sight appear, which has already changed the face of domestic and civil society, and, like a little leaven which leaveneth the whole lump, is secretly regenerating the whole mass of human nature.

We infer, therefore, that it is highly important to consider well what truths we adopt. The doctrine that it is no matter what we believe, if we are only sincere in it, is derogatory to the claims of human reason, and full of danger. What persecutor, what tyrant, what robber, what assassin may not put in his claim for a sort of sincerity, and, in many cases, justly too? It is a sincerity, a conscientiousness based on all the wisdom which human intelligence, in its best efforts, can gather up, and nothing short of this, which stands approved in the sight of human reason and of a just Divinity.

◊ 424. Of the knowledge of the Supreme Being, and of the study of religious truth generally.

And, in connexion with what has been said in the preceding section, we proceed to remark further, that all morality must necessarily be defective, in a greater or less. degree, which proceeds on the principle of excluding RELIGION. It is true that a man who is not religious, (in other words, who has not a sincere regard for the character and institutions of the Supreme Being,) may do some things which, in themselves considered, are right and are morally commendable; but he does not do all that is right, he comes short in the most essential part. And his failure there renders it difficult, perhaps we may say impossible, to speak of him, with any degree of propriety and truth, as a right, that is to say, as a just or holy person.

We assert, therefore, that moral education must include, as a leading element, some instruction in regard to the existence and character of God, and those religious duties which are involved in the fact of his existence and character. Our conscience, the office of which is to adjust our duties to our ability and the relations we sustain, imperatively requires this. In the eye of an enlightened intellectual perception, God stands forth distinct from, and pre-eminent above all others, as an object infinitely exalted; and a want of love to his character and of adhe

sion to his law is, in the view of conscience, a crime so grossly flagrant in itself as not to be atoned for by any other virtue. And not only this; a proper regard for the character of the Supreme Being has such a multiplicity of bearings and relations, in consequence of the diffusion of his presence, and the multiplicity of his acts and requirements, that the crime involved in the want of it seems to spread itself over the infinite number of transactions which, taken together, constitute the sum of life. So that the doctrine of the existence of God, received into the intellect, and attended, as it should be, with perfect love in the heart, is, beyond all question, the great foundation and support of a truly consistent moral life.

THE SENSIBILITIES, OR SENSITIVE

NATURE.

SENSITIVE STATES OF THE MIND OR SENTIMENTS.

PART THIRD.

IMPERFECT OR DISORDERED SENSITIVE ACTION.

PP 2

CHAPTER I.

DISORDERED AND ALIENATED ACTION OF THE APPETITES AND PROPENSITIES.

§ 425. Introductory remarks on disordered sensitive action. WITH what has now been said on the subject of our moral nature, we bring the interesting and important department of the Sensibilities, in its two leading forms of the Natural or Pathematic Sensibilities, and of the Moral Sensibilities, to a conclusion. In saying this, however, we have reference to its regular and ordinary action, or that action which takes place in accordance with the ordinary and permanent principles of the Sensitive nature. But it remains to be added further, that there are instances here, as well as in the Intellect, of marked and disastrous deviations from the salutary restraint which these principles impose. In other words, there is not unfrequently an action of the Sensibilities which is so far out of the ordinary or natural line of the precedents of the heart and the morals, that it may be properly described, sometimes as an imperfect or disordered, and sometimes as an alienated action.-It is to the examination of this subject, a knowledge of which is obviously necessary to a comprehensive and complete view of the Sensibilities, that we now propose to proceed.

426. Of what is meant by a disordered and alienated state of the

sensibilities.

It may be proper to remark here, that an imperfect or disordered action of the Sensibilities may express merely an irregularity of action, something out of the common and ordinary course of action; or, as the form of expression is obviously a somewhat general and indefinite one, it may indicate something more. When, for instance, this irregular and disordered state passes a certain limit, goes beyond a certain boundary which is more easily conceived than described, it becomes Insanity or Alienation. That is to say, the merely irregular action becomes