I am aware of the utter inadequacy, or rather the metaphysical incongruity, of such expressions as prescience, a priori, and the like, in reference to the Infinite Spirit,fore-knowledge, as remembrance, implying a limitation incompatible with his nature. But the fact is, that in speaking on the subject of the character or operation of the Supreme Being, the use of some such phraseology is almost unavoidable-a practice, however, not to be confounded with those perverse anthropopathic colourings which invest the Deity with the weaknesses rather than the diviner attributes of humanity; and which some who affect to decry philosophy, yet set up a transcendental philosophy of their own, that traces nothing but contradictions in the idea of God, can pretend to vindicate by the common artifice of sophists in misrepresenting the opinions they oppose; or on the principle that because we cannot attain absolute truth, we may accept what is demonstrably or substantially false. -But to return.

In contrast with what we may imagine the Divine mode of perception or thought, inductive research, or the method a posteriori, applied to a multitude of instances, is the safest guide to ourselves, in determining the average probability of certain intellectual or moral developements. Were this branch of philosophy conducted to that state of improvement of which it is susceptible, there seems ground to believe that the operations of reason, passion, and what is termed caprice, might, with regard to communities or large bodies of men, become reducible to nearly the same calculation as the movements of the planets, or the working of the spinning frame.

HOWEVER plausible to minds which appear to imagine that all truth, even the highest and noblest, is definable, or to be reached by a logical process, the theory which represents Conscience as the mere judgment exercised on moral behaviour, seems to me based on misconception of its nature

as an original feeling or principle, with whose operation the judgment or other faculties may combine, yet which has a legitimate and spontaneous action of its own. A finer æsthetic power, not to say a nicer philosophic analysis, might haply discover it to be something, in relation to ethical truth or right, which the poetic sense is with regard to natural beauty or sublimity, or which the gift called an ear for music is to harmony of sounds, the effect being alike independent of training, though susceptible of most important modification from that circumstance.

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The objections drawn from the anomalous and diversified modes in which the faculty is supposed to manifest itself, in different ages, nations, and individuals, seem founded in part on forgetfulness of the perversion-not to mention. the evils of imperfect developement to which moral no less than intellectual endowments are subject; in part on misapplication of the word itself, so frequently confounded with mere opinion or passion, which every one knows is liable to a thousand aberrations and inequalities. But the functions of conscience, though belonging to an element in man which takes its colouring from the state of mental culture, yet, on a broad and catholic estimate, are characterised by no less certainty or uniformity of operation than may predicated of any other organ, sensitive or spiritual: a circumstance, however, in no way superseding the necessity of a sound test or standard of right; the establishment of which, by transferring to the jurisdiction of the understanding what is often in the name of conscience usurped by vague feeling, or fancy, or prejudice, both defines and virtually enlarges the sphere of moral action, while multiplying incalculably the probabilities of its correctness. Nor, in fact, would such a view of the question be at variance with the theory of utility as an ordeal of the kind, or with any theory which subjects the operations of conscience to a criterion of their rectitude,-some criterion at least being absolutely essential; since a moral sense is one thing--the rule of its

guidance, or its application in particular instances, another : just as the religious sentiment is an integral part of our constitution, yet distinct from the principle of Reason, by which the speculative beliefs that may be associated with it are to be regulated and tried. So, if we regard conscience as a species of moral instinct, we are to remember that instincts in human beings require to be directed and restrained, or their action in general to be controlled by intellect.

At all events, to deny the existence of a certain principle in man because of imperfection in its working, or its need of assistance from some other power or principle, would argue strange obliquity of perception; to admit the principle, yet to make its own action its law, without appeal to reflection or the results of experience, would be to render it passive and irresponsible; while to depreciate any faculty, ethical or intellectual, or the nature to which it belongs, on the score of its liability to error, were to misconceive both the structure and the destination of man, to whom infallibility —the alternative so readily disclaimed by most—is neither possible nor desirable, being incompatible with finite and progressive existence. As to the notion of infallibility as residing in some external embodiment of thought—a topic on which many declaim in a manner so unphilosophic and perverse-it would amount but to a nullity or a chimera without an infallible mind for the interpretation of its utterances.

Some misapprehension attending the inquiry may have arisen from inadvertence to the fact, that as the mind is not divisible, or made up of various independent parts, the terms moral sense, faculty, sentiment, and the like, stand merely for certain mental states: and the controversy then resolves itself into the questions, What are those states? How are they produced? By what principles should they be regulated?

PERHAPS it is questionable whether the nature of man has been developed in a degree at all proportionate to its

elements and resources. What imagination could have dreamed, in the earlier ages of the world, that he was capable of those varieties of action which he has since exhibited ? or that so peculiar a combination of mental and moral qualities was possible as some persons have possessed? If we can conceive that with the same faculties and susceptibilities mankind could be placed under a new system of external influences, may we not conclude that their characters would be so differently moulded that they might almost pass for another order of beings? Fancy for a moment the disparity between the attributes of a person while an inhabitant of earth, and when existing in a spiritual or extramundane state. To what could the alteration be ascribed but to the change in his circumstances, or his introduction to new scenes, and exposure to a new class of impressions?

THE greatness of man appears not chiefly from his intellect, for he knows but little, and reasons less; nor from his immortality, for matter is probably indestructible as well as mind to say nothing of presumptions in favour of the future existence of brutes; nor from the ingenuity or magnitude of his performances, for in both these particulars he is rivalled or surpassed by some of the lower tribes of creation-witness the cells of the bee, and the coral-reef islands of the Pacific, the work of animalcules. But it is the wondrous, fathomless endowments of feeling and of imagination, viewed especially in their moral relations, that most betoken his grandeur, and invest him with so mysterious a dignity. I can never think meanly of a being who is capable of the exquisite dreams that visit the youthful fancy, or of the passions that are portrayed in the tragedy of Othello.

CONTEMPTUOUS views of mankind easily degenerate into aggressions on their rights or happiness, and are rarely combined with vigorous or persevering efforts for their

melioration. There are some remarkable exceptions, to be sure; but the bitterest cynics have commonly been selfish in their disposition, and not unfrequently immoral in their conduct.

Admiration of the extraordinary powers or other traits of Swift, not without a vein of kindness at the core, yet among the severest of man-despising if not man-hating satirists, will ever be tempered in the right-minded with a feeling far different-not exclusive of pity with the generous -on the score of qualities partly disclosing themselves in the more dubious passages of his history, though less equivocally in the predominance of a spirit that, if not rancorous and intolerant, was at least alien from the broader sympathies that link a loving nature to the brotherhood of

man.

The Stoics, so noted for their magnanimity, self-denial, and other virtues, cherished lofty notions of humanity. The Epicureans, who preferred a life of ease and gratification to active benevolence or usefulness, entertained disparaging sentiments of their species. The former endeavoured to raise men to an equality with the gods: the latter not only degraded the gods to the level of men, but seemed to aim at reducing men to an equality with the brutes.*

THE finer and the ruder elements of our nature are sometimes strangely blended together, vying in heterogeneousness with the most curious specimens of composite architecture, or with the ill-consorted image in the vision of the Chaldean monarch. Persons in particular of impetuous and apparently unbending temper, often possess a latent fund of affection, and exquisite sensibility. It would be endless to enumerate examples, which include some of

* It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader of the distinction between the tenets and practice of Epicurus himself, and those of his later disciples, to whom of course reference is chiefly made in the foregoing observation.