period of old age. They carry these views so far, that when, through want of provisions, some of the tribe or of the party must die, the lot inevitably falls on the aged instead of the young. But we hold that this fact does not necessarily prove these Savages destitute of natural conscience. It does not appear that they expose their old men to death in this way before the exhaustion of their provisions. And the probability is, that when, in that exigency, they leave them to perish, they do it with feelings of regret, and with the consent and choice of the aged sufferers themselves. On the supposition that such are the circumstances under which their old men are exposed, the most that can justly be said is, that the feelings of nature, already weakened by the influence of unfortunate associations, are made to bow to the exigencies of their situation. It may appear that they have a wrong or perverted conscience (that is to say, a conscience led astray by their early habits and associations), in permitting the sacrifice of the aged in preference to that of the young; but it by no means follows that they have no conscience at all. Especially as they are described as being hospitable, so far as they have anything to give; courteous and respectful in their general intercourse, affectionate in their families, and not wanting in justice in the ordinary distribution and management of what little they possess.

Let those who, in civilized lands and under equal governments, are comparatively free from suffering, remember, before they pronounce unfavourably and harshly upon the moral obliquities of others, the intense and uncounted evils which they sometimes endure. The heart that thrilled with sensibility, and was alive to every moral impulse, may be left, in the intensity of bitter experience and of agonized recollections, to the perpetration of deeds of unspeakable horror. A missionary, dwelling among the Natives of South America, once reproached a woman with the fearful crime of having put her own infant daughters to death. She replied to the missionary in words of the following purport:

"Father, if you will allow me, I shall tell you what passes in my mind.-Would to God that my mother, when she brought me forth, had shown as much regard and compassion for me as to have spared me the pain I have hitherto suffered, and must continue to suffer until the end of my days. Had she buried me when I was born, I should not have felt death, and she would have preserved me from all I am indispensably subjected to, as well as from labours more cruel than death is terrifying. Alas! who knows the troubles awaiting me before it arrives? Can a mother do anything more profitable to her daughter than save her from multiplied disasters and a slavery worse than death? Would to God, father, I repeat, would to God that she who gave me life had testified her affection by depriving me of it at my birth: my heart would have had less to endure, and my eyes less to weep."*

§ 276. Of diversities of moral judgment in connexion with an excited state of the passions.

Furthermore, there may be diversities of moral judgment; in other words, the moral nature may occasionally be perplexed and led astray in its action, under the influence of a state of excited passion. The action of all the parts of the mind is a conditional one; that is to say, it takes place only under certain assignable circumstances. It is, for instance, one condition of moral action, as we have repeatedly had occasion to notice, that there must be an antecedent perception of the thing, whatever it is, upon which the moral judgment is to be passed. This condition of moral action is violated in the case under consideration, as well as in others. In a time of great excitement of passion, the moral emotion, which would have existed under other circumstances, has failed to arise, because the soul is intensely and wholly taken up with another species of feeling. The perceptive and comparing part of the mind is not in a situation * Historical Illustrations of the Passions (Anonymous), vol. i., p. 162.

to take a right view of the subject, whatever it is. But after the present passion has subsided, so as to give the person an opportunity to inquire and reflect, the power of moral judgment returns. And at once the individual, who has been the subject of such violence of feeling, looks with horror on the deeds which he has committed. So that the original susceptibility, the existence of which has been contended for, cannot justly be said to be extinct in such cases, although its due exercise, as is sufficiently obvious, is prevented by the accidental circumstance of inordinate passion.

Further those who imagine that there are no permanent moral distinctions, because they are not regarded in moments of extreme passion, would do well to consider, that at such times persons are unable rightly to apprehend any truths whatever, whether they relate to morals or anything else. A murderer, when drawing the blade from the bosom of his victim, probably could not tell the quotient of sixteen divided by four, or any other simple results in numbers; but certainly his inability to perceive them under such circumstances does not annul numerical powers and distinctions, nor prove the absolute want of a power to perceive them. Why, then, should the same inability take away moral distinctions, or prove the absolute absence of a moral susceptibility?

§ 277. Of the action of the conscience in connexion with strong temptation.

We may add to the considerations which have now been brought forward, that there may be expected to be some diversities in the decisions of the moral sensibility, occasioned by diversities in the degree of temptation which happens to bear upon it. The moral sensibility or conscience, as it developes itself in the feelings of moral obligation, is in immediate contact with the will, and furnishes a powerful motive to action. But the power of these feelings, considered as motives to action, is of course limited; it has its boundaries; it cannot overcome everything. Of

course, if our desires, which are the antagonist principle of action, are very strong, there is a possibility, at least, of the sentiments of duty being overcome. And, in point of fact, this is sometimes the case.

But how does it happen that the feelings of obligation, or sentiments of duty, which so frequently predominate, have less power in these particular cases than the desires? It is because the intellect, under the instigation of the desires, gives a distorted view of things, representing our own claims in the most favourable light, and darkening and depressing the claims of others. The conscience labours under the disadvantage of having before itself an erroneous view of the facts; which have the twofold effect of reacting upon and increasing the intensity of the desires, and, at the same time, of blunting the edge of moral perception. Hence another class of what are called violations of conscience; that is to say, of apparent want of uniformity in its decisions.

Under this head we may properly introduce a statement from the travels of Mungo Park. He is speaking of a tribe of Africans called the Mandingoes. After saying that they discovered an insurmountable propensity to steal the few articles of property which he possessed, he goes on to remark as follows: "For this part of their conduct no complete justification can be offered, because theft is a crime in their own estimation; and it must be observed, that they are not habitually and generally guilty of it towards each other. This, however, is an important circumstance in mitigation; and, before we pronounce them a more depraved people than any other, it were well to consider whether the lower order of people in any part of Europe would have acted, under similar circumstances, with greater honesty towards a stranger than the Negroes acted towards me. It must not be forgotten, that the laws of the country afforded me no protection; that every one was at liberty to rob me with impunity; and, finally, that some part of my effects was of as great value in the estimation of the

Negroes, as pearls and diamonds would have been in the eyes of a European. Let us suppose a black merchant of Hindostan to have found his way into the centre of England with a box of jewels at his back, and that the laws of the kingdom afforded him no security; in such a case, the wonder would be, not that the stranger was robbed of any part of his riches, but that any part was left for a second depredator. Such, on sober reflection, is the judgment I have formed concerning the pilfering disposition of the Mandingo Negroes towards myself. Notwithstanding I was so great a sufferer by it, I do not consider that their natural sense of justice was perverted or extinguished; it was overpowered only for the moment, by the strength of a temptation which it required no common virtue to resist.

"On the other hand, as some counterbalance to this depravity in their nature, allowing it to be such, it is impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity and tender solicitude with which many of these poor heathens, from the sovereign of Sego to the poor women who received me at different times in their cottages when I was perishing of hunger, sympathized with my sufferings, relieved my distresses, and contributed to my safety."*

§ 275. Of the existence of a moral nature in connexion with public robbers and outlaws from society.

In concluding this subject, there are one or two topics remaining which may be worthy of a brief notice.--Those who object to the doctrine of a moral sense will be likely to appeal, in support of their own view of the subject, to the conduct of robbers and outlaws from society. In regard to these persons, we are to consider, in the first place, that they are few in number compared with the whole number of mankind. And the fact that a few persons appear to be destitute of a conscience ought not to be admitted in positive disproof of a doctrine which is supported by * Park's Travels in Africa, p. 297.