vanced thus far, rising with cumbrous effort from beneath the load of tyranny, superstition, and wilful mis-representation, which have in vain tried to crush and overwhelm her, what may we not expect when she is fostered by the hand of freedom, civil and religious, defended by the common good-will of man ?"

"Let us conclude, by hoping that the era is fast approaching, when the sword shall 'be turned into ploughshares;' when every man 'shall sit under the shade of his own vine,' and when wisdom shall be indeed justified of her children."

LETTER XXV.

To-day, as we were taking our usual ramble, L― said, “You may perhaps recollect I mentioned in the conversation preliminary to the disquisitions we have made, 'That your conscience, and by consequence the conscience of every man, when thought shall be rendered subject to the dominion of right reason, must become your guide.' If the orthodox had over-heard that discourse they would have scouted the idea, they would have exclaimed, 'What egregious folly do these scepties commit at the first onset, who attempt to reduce the rules of moral conduct to a standard as variable as the shades of intellect in each individual, to a focus which dilates or contracts, as passion or prejudice may be its particular lens. Look at the atrocious barbarities which mark those who have no morality, save the dictates of this vaunted conscience, which apostacy so cries up as the spring of good; look to the countries on which our Revelation has not yet shone, covered with

6

gross darkness,' their people abandoned to

K

every evil impulse, 'sheep without a shepherd.' All this sounds well at the first brunt, and has deterred many an enquiring mind in the very outset of scientific research: be it our part, however, on this head to be rather headstrong; to draw aside the veil of prejudice, and disregarding the clamour of the exclusively righteous, to pursue still more earnestly the path of reasonable enquiry.

"In this land of arts and manufactures, there are few persons but are aware, how much the completion of any given article of workmanship is facilitated, by the division and minute appropriation of the stages of the labour by which it is wrought. In the same way, disputed physical or metaphysical points may be generally simplified very considerably, by a primary division of the subject matter necessary to be adduced for their elucidation; by placing such in clear context, in argumentative series, and by cautiously abstaining from drawing any inferences but those strictly warrantable from the premises established by experienced observation. Let us in pursuance of this plan of division proved so beneficial, proceed to enquire somewhat more closely into the fair interpretation of conscience,' and what meaning such term conveys to the mind of candour and benign intention. And first, as to the division.

"I propose to divide the term into two chief points of bearing, and I think the only two which can be rightly deemed its legitimate acceptations, that is, into 'conscience intuitive,' and 'conscience inculcated.' I think all who are not wilfully cased in measureless conceit would concede, that the first is one of the interwoven feelings inherent in the nature of man; the latter an impression from extrinsic incident, and often wholly subversive of the former of these in order.

"Intuitive, inborn conscience' then, I take to be that 'instinctive consciousness,' which every man born into the world feels seated in his heart's core, there enthroned beyond the reach of eradication from every cause; which no change of time or circumstance can sear entirely, and contained in the comprehensive precept, 'do unto others as you would they should do unto you.' It may be further objected, that that moral, natural law, will not serve for all men and at all times, because some will bear without resentment behaviour from their fellows, which others cannot. And this objection is partly well founded; for all are not alike in point of nervous sensibility, and therefore, strictly speaking, what is matter of offence or injury to one, is not so to another; though this will be best discussed under our

second head of enquiry. But surely, I say, no one will be mad enough to deny for a moment, but that there are some actions so subversive of human Nature itself, so opposite to the general dictates of existence, and so productive of the dread of retaliation, that every human creature yet born and to be born, is irresistibly compelled to bow in internal submission to a consciousness of their natural injustice: for instance, who will assert, that among any people, however barbarous, however steeped in ignorance or in dereliction of first principles, deliberate homicide is considered by him who commits the specific murder, as an action of no more consequence than depriving a beast of life? (Perhaps I am premature in naming here, dereliction of natural emotion, which is effected by the adoption of the rule of conduct comprehended under our term in its second definition.) For however such deprivation of life may be thereby, (that is by the second,) sanctioned, the perpetrator in every case, without one exception, instantaneously acknowledges through the medium of internal, mental reproof, that, to say the least, he has laid himself open to retaliation, by the commission of a similar act of aggression on his own person from the friends of the deceased, or by any other person though foreign to the conse