CHAP. 6.] BUTLER-BLAIR-RUSH-LORD BACON. 61 conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and pow erful instructions as we have for the preservation of our bodies."* "It is manifest, great part of common language and of common behaviour over the world, is formed upon the supposition of a moral faculty, whether called conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or divine reason; whether considered as a sentiment of the understanding, or as a perception of the heart, or, which seems the truth, as including both." Is it not remarkable, that for a "faculty" so well known "over the world," even a name has not been found, and that a Christian bishop accumulates a multiplicity of ambiguous epithets to explain his meaning? Bishop Butler says again of conscience, "To preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. This faculty was placed within to be our proper governor, to direct and regulate all undue principles, passions, and motives of action.--It carries its own authority with it, that it is our natural guide, the guide assigned us by the Author of our nature." Would it have been unreasonable to conclude, that there was at least some connexion between this reprover of "all undue principles, passions, and motives," and that law of which the New Testament speaks, "All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light?" Blair says, "Conscience is felt to act as the delegate of an invisible Ruler ;"-"Conscience is the guide, or the enlightening or directing principle of our conduct." In this instance, as in many others, conscience appears to be used in an indeterminate sense. Conscience is not an enlightening principle, but a principle which is enlightened. It is not a legislator, but a repository of statutes. Yet the reader will perceive the fundamental truth, that man is in fact illuminated, and illuminated by an invisible Ruler. In the thirteenth sermon there is an expression more distinct: "God has invested conscience with authority to promulgate his laws." It is obvious that the Divine Being must have communicated his laws, before they could have been promulgated by conscience. In accordance with which the author says in another place, "Under the tuition of God let us put ourselves."—" A heavenly Conductor vouchsafes his aid."—" Divine light descends to guide our steps." It were to be wished that such sentiments were not obscured by propositions like these: "A sense of right and wrong in conduct, or of moral good and evil, belongs to human nature."-"Such sentiments are coeval with human nature; for they are the remains of a law which was originally written in our heart."P I do not know whether the reader will be able to perceive with distinctness the ideas of Lord Bacon and of Dr. Rush in the following quotations, but I think he will perceive that they involve a recognition-obsure and indeterminate, but still a recognition-of the doctrine, that the Deity communicates his laws to the minds of men. Dr. Rush says, “It would seem as if the Supreme Being had preserved the moral faculty in man from the ruins of his fall, on purpose to guide him back again to paradise; and at the same time had constituted the conscience, both in man and fallen spirits, a kind of royalty in his moral empire, on purpose to show his property in all intelligent creatures, and their original resemblance to himself." And Lord Bacon says, "The light of nature not only shines upon the human mind through the medium of a rational faculty, * Dr. Hutcheson: Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil. + Eph. v. 13. || Sermon 7. ¶ Sermon 13. 62 LE CLERC-SHAFTESBURY-BEATTIE-REID. [ESSAY I. but by an internal instinct according to the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of man's first estate." "The faculties of our minds are so formed by nature, that as soon as we begin to reason, we may also begin, in some measure, to distinguish good from evil."-"We prefer virtue to vice on account of the seeds planted in us."* The following is not less worthy of notice because it is from the pen of Lord Shaftesbury: "Sense of right and wrong, being as natural to us as natural affection itself, and being a first principle in our constitution and make, there is no speculation, opinion, persuasion, or belief, which is capable, immediately or directly, to exclude or destroy it." Sentiments such as these are very commonly expressed; and what do they imply? If sense of right and wrong is natural to us, it is because He who created us has placed it in our minds. The conclusion too is inevitable, that this sense must indicate the Divine law by which right and wrong are discriminated. Now we do not say that these sentiments are absolutely just, or that a sense of right and wrong is strictly "natural" to man, but we say that the sentiments involve the supposition of some mode of Divine guidance,-some mode in which the moral law of God, or a part of it, is communicated by Him to mankind. And if this be indeed true, it may surely, with all reason, be asked, why we should not assent to the reality of that mode of communication, of which, as we shall hereafter see, Christianity asserts the existence? "The first principles of morals are the immediate dictates of the moral faculty."" By the moral faculty, or conscience, solely, we have the original conception of right and wrong."-"It is evident that this principle has, from its nature, authority to direct and determine with regard to our conduct; to judge, to acquit or condemn, and even to punish; an authority which belongs to no other principle of the human mind."— "The Supreme Being has given us this light within to direct our moral conduct.""It is the candle of the Lord, set up within us to guide our steps." This is almost the language of Christianity, "That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."