I am frequently asked to put my name on a supperscription paper. What sort of queer thing do you suppose this can be? Nothing more than a paper to raise money by subscription.

The preposition, to, is often pronounced as if it were spelled, till; or rather, like the last syllable of the word gentle. This is a violent butchery of language. A neighbour tells me that he intends tle go tle a certain place on such a day. It will be somewhat inconvenient; but it is tle close an advantageous contract, an object too important tle be neglected.'

The verb, to lose, is very commonly pronounced, loss. It is right to say, 'I lost my money, and a great loss it was; but to say, 'I could not well afford to loss

it,' is grossly wrong.

But the most dreadful instance, to my ear, is the almost universal misealling of the name of the holy city, Jerusalem. When it is rightly sounded, that is, according to the spelling, it is one of the sweetest words in any language. But what think you of Jeroozlum?

Is there no way to deliver our current speech from the intrusion of such ugly monsters as these?

Yours,

X.

No. 49. MARCH 28, 1816.

On Conscience.

WHAT is conscience? Is it the workmanship of God, an original part of our nature; or is it the fabrication of man? These are interesting questions, and I shall endeavour to give them an answer.

The first relates to the proper meaning of the word conscience. I understand it to signify that faculty of the mind by which we approve or disapprove our actions, (including under that title the unexecuted wishes and intentions within us, as well as actions more commonly so called,) as being right or wrong. Every

exercise of this faculty comprehends two things; namely, an act of judgment, founded on a comparison of our conduct with some standard of rectitude, and a feeling of complacency or of censure, which follows such judgment. I do not find that we distinguish conscience from the moral sense; except that in our way of using the terms we limit the operations of the former to our own actions, while we ascribe to the latter the cognizance of moral objects generally.

That conscience is a natural faculty, and not a mere creature of education, appears as evident to me as that we have any natural faculties whatever. It bears every mark of a primitive part of our constitution. Why is it that all mankind account reason a faculty implanted in our very nature? It does not show itself in the period of our earliest infancy; nor does it arrive at maturity without much exercise and culture. We call it an inborn portion of our nature, because we find it in man throughout the world, and in every age. Now conscience stands upon ground precisely similar. It begins to appear in childhood along with reason; though we do not know the exact time when either of them commences its agency. So far as conscience is a judging power, it is evidently reason itself; it cannot operate; nor is it ever supposed to exist, but in a rational being. It is visible too as universally as reason. Never was a people known who discovered no perception of right and wrong, no sense of merit and demerit, in human actions. We find individuals born without reason; and we deem them melancholy exceptions to the common nature of man. Should we find one who could reason on other topics, but not on those which belong to conscience, we should esteem him a greater and more melancholy exception, a monster in human shape, a frightful prodigy in the moral world.

Besides what has been said, it seems to me a manifest impossibility that education should create a faculty of the mind. The business of education is to awaken and train the natural faculties, not to create new ones.

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Can any system of instruction give to an idiot the power of reasoning? Who ever heard of such a thing?_ And we know idiots to be equally incapable, as might well be expected, of acquiring a sense of moral obligation, equally and perpetually unable to pronounce upon actions the sentence of praise or blame.

Some respectable persons, however, have been made to doubt whether conscience is a natural endowment or not, by such facts as these; that we frequently see it in a very low state of activity, and that different men, and even nations, have adopted quite different rules of moral conduct. To all this I reply, that the faculty of reason, so justly, within sober bounds, the boast of our nature, is in the very same situation. We need not look so far as the land of the Hottentots to discover reason almost absolutely dormant. And among those who possess cultivated minds, and who reason much, what an endless diversity and opposition do we witness in the conclusions adopted by different people, in theology, politics, jurisprudence, medicine, and nearly every subject of speculation! But shall we therefore deny that reason is an original gift of our Creator? Surely no one will pretend that we ought. In the science of morals, as in all other sciences, we have faculties suited to the object of inquiry; and there are a few self-evident truths, or axioms, which constitute the basis of our reasonings. That men often argue badly, and conclude amiss, in matters of morality, no more proves conscience to be a factitious power, than their doing the same in other things proves rea son to be a mere human invention. Indeed it would be surprising if men were not oftener led astray in their moral investigations, than in some others, where their prejudices and passions are less interested.

It is sometimes asked, what notions of morality, or whether any at all, would be found in a man grown. to years of maturity altogether without education? I answer, it is happily difficult to meet,with a subject on. which to make the experiment. The most savage peo

ple are not brought up without a great deal of education; though it is little when compared with that of civilized society. But I will confidently hazard the conjecture that such a man as the question describes would make as good a figure in morals as in rationality. I freely confess that I believe it would be a wretched figure in either respect. It may be true that the fundamental principles of morals would never occur spontaneously to such a benighted mind; but then that mind would be equally ignorant of the plainest axioms belonging to other departments of knowledge. I have a faint recollection of an account I once read of a wild man caught in the woods of Hanover in Germany, and brought thence to England as an object of philosophical curiosity. I think he exhibited only those instincts by which some of the more sagacious brutes are characterized; and was found incapable of being taught to speak, to reason, or to feel any sense of duty. Upon the whole, I see no more warrant for asserting that man is a moral being by education only, than that education alone creates the faculty of reason.

While I contend that conscience is a part of our nature, I am very far from thinking it a kind of little pope in our breasts, which always infallibly dictates, of itself, what it is our duty to do or to forbear. I have been alarmed at the frequency with which I encountered this notion in my walks; for it is a notion as pernicious as it is foolish. We all know that in order to make one a good scholar, the rational powers must be strengthened by assiduous use, and furnished with abundant light and information. So, to make a virtuous character, conscience must not be left to itself, but instructed and disciplined with the utmost industry, and the utmost attainable wisdom. And how worthy is such an object of the most laborious course of exertion! I will add here that no scheme of moral training really deserves the title unless it begins t with God and his worship. There is a violent inconsistency in pretending to cherish virtue in all its branches,

while we leave our Maker, our sovereign Lawgiver and Judge, out of our view; while we refuse, to render him the reverence, the subjection, and the gratitude, which he claims from us, and enjoins as our primary duties. Moreover, it is not slandering human nature to ask, where are the sufficient motives to steady, undeviating rectitude, even in our social relations, if we despise the favour of the eternal God, and forget or deny our responsibility at his tribunal; or where is our security for the accomplishment of the best resolutions, under those strong temptations to evil