beset this important subject. In this sense, therefore, we propose to use it in this Article.

By the moral faculty, thus limited, we mean the Reason when exercised upon subjects possessed of moral quality. On account of its great importance and frequent use as thus exercised, we give it a distinct name, and one significant of its precise office. Other exercises of the Reason or Intuitional Faculty, may have distinct and appropriate names assigned to them, when there is occasion, as in this case, to make very frequent reference to them. In this way we distinguish the different exercises of the emotions, the desires, and affections.

But obli

The distinguishing office of the moral faculty, is the perception of right and wrong in the character of moral agents. In connection with this perception, a sense of obligation is always felt to be, or do, what is seen to be right. gation and right are nearly, if not quite, identical. A better definition of a right action cannot be given than that it is something which a person is under obligation to do. An emotion also is experienced in perceiving the right, and still more distinctly in doing it. But this is no part of the moral faculty, and should no more be included in it than the emotion awakened by memory or the imagination should be included in these faculties. The moral faculty stands in an important relation to the emotions, and moves them as no other faculty does. But they are no part of it.

The subjects to which the action of the moral faculty is exclusively confined, are acts and states of the will. It takes no notice of external actions; no notice of acts of the intellect; no notice of the constitutional desires and affections; no notice of volitions, as executive acts of the will. It regards only deliberate choices of the will, and in accordance with them pronounces its judgments of character. Nor is it mainly of individual and specific choices of the will that the moral faculty takes cognizance; but rather of its settled states, its underlying, controlling principles, which give character to all specific acts. As moral quality is limited entirely to the state of the will, so also is the action of the

moral faculty. By bearing this constantly in mind, one of the principal difficulties connected with the subject will be avoided.

But the nature of the moral faculty, and its relation to other faculties must be learned, if ever learned to any good purpose, by noticing its operations in our own individual consciousness and experience. We can never be satisfied with any theory which we cannot verify in this way.

Let us, then, in the first place, notice what may be called the general law of the moral faculty, that is, the mode of its operation in connection with other mental faculties closely related to it; or, in other words, what is the order of mental action when we perceive the moral quality of states of the will, and experience the obligation consequent upon this perception. The moral faculty, like the other faculties of the mind, is never called into exercise except in conditions suited to its action. What then are those conditions, as shown by our own experience? It is to be particularly observed, that the moral faculty never pronounces its decisions directly upon the state of the will as seen by itself. Its judgments are not of the concrete, but exclusively of the abstract. It does not say that the will of a particular person is virtuous or sinful. It has no means of ascertaining the state of his will. It cannot see it directly, as consciousness sees it, nor has it any power of reasoning or inference by which it can come to a knowledge of the subject. For this knowledge it is entirely dependent upon another faculty the understanding. There must therefore, first, be an exercise of the understanding by which the state of the will is ascertained. But here it should be carefully noticed, that the understanding does not decide whether the will is virtuous or vicious. It is not competent to this. It is not capable of a moral idea. It decides only as to the tendencies of the will; that is, whether it has a state, or principle that tends to the honor of God and the good of man, or the contrary. As soon as the understanding has thus decided upon the character of the will, whether its decision is correct or not, the moral faculty

