contra to the cognitions of the moral nature. These are cognitions of the right, and are either intuitively perceived or else are discovered by aid of the understanding, the reason and experience, when these faculties and means are dominated by the moral sensibilities.

Moral intuition is possible when the object of intuition is conditioned by a law that has necessary existence, or is universal and so becomes self-evident. Thus we have an intuition of its being duty. to obey God, because God, as the Creator of all, is necessarily supreme and sovereign.

Some truths-physical, moral—are known by selfevidence, and some are discovered by the use of the understanding faculties acting singly or together. This knowledge the soul takes knowledge of by what are called cognitions of the consciousness-not that the consciousness is a separate faculty, or is indeed a cognitive faculty at all, but it is the concurrent knowledge of two, of several or of all the faculties that necessarily accompanies our cognitions.

20. THE OFFICE AND POWER OF THE CONSCIENCE. The office and power of the conscience is best illustrated by instances of its use. In Wayland's Moral Science are several apt quotations from Shakspeare. This one illustrates the monitory power of the conscience.

One of the men about to murder the Duke of Clarence, to his comrade, discourses thus:

"I'll not meddle with it [conscience], 'tis a dangerous thing; it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal but it accuseth

him; a man cannot swear but it checks him. 'Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it."

ard III, Act 1.)

(Rich

In regard to the agonizing struggle that precedes a meditated act of guilt, Mrs. Montague says: "Other poets thought they had sufficiently attended to the moral purpose of the drama by making the Furies pursue the perpetrated crime. Our author [Shakspeare] waives their bloody daggers in the road to guilt, and demonstrates that as soon as a man begins to hearken to ill suggestions, terrors environ and fears distract him. Macbeth's emotions are the struggles of conscience; his agonies are the agonies of remorse. They are lessons of justice and warnings to innocence. I do not know that any dramatic writer except Shakspeare has set forth the pangs of guilt separate from the fear of punishment." This is the passage:

*

*

*

*

"If but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
We'd jump the life to come But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor. This even handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips." (Macbeth, Act I.)

The troubled and distracted soul under the influence of conflicting motives, is seen in Brutus' soliloquy about his cogitations and intents relative to Cæsar; thus:

"Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar
I have not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream;
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.” (Julius Cæsar, Act II.) Courage in a good cause, fear in a bad one, is portrayed in these lines:

"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just,

And he but naked, tho' locked up in steel,

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

A like sentiment Solomon utters:

(Henry VI, Act 3.)

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion."

And Shakspeare this:

66

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind,
The thief doth fear each bush an officer."

The voice of God: The power and function of the conscience as above noted refers the soul at once, not only to the judgment and condemnation of its own moral nature, but also to that of the supreme judge of all, whose law cannot be evaded.

Hence appropriately the conscience has been characterized as the voice of God in the soul.

21. THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIENCE.-Conscience, the only impulsive faculty or sensibility that has authority: We can speak of the conscience as a

faculty. It is the one faculty of the distinctive moral nature; it is the categorical-imperative, just as there are several faculties of the understanding, towit: the category of quantity, the category of quality, the category of relation or of cause.

But as the conscience as a faculty is characterized by feeling-not, however, to the exclusion of intelligence there is a tendency to class it with other sensibilities of the soul; whereas, by its moral nature it is placed in a higher plane, far removed from every other sensibility by the entire diameter of a type of being, and it has authority over all other sensibility. This might be inferred from Kant's cognomen-the "imperative."

Dr. Wayland and other eminent moral scientists make it the most authoritative of the sensibilities; but this carries an erroneous idea; for it is the only authoritative, the other sensibilities having no moral authority at all.

They have force, power, influence, as motives to action, and these may be good or bad; but good or bad they have no authority. The conscience, aided by intellect, sits in judgment upon each and all. The artistic faculties that give rise to our sensibilities for the beautiful and the poetical have a moral tendency, and so are akin to the moral faculty, but they are allies, not rulers; while those sensibilities that manifest themselves-the love of pleasure, of gain, of power-all lower forms of self-love-are neutral or else stand as forces opposed to the moral nature, and can have no voice in the determination of moral conduct.

22. NOTE ON CONSCIENCE.-Our rule must be not to turn aside from the true path of moral science to explore by-ways, to consider and discuss sundry theories; for to do this would extend and crowd and confuse the text, to the detriment of the design of this treatise; but not to leave in doubt students who refer to authorities, a brief explanation of the conscience theory, first as herein stated, second as others see it, will be expedient-for this, as involving the ground of right and of duty, has great signifi

cance.

To obtain a clear view of the matter, note-section 12, b.—that man is essentially a spirit endowed with a moral-religious nature, with intellect, with sensibilities, with will-power; that in all that pertains to the moral, the moral nature is the central power. The conscience has its seat, its abode, peculiarly in the moral nature, and is a faculty thereof. When the conscience approves the will of good intent, or condemns the bad, and so calls forth joy or self-reproach, its act of approval or the contra proceeds from moral sensibilities-not from the intellect; but when the act itself as moral or the contra is judged, the judg ment is obtained by calling in the aid of intellect.

The moral faculty, even when it acts singly, is properly called conscience-conscientia-because in its primary act of cognition-the cognition of the will-it appropriates to its own conscious knowledge of itself—of its own proper nature, as loving the truth-the knowledge of the will's intent; and approves or condemns just as there is harmony or discord between itself and the will.