on the deep, penetrates into all our relations and situations, holds us as in the grasp of an invisible hand. But the law of conscience is with us, literally, everywhere, and at all times. Our sleeping moments are not exempted from its jurisdiction, for he who sinks into the deepest slumber, sleeps with a purpose in his breast. Long time may have elapsed since he first formed it, for opportunity may not have served, or the time may not have arrived for carrying it into effect. But it was in the first moment of its formation that conscience took cognizance of it; and never till it ceases to be a purpose, can conscience be said to withdraw its eye from it. Were he to die in sleep, that purpose would go with him to the bar of God. Meanwhile, though he sleep, his purpose remains in the balances of conscience. Never are they laid aside; and so exquisitely are they adjusted, that the "light dust" of other balances is itself weighed

here.

44. The view which we have taken of the moral faculty enables us to answer another question, What is the authority of conscience? And we find that, besides being, by right, universal in its jurisdiction and unintermitting in its activity, its authority is supreme. We do not say that its supremacy consists in superseding the exercise of the intellectual powers in their own legitimate sphere. What that sphere is we have seen in the preceding sections on reflection and reason; from which it would appear that they enable us to perceive those very relations which involve the obligations recognized by conscience. Neither do we say that its supremacy consists in absolutely dictating the manner in which the obligations resulting from our relations should be externally discharged; this may be, and generally is, a subject for reflection. When, therefore, the prediction of our Lord, that the time would come when the enemies of the gospel would think that they did God service by destroying his followers, is quoted to show the fallibility of conscience as a guide, its office is misunderstood. Its province, in this instance, is, to recognize the obligation of doing God service, and to enforce it as superior to every other obligation. But both the perception of the relation to God out of which this obligation arises, and the manner of discharging it in this particular instance, fall within the province of the intellectual powers. Nor do we mean that its supremacy consists in superseding other motives, but rather in arbitrating between them, denouncing the wrong, and thus authenticating and corroborating the right. In this repect, it not only fills an office which is unique,

but in the occupation of which it sways de jure, an authoritative influence over all the other principles of action.

45. The supremacy of conscience, in the sense explained, may be illustrated by the following considerations: 1. That if the gratification of a man's appetites comes into collision with the dictates of conscience; and he yields to the solicitations of the former, he afterwards feels mortified, and is degraded in his own eyes as well as in the eyes of others. If, for so doing, he should be designated, as is often the case, a sensualist, an animal, or a beast, the meaning obviously is that he has acted as if the higher principle of action had been denied him. It is in vain for him to plead the greater strength of the inferior impulse. Who thinks of excusing the miser on the ground of the invincibleness of his habit? The judgment we form evidently proceeds on the ground that the least whisper of conscience ought to have greater authority with us than the strongest impulse of any inferior principle. 2. That "its title is not impaired by any number of defeats." Every defeat "disposes the disinterested and dispassionate by-stander to wish that its force were strengthened;" and he "rejoices at all accessions to its force." 3. That the supremacy of conscience is necessary to the well-being of man. Whether we suppose the end for which man is made, to be the attainment of the greatest amount of holiness, of happiness, or of power-or all combined-either as an individual or as a society it will be found to be gained in proportion to the degree in which conscience restrains the various classes of motives within their appropriate limits. Even the passions themselves are gainers by submitting their activity to the regulation of conscience. We say nothing of the power which conscience displays under particular circumstances of the unquailing fidelity with which it will sometimes take the arrow which was discharged at a venture, and compel the sinner to press it into his own breast; of the oracular and prophetic manner in which it menaces him on his way to some guilty deed, turning him back, time after time, and making him flee at the rustling of a leaf; how, at length, when the deed has been perpetrated, it recovers from the stunning effects of the blow, in the character of an avenger, and refuses again to be silent, clothing every man who looks at him with the character of a prophet, who seems to say, "Thou art the man!" and inscribing every wall on which his eye may rest with a handwriting which tells his doom; how, when, by a course of guilt, it has been gradually drugged to stupefaction, no care can prevent it from occasionally starting and glaring with

a look which tells of suspended vengeance; how it sometimes urges the culprit to surrender himself to human law; pronouncing its own verdict so quickly as to anticipate all other judgments, so distinctly as to be heard above the tempest of the passions, and so solemnly as to be remembered after every other voice is hushed.

We will only advert to what may be regarded as a literary illustration of the authority of conscience-the fact that if a writer be forcible on any subject it is on this; and that the most vigorous passages and striking imagery of writers sacred and profane will be found to relate to subjects which involve the office of conscience. Reminding us of the language of Butler -itself, indeed, an illustration of our remark-"had it strength as it has right, had it power as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world."

46. The last condition implied in our general proposition is that the moral faculty should be of a nature to affect the will without compelling it. That it does not bear down the will, but may itself be overborne, we have given many and fearful intimations. And some have made this a ground of objection; for if a man chooses to violate it, and to suffer the pain, then, says Paley, "the moral instinct has nothing more to offer." But to infer that conscience is useless, because it is not irresistible, or, that there is no conscience, because it is not invincible, does not oppress the will, and make man incapable of virtue, by turning him into a machine, is to mistake the nature and office of conscience.

47. True it is, that by leaving man capable of voluntary action, an inlet is left for sin, and that sin, having entered, conscience itself has been involved in the perverting effects of the fall. But its office is not extinguished, nor has its activity ceased: its relative position among the other faculties is what it ever was. Its original design and tendency are obvious, whatever its subsequent aberrations may have been. As Butler justly remarks, "the body may be impaired by sickness, the tree may decay, a machine be out of order, and yet the system and constitution of them not totally dissolved. Every work of art is apt to be out of order, but this is so far from being according to its system, that, let the disorder increase, and it will totally destroy it. There is plainly something which answers to all this in the moral constitution of man." Man, indeed, is not only "apt to be out of order," he is out of order. But his moral derangement is functional, not organic. And even where,

de facto, his conscience is at present silenced, de jure, it is an arbitrator and an oracle still. Every appeal to it from without, whether from God or man, presupposes its official existence. In the very act of reproaching it, the Scriptures imply its power of response. The fact that conscience is, by right, a law universally binding, and yet a law capable of being every moment violated, is precisely that which renders man capable of moral action.

And thus the conditions of our general proposition are satisfied. Man, introduced into a system of objective moral excellence, is found capable of a consciousness of obligation in every instance in which he has the means of subserving the system. He is thus both a manifestation of the Divine character of God, and is justly held accountable for voluntarily harmonizing with the Divine procedure.*

SECT. VIII.-Language and Testimony; or, a Second
Human Mind.

1. If man is, as we have seen, destined to be the intelligent interpreter of the Divine manifestation, and if that manifestation is to be unlimited, it may be expected that every variety of means will be employed, consistent with other things, for interpreting the manifestation, for the greater this variety, the more enlarged will be the view which man will require of the Divine perfection displayed.

If, then, to a single intelligent human being destined to this high end, a second be added—provided each be able to compare his views with, and add his convictions to, those of the other-the means of knowledge possessed by each will be more than doubled. Now we have reached that part of the history of man in which we have seen a second human being called into existence. Here, then, is another intelligent and moral being, whose mind, according to its measure of development, interprets the visible universe, and holds responsible relations with the invisible. May it not be expected, then, that man will be endowed with the power of learning more from his intelligent fellow-man than from any other object of external nature? In other words, that a community of knowledge will be possible? 2. But how shall this great desideratum be attained? Two

* See also Chapters XI. and XII.

things, at least are indispensable

that they possess the means of interchanging their thoughts and feelings, and that the thoughts and feelings imparted carry with them satisfactory evidence of their credibility.

3. The first condition- the means of interchanging thoughts and feelings the Creator has provided for by the intervention of articulate sounds, or speech. But speech, in order that it may answer this important end, will be found to include the following things: — First, the utterance of sounds. And, in so far, as Locke has remarked, the materials of language pre-existed in Nature.

And this,

4. But, secondly, these sounds must be articulate. of course, supposes that man possessed, from the first, the fac ulty of speech, or an organization adapted to produce articulate sounds.

5. But, thirdly, if there were nothing more than sounds, even articulate sounds, there would still be nothing more than the means of signs: the signs themselves would be wanting. Between the mere sound and the sign there is a gulf which mind alone can span or fill up. The sounds can become signs only on this condition, that the mind supply something to be signified, and employ articulate sound, in order to signify it. Birds can be taught, remarks Locke, "to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet by no means are capable of language. Besides articulate sounds, therefore, it was further necessary that man should be able to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions, and to make them stand as marks for the ideas in his own mind." Or, in the language of W. Humboldt,† "the intention and the capacity of expressing something thought is the only thing which characterizes the articulate sound, and which distinguishes it from the animal cry on the one hand, and from the musical tone on the other." Thoughts are not the creatures of sounds, but articulate sounds presuppose thoughts.

6. Fourthly, if language is to be an adequate instrument of the human mind, its form must correspond with the leading powers of the mind, or with the universal laws of thought. There are, indeed, numerous vague and general signs in nature, expressive of mere feelings, which are older than speech. Such

* B. III. c. i. §§ 1, 2.

+ On the Kawi Language on the Island of Java, etc., Vol. I. p. 83, of the Introd. on the Diversity of the Organization of Human Languages, Berlin, 1836.