exercise dominion and prescribe the path of duty, as soon as ever the infant mind shall require its controul,-the basis of an inherent delegated power in the mind-should be overlooked if not discarded; and that it should be allowed to claim no other importance than what attaches to the promulgator of some casual, local, ephemeral, notions of duty; nor entitled to any other authority than what belongs to such a secondary and dependent station. It is strange that the latter, the only point which is weak, variable, and uncertain, in

the nature of Conscience, when it is really defiled with other principles, as I shall next explain, should be fixed upon as that which substantially characterizes it. Yet by these means of treating it, have some attempted to fritter away its inherent rights, and to leave it nothing but the mere shadow of authority.

The definitions I am now to notice, will, however, point out more clearly the grounds of the second signification of Conscience to which I have alluded;a signification that has been already anticipated in some degree by the preceding remarks.

Dr. Fleming considers Conscience to be nothing more than a Modification of Memory. In a late work on the "Philosophy of Zoology," he remarks, that "By the help of memory we acquire an astonishing quickness of perceiving whether we act conformably or oppositely to the standard of duty"-and that "to the operations of memory in such cases, theologians apply the term Conscience, and others the Moral Sense." In coincidence with this notion he states that "the discovery of duty is an intellectual process," and yet that "the question, what is duty? -in reference to its rules or standard, is one which unassisted reason cannot resolve." Hence, he concludes, "arises the necessity of a Revelation"-and "the Christian religion supplies this moral want."

Doctor Fleming here admits the principle for which we are arguing, that the question of Duty is one which unassisted Reason cannot resolve; and yet he