gives its intuitive judgment. It says that a state of will which is obedient and benevolent is right. The case may be such that no further action of the moral faculty is required in respect to it. But if some expression of the state of the will thus approved, is to be made in external conduct, there must be another exercise of the understanding to decide in what manner this shall be done. On this point the moral faculty can say nothing. It has no knowledge of anything external. All that it does is to approve and require the exercise of a loving state of the will. Such a state, and such a state in exercise, it does require; but it leaves the will to learn for itself, how this state shall be expressed in action. This it does through the aid of the understanding, whose office it is to adapt means to ends. When the understanding has decided what appears to itself the proper mode of expression, there is another exercise of the moral faculty; if it should be called another, rather than the same one continued, which we have already noticed. Here the moral faculty seems to require a particular external action. But this is not the All that the moral faculty does at this point, is to urge the expression of love, in the scripture sense of the word. It does not indicate the mode in which it is to be expressed, and is in no sense responsible for it. That is left entirely to the will which obtains its light from the understanding. Should the understanding adopt a mode of expression which is improper, the moral faculty is not responsible for it. It does not indorse the action of the understanding; indeed, it does not know what that action is. But we shall have occasion to refer to this point again. In case the will is obedient and prompt to express its love in the way that the understanding suggests, there will be a still further exercise of the moral faculty. The will, in its acts of obedience, presents to the understanding a more decided and lively exercise of the moral affections than before. This is followed by a more decided approbation of the moral faculty in the conviction of personal merit and its attendant agreeable emotions.

case.

In striking contrast with this is our experience, when the will is not disposed to obey at once the decisions of the moral faculty. If it is obedient, there is no experience of what some ethical writers call the "impulse of conscience." Such an exercise of the moral faculty takes place only when there is reluctance of the will to obey. The impulse, indeed, is only a repeated decision of the moral faculty that the state of the will is wrong, thus urging a different state. If obedience is still refused, the moral faculty pronounces its sentence of condemnation, which is accompanied by a sense of demerit and its attendant emotion, remorse. A brief illustration will embrace all the points of this analysis. A person in the neighborhood needs assistance. Our attention is directed to the case, and we experience certain feelings towards the person, prompting us to aid him. The understanding decides that these feelings are benevolent, such as tend to his good. The moral faculty at once says, such feelings are right. The understanding says again, give him food. The moral faculty says, the state of will which prompts to such an action is right and ought to be expressed-urges its expression. The lively affections of the will, called into exercise by obedience, receives a more decided approval of the moral faculty, which is followed by agreeable emotions. In this case, conscience would include what we have assigned to the understanding, the moral faculty, and the emotional nature. Such may be regarded as the general law of the moral faculty, which every one by a careful observation of his own consciousness may verify for himself.

We now turn to a more particular examination of those features of the subject, which are the occasion of more or less difficulty to most minds; all of which, we think, can be satisfactorily explained in accordance with the principles which we have advanced.

It is a favorite argument of Paley and his school, that conscience is not an original faculty of the mind, but the result of education, because its decisions are often so very different in different nations and periods of the world; and

even among different individuals in the same community. We must admit the charge. There is this diversity in the judgments of the conscience. The inference, however, by no means follows, that conscience is not an original faculty; or rather, that the faculties whose exercises are embraced under this name are not original faculties. Now the best way, if not the only effectual way, as respects common minds, to avoid the confusion and error incident to the use of the word "conscience" in such cases, is to adopt the preceding analysis, and show the exact office of the different elements of conscience. The specific office of the moral faculty, as we have seen, is simply to pass judgments upon states of the will; to decide that a state intending the good of another is right, and that the opposite state is wrong. It is not true of the moral faculty, however it may be of conscience, that its decisions are different in different ages and communities; that they are one thing in the first century, and another thing in the nineteenth century. They are always and everywhere one and the same. The different and contradictory voices complained of as coming from the conscience, come not from the moral faculty, but from the understanding. For the sake of perfect clearness, take a simple illustration. There is in the community a family in great distress by reason of extreme poverty. They are ready to perish for want of the necessaries of life. Attention is called to them, and a question of duty arises. Here a complex case in morals is presented, in which are involved, first, a certain feeling or state of the will towards the family; and secondly, the manner in which that feeling shall be expressed in action. Of the first only, the state of the will, does the moral faculty take cognizance, and its decisions will in every instance be the same; that is, it will approve in all cases a state of the will which is inclined to do the family good, to promote their well-being. There would be no exception to this decision, in a single instance, in any community or age of the world. The moral faculty approves of love, always and everywhere says it is right, and urges the expression of it. This is all