decision according to Conscience, the Law. If we have not transgressed the Law of Conscience, Conscience acquits us. If we have violated the Law of Conscience, Conscience condemns us.

He who is condemned by his own Conscience, is guilty. He has really done wrong. He has really offended against the Supreme Rule. His actions are inconsistent with the Stage at which he has arrived in his moral progress. They are therefore inconsistent with Morality. He who acts against his Conscience is always wrong.

365. The question naturally occurs, whether, on the other hand, he who acts according to his conscience is always right; whether he who is acquitted by his conscience is free from blame. Is it enough for the demands of morality, if each person compares his actions to the Standard of right and wrong which he has in his mind? Is this a complete justification?

It is evident, that to answer these questions in the affirmative, would lead to great inconsistencies in our Morality. For, under the influence of Education, Laws, Prejudices, and Passions, the Standard of right and wrong, which exists in men's minds for the time, is often very different from that which the Moralist can assent to. Men have often committed thefts, frauds, impositions, homicides, thinking their actions right; though they were such as all Moralists would condemn as wrong. Such men acted according to their Consciences. Were they thereby justified?

366. What has already been said, may suggest a Reply to such questions. It is the Duty of man constantly to prosecute his moral and intellectual Culture (345). This requires not only that we should conform our actions to the Standard which we have in our minds for the time; but that, also, we are to make this Standard truly moral. Whatever subordinate Law we have in our minds, is to be looked upon only as a step to the Supreme Law;-the Law of

complete Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, and Order. Conscience, the Law, must be constantly directed with the purpose of making it conform to this Supreme Law. We must seek for such light, such knowledge, as may enable us constantly to promote this conformity. We must labour to enlighten and instruct our Conscience. This task can never be ended. So long as life and powers of thought remain to us, we may always be able to acquire a still clearer and higher view than we yet possess, of the Supreme Law of our Being. We never can have done all that is in our power, in this respect. It never can be consistent with our Duty, to despair of enlightening and instructing our Conscience, beyond what we have yet done. Our standard of virtue is not high enough, if we think it need be made no higher. Virtue has never so completely taken possession of man's being, but that she may possess it still more completely; and therefore, any conception of Virtue, which we look upon as perfect, must, on that very account, be imperfect. Conscience is never fully formed, but always in the course of formation.

367. We may add, that in attempting to enlighten and instruct our Conscience, and to carry on our moral progress, we are led to feel the want of some light and some power in addition to the light of mere reason, and the ordinary powers which we possess over our own minds; and that Religion offers to us the hope of such a power, which will, if duly sought, be exercised upon us.

368. It appears from what has just been said, that we cannot properly refer to our Conscience as an Ultimate and Supreme Authority. It has only a subordinate and intermediate Authority; standing between the Supreme Law, to which it is bound to conform, and our own Actions, which must conform to it, in order to be moral. Conscience is not a Standard, personal to each man; as each man has his standard

of bodily appetite. Each man's Stančard of morals, is a standard of Morals, only because it is supposed to represent the Supreme Standard, which is expressed by the Moral Ideas, Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, and Wisdom. As each man has his Reason, in virtue of his participation in the Common Reason of mankind, so each man has his Conscience, in virtue of his participation in the Common Conscience of mankind, by which Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, and Wisdom, are recognized as the Supreme Law of Man's Being. As the object of Reason is to determine what is true, so the object of Conscience is to determine what is right. As each man's Reason may err, and thus lead him to false opinion, so each man's Conscience may err, and lead him to a false moral standard. As false opinion does not disprove the reality of Truth, so the false moral standards of men do not disprove the reality of a Supreme Rule of Human Action.

369 Since Conscience is thus a subordinate and fallible Rule, it appears, that for a man to act according to his conscience, is not necessarily to act rightly. His conscience may be erroneous. It may be culpably in error; for he may not have taken due pains to enlighten and instruct it. If the conscience be in error, it must be so, for this reason, that the man's moral and intellectual progress is still incomplete; and this incompleteness is no justification of what is done under its influence. A conformity to an Erroneous Conscience is no more blameless, than an act of imperfect Benevolence, or imperfect Justice.

370. Moreover, since Conscience has only this subordinate and derivative authority, it cannot be right for a man to refer to his own Conscience, as a supreme and ultimate ground of action. The making our Conscience a ground of action, to this extent, is in itself wrong; since it is abandoning that Duty of further enlightening and instructing our Conscience.

which can never cease to be a Duty.

That a man

acts according to his Conscience, is not a reason for his actions, which can supersede the necessity of assigning other Reasons. If an action be according to his Conscience, it must be so because it is conformable to his Conceptions of Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Purity, Wisdom; and his reason for the action is more properly rendered by showing that the act does conform to these Moral Ideas, than by saying that it is according to his Conscience. To allege that an act is according to my Conscience; meaning thereby, that I act according to a rule which is already fixed and settled in my mind, so that I will no longer examine whether the Rule be right; is to reject the real signification of moral Rules. It is the conduct of a person who pursues a wrong road to the place he aims at; and refuses to have it proved that the road is wrong.

Indeed, the very use of the term Conscience, in rendering moral reasons for actions, may tend to mislead us, by presenting conscience to our minds as an authoritative and supreme guide. To dwell too much upon this abstraction, which, as we have said, merely denotes a step in our progress towards the Supreme Rule, may obstruct and disturb our further progress. We may confuse our minds, by fixing our conscious ness too much upon our Conscience;-by reflecting upon this reflex habit. It has been said, that if I talk of my Humility, I lose it; something of the same kind may be said of Conscience.

371. But though a virtuous man may abstain from speaking much of his Conscience, he will not reverence its guidance the less on that account; or rather, his silence, if he be silent, will be that of reverence. For nothing can be more worthy of reverence than Conscience. It is, as we have said, the expression of the Supreme Rule, so far as each man has been able to discern that Rule. Conscience is to

each man the representative of the Supreme Law, and is invested with the authority of the Supreme Law. It is the voice which pronounces for him the distinction of right and wrong, of moral good and evil; and when he has done all that he can to enlighten and instruct it, by the aid of Religion, as well as of Morality, it is for him the Voice of God.

372. To disobey the commands and prohibitions of Conscience, under any circumstances, is utterly immoral; it is the very essence of immorality. In order to be moral, a man must be thoroughly conscientious; he must be careful to satisfy himself what the decision of his Conscience is, and must be resolved to follow the course thus prescribed, at any risk, and at any sacrifice. Nothing can be right which he does not do with a clear conscience. Whatever danger or sorrow lies in that direction, whatever advantage and gratification of the desires and affections in the other, he must not shrink or waver. Whatever may be gained by acting against his conscience, the consistency and welfare of his whole moral being is lost. His moral progress is utterly arrested. He commits a grievous transgression; and, as we have already said, morality can assure him of no means by which the evil may be remedied, and the broken unity of his moral being restored. To be steadily, resolutely, and carefully conscientious, is a Rule which every one, who aims at his moral progress, must regard as paramount to all others.

373. Inasmuc as each man's Conscience is the Supreme Law, so ar as he has been able to discover that Law; and inasmuch as this discovery is a task to be performed only by a diligent and continued exercise of our faculties; there may be periods when each man is aware that the task has been imperfectly performed on special points, and may be uncertain what is right and what is wrong. In such cases, his Conscience is doubtful. The removal of