§ I do not mean to affirm that the author of the essays speaks exclusively of the same Divine guidance as the apostle; but surely, if conscience operates as such a "light within," as "the candle of the Lord," it can require no reasoning to convince us that it is illuminated from heaven. The indistinctness of notions which such language exhibits, appears to arise from inaccurate views of the nature of conscience. The writer does not distinguish between the recipient and the source; between the enlightened principle and the enlightening beam. The apostle speaks only of the last; the uninspired inquirer speaks, without discrimination, of both; and hence the ambiguity. Dr. Beattie appears to maintain the same general principle, the same essential truth, under other phraseology. Common sense, he says, is "that power of the mind which perceives truth, or commands belief, by an instantaneous, instinctive, and irresistible impulse, neither derived from education nor from habit, but from nature."-"Every man may find the evidence of moral science in his own breast." An "instinctive" perception of truth derived from nature, must necessarily be tantamount to a power of perception imparted by the Deity. "Whatsoever nature Dr. Reid: Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, Ess. 3, c. 8, &c. ◊ John i. 9 CHAP. 6.] PRICE-WATTS-VOLTAIRE-LOCKE. 63 does, God does," says Seneca: and Dr. Beattie himself explains his own meaning "The dictates of nature, that is, the voice of God."* We have no concern with the justness of Beattie's philosophy, intellectual or moral, but the reader will perceive the recognition of the truth, or of something like the truth, to which we have so often referred. "What is the power within us that perceives the distinctions of right and wrong? My answer is, the understanding."-"Of every thought, sentiment, and subject, the understanding is the natural and ultimate judge." This is the language of Dr. Price; but he does not seem wholly satisfied with his own definition. He says, "The truth seems to be, that in contemplating the actions of moral agents, we have both a perception of the understanding, and a feeling of the heart." And again, "It is to intuition that we owe our moral ideas." He speaks too of "the virtuous principle,"-" the inward spring of virtue;" and says, "Goodness is the power of reflection, raised to its due seat of direction and sovereignty in the mind." These various expressions do not appear to represent very distinct notions, but after the "understanding" has been stated to be the ultimate judge, we are presented with the idea of conscience, and then we perceive in Dr. Price's language, that which we find in the language of so many others, "Whatever our consciences dictate to us, that He (the Deity) commands more evidently and undeniably, than if by a voice from heaven we had been called upon to do it."+ Dr. Watts says that the mind "contains in it the plain and general principles of morality, not explicitly as propositions, but only as native principles, by which it judges, and cannot but judge, virtue to be fit and vice unfit." And Dr. Cudworth: "The anticipations of morality do not spring merely from notional ideas, or from certain rules or propositions arbitrarily printed upon the soul as upon a book, but from some other more inward and vital principle in intellectual beings as such, whereby they have a natural determination in them to do some things and to avoid others." Voltaire, in his Commentary on Beccaria|| says, "I call natural laws the which nature dictates, in all ages, to all men, for the maintenance of that justice which she (say what they will of her) hath implanted in our hearts." "And this law is that innate sense of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, which every man carries in his own bosom."-" These impressions, operating on the mind of man, bespeak a law written on his heart.""This secret sense of right and wrong, for wise purposes so deeply implanted by our Creator on the human mind, has the nature, force, and effect of a law."P Locke: "The divine law, that law which God has set to the actions of men, whether promulgated to them by the light of nature or the voice of revelation, is the measure of sin and duty. That God has given a rule whereby men should govern themselves, I think there is nobody so brutish as to deny."** The reader should remark, that revelation and "the light of nature" are here represented as being jointly and equally the law of God. "Actions, then, instead of being tried by the eternal standard of right Philos. Essays. Essay on Truth. + Review of Principal Questions in Morals. Dr. Shepherd's Discourse on Future Existence. 64 SOUTHEY-RUSH-ADAM SMITH. [ESSAY I. and wrong, on which the unsophisticated heart unerringly pronounces, were judged by the rules of a pernicious casuistry."* This may not be absolutely true; but there must be some truth which it is like, or such a proposition would not be advanced. Who ever thought of attributing to the unsophisticated heart the power of unerringly pronouncing on questions of prudence? Yet questions of right and wrong are not, in their own nature, more easily solved than those of prudence. 66 'Boys do not listen to sermons. They need not be told what is right; like men, they all know their duty sufficiently; the grand difficulty is to practise it." Neither may this be true; and it is not true. But upon what species of knowledge would any writer think of affirming that boys need not be instructed, except upon the single species, the knowledge of duty? And how should they know this without instruction, unless their Creator has taught them? "Hap Dr. Rush exhibits the same views in a more determinate form: " pily for the human race, the intimations of duty and the road to happiness are not left to the slow operations or doubtful inductions of reason. It is worthy of notice, that while second thoughts are best in matters of judgment, first thoughts are always to be preferred in matters that relate to morality." Adam Smith: "It is altogether absurd and unintelligible, to suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason. These first perceptions cannot be the object of reason, but of immediate sense and feeling."