and the conscience, being thus represented as analogous to the desires, it implies, in the same way as other desires, a sense of what is grateful, and a faculty of dwelling in thought, on the gratification so obtained." 1 In thus making conscience analogous to desire, or rather resolving the moral faculty into a class of desires and affections, it is a question whether its value, as a ruling principle of moral obligation, is not destroyed. When speaking of utilitarianism, Whewell objects that “a persuasion that a moral good is something different from, and superior to, mere pleasure, is requisite, to give our preference of it that tone of enthusiasm and affection which belongs to virtuous feeling. The moral faculty converts our perception of the quality of actions into an affection of the strongest kind. Nor can we be satisfied with any account of our moral sentiments which excludes this feature in the process. Thus, as we hold the affections to be motives of an order superior to the desires which have reference to ourselves only, we maintain the moral faculty, the conscience, the affection towards duty, to be a principle of action of an order superior both to the desires and to the other affections." But to reduce conscience to an emotion or feeling, even though it amount to a strong affection, as distinguished from thought, seems to remove that directive element, which is so essential a part of the conscience and moral sense of Butler and Hutcheson. It may be said that the emotive part of man's nature, which is brought into activity by the association of thoughts and emotions, supposed by Mackintosh, has, by virtue of its affective character, supreme influence over the conduct. This may be true, and yet the authority exercised be quite different from that supposed in the idea of duty or moral obligation. The latter is founded on the notion of right, 1 Whewell, loc. cit., p. 38. 2 loc. cit., p. 303.

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and not on that of pleasure or gratification, which may be derived from the performance of a duty, without being sufficient to enforce such performance. As Butler well saw, conscience would be powerless, unless it had associated with it judgment and direction, or rather, unless these, in some sense, actually formed part of the faculty itself. It is here that Mackintosh's scheme is defective, arising from a desire to distinguish too exactly between the intellectual and the emotive, or affective, part of man's being.

This mistake, which is due to a misapprehension of the relation between thought and emotion, is indeed inseparable from the opinion that man possesses a special moral sense or faculty. The distinction between intellectual and moral ideas is perfectly well founded; but when it is asserted that there is a separate element in the mind specially concerned with the latter, an inference is made which the phenomena will not justify. The existence of an actual moral faculty cannot be allowed, if the operation of that which is concerned with intellectual ideas is sufficient to explain the formation of those which are classed as moral. But the latter is thus sufficient, as may be shown by reference to the ordinary action of consciousness. Every impression upon the organism which produces a change in the state of the mind, may be said to give rise to a pleasurable or painful feeling. If the mind, thus aroused into activity, concentrates its attention on the objective source of the impression as existing, or on the mode of its own activity, the feeling, or sensation, as it is termed, leads to the formation of a sensible or intellectual idea. If, on the other hand, the mind fixes its attention on its own condition, as being pleasurable or painful, or on the external object, viewed as giving rise to that condition, the feeling, or sentiment, as it may then be named, results

in the formation of a moral or æsthetic idea. In this case the feelings may be described as emotive, or emotional, as being those which accompany "our affections, our moral judgments, and our determinations in matters. of taste." 1 Viewed as related to the sentimental side of man's nature, moral ideas may thus be said to be emotional, as distinguished from intellectual ideas which are sensational. But in their origin, as dependent on the feelings, both classes of ideas are expressions of the same subjective condition, although representing different phases of it. The distinction, in relation to ideas, between moral and intellectual, as between sensible and æsthetic, is, in reality, purely objective. It originates in the recognition of different classes of objects, the resulting ideas, however different, being associated with the same subjective condition, a state of feeling which is either sensational or sentimental, according to its objectivity. Although, therefore, Hutcheson was justified in applying the term "moral" to a particular class of ideas, he could not consistently affirm that there is a special moral sense, without, at the same time, supposing the existence of a special sense concerned with each particular class of ideas. This has, indeed, been done by writers who suggest the existence of an æsthetic sense.

If conscience is not a state or act of the understanding, the existence of two or more elements in the human mind can hardly be denied. But conscience' may have its source in the understanding, while not being merely a state or an act of it. It has been sometimes thought that consciousness is a particular faculty of the mind, but it is now generally acknowledged to be "the universal condition of intelligence, the fundamental form of all the modes of our thinking activity." Viewed, therefore, as "the common condition under which all our faculties are 1 Reid's "Intellectual Powers," Essay i., chap. 1, sec. 12.

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brought into operation,"1 even the moral faculty, if such exists, must be only a modification of consciousness.

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is undeniable that, "as, on the one hand, we cannot think or feel, without being conscious, so, on the other hand, we cannot be conscious without thinking or feeling." All feeling, therefore, must be a mode of consciousness, as well that which, through sensation, gives rise to intellectual ideas, as that which, as sentiment, results in the formation of the ideas of morality. The moral sense, like the intellectual faculties, would seem thus to be simply a modification of consciousness, which, because it relates to moral ideas, is distinguished as conscience. This term has not, however, necessarily any such limitation. It is true that, as Fleming mentions, the term conscience, and the phrases moral faculty, moral judgment, faculty of moral perception, moral sense, susceptibility of moral emotion, have all come to be applied to that "faculty, or a combination of faculties, by which we have ideas of right and wrong in reference to actions, and correspondent feelings of approbation and disapprobation." But "right" and "wrong" express, in regard to moral conduct, the same ideas as "true" and "false," in relation to intellectual conduct. In fact, right is moral truth, and conscience may be simply and truly defined as consciousness in a moral relation. Logically, the existence of an æsthetic, or of an intellectual conscience, may be affirmed no less truly than that of a moral one. The term conscience has certainly received a conventional limitation, but its definition as "the instinct of duty," shows that it has a fundamental connection with the ordinary mental faculties. Conscience is, indeed, only a phase of instinct, resembling, however, habit, which is the result of repeated experience, rather than instinct, so far as this can be said to precede all 1 Fleming's "Vocabulary of Philosophy" (1857).

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experience. By the influence of habit in the formation of conscience, may be explained the fact that its dictates. vary among distant peoples and in different ages. The fundamental instinct is the same, but it has been developed under different conditions, and therefore the phenomenal results revealed in the habitual activity of conscience are dissimilar. An analogous state of things. is observable in matters of taste, showing that the æsthetic conscience is capable of education, in like manner as that which deals with questions of morals. reason why there is not the same discrepancy between the ideas formed from time to time as to intellectual truths, is to be sought in the fact that these have to do with the objective phenomena in themselves, whether viewed as external to, or in, the mind; whereas, moral and æsthetic ideas are concerned with the condition of the mind, as pleasurable or painful, or with the objective phenomena, as giving rise to that condition. It is evident that the latter ideas are much more liable to vary than the former. The mind has to do in the one case with simple perceptions or sensations; while, in the other, it is concerned with its own condition, which must influence the resultant ideas, these, in their turn, affecting the condition to be observed.

This fact constitutes an objection to the emotional theory of conscience which is insuperable. In the absence of an intellectual element, such as that supplied by an instinct of right or propriety, independent of the mere pleasure or delight attendant on acting in a particular way, the constant recurrence of the same moral or æsthetic ideas would so warp the mental constitution as to render hopeless any attempt to amend it, or to replace those ideas by others. It is, in fact, only because there is an intellectual element at work in the moral and æsthetic consciences, that their teachings are liable to