-" Though man has been rendered the immediate judge of mankind, an appeal lies from his sentence to a much higher tribunal, to the tribunal of their own consciences, to that of the man within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of their conduct." In some cases in which censure is violently poured upon us, "the judgments of the man within, are, however, much shaken in the steadiness and firmness of their decision. In such cases, this demigod within the breast appears, like the demigods of the poets, though partly of immortal, yet partly too of mortal extraction." Our moral faculties "were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our actions." "The rules which they prescribe are to be regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those vicegerents which he has thus set up within us." "Some questions must be left altogether to the decision of the man within the breast." And let the reader mark what follows: "If we listen with diligent and reverential attention to what he suggests to us, his voice will never deceive us. We shall stand in no need of casuistic rules to direct our conduct." How wonderful that such a man, who uses almost the language of Scripture, appears not even to have thought of the truth,— "The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you!" for he does not appear to have thought of it. He intimates that this vicegerent of God, this undeceiving teacher to whom we are to listen with reverential attention, is some "contrivance or mechanism within ;" and says that to examine what contrivance or mechanism it is, "is a mere matter of philosophical curiosity !" A matter of philosophical curiosity, Dr. Paley seems to have thought a kindred inquiry to be. He discusses the question, whether there is such a thing as a moral sense or not; and thus sums up the argument: * Dr. Southey: Book of the Church, c. 10. Influence of Physical Causes on the Moral Faculty. + West. Rev. No. 1. CHAP. 6.] PALEY-ROUSSEAU-MILTON-HALE. 65 "Upon the whole, it seems to me, either that there exists no such instincts as compose what is called the moral sense, or that they are not now to be distinguished from prejudices and habits."-" This celebrated question therefore becomes, in our system, a question of pure curiosity; and as such we dismiss it to the determination of those who are more inquisitive than we are concerned to be, about the natural history and constitution of the human species."* But in another work, a work in which he did not bind himself to the support of a philosophical system, he holds other language; "Conscience, our own conscience, is to be our guide in all things." "It is through the whisperings of conscience, that the spirit speaks. If men are wilfully deaf to their consciences, they cannot hear the spirit. If, hearing, if being compelled to hear the remonstrances of conscience, they nevertheless decide and resolve and determine to go against them, then they grieve, then they defy, then they do despite to, the Spirit of God." "Is it superstition? Is it not on the contrary a just and reasonable piety to implore of God the guidance of his holy Spirit when we have any thing of great importance to decide upon or undertake?"—"It being confessed that we cannot ordinarily distinguish, at the time, the suggestions of the spirit from the operations of our minds, it may be asked, How are we to listen to them? The answer is, by attending, universally, to the admonitions within us." The tendency of these quotations to enforce our general argument is plain and powerful. But the reader should notice here another and a very interesting consideration. Paley says, "Our own conscience is to be our guide in all things."-We are to attend universally to the admonitions within us. Now he writes a book of moral philosophy, that is, a book that shall "teach men their duty and the reasons of it," and from this book he absolutely excludes this law which men should universally obey, this law which should be their "guide in all things!" "Conscience, conscience," exclaims Rousseau in his Pensées, “ divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice, sure guide of a being ignorant and limited, but intelligent and free, infallible judge of good and evil, by which man is made like unto God!" Here are attributes which, if they be justly assigned, certainly cannot belong to humanity; or if they do belong to humanity, an apostle certainly could not be accurate when he said that in us, that is in our flesh, "dwelleth no good thing." Another observation of Rousseau's is worth transcribing: "Our own conscience is the most enlightened philosopher. There is no need to be acquainted with Tully's Offices to make a man of probity; and perhaps the most virtuous woman in the world is the least acquainted with the definition of virtue." "And I will place within them as a guide My Umpire, Conscience; whom if they will hear, This is the language of Milton; and we have thus his testimony added to the many, that God has placed within us an umpire which shall pronounce his own laws in our hearts. Thus in his "Christian Doctrine" more clearly: "They can lay claim to nothing more than human powers, assisted by that spiritual illumination which is common to all."§ Judge Hale: "Any man that sincerely and truly fears Almighty God, and calls and relies upon him for his direction, has it as really as a son *Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 1, c. 5. † Sermons. § P. 81. E Par. Lost, iii. 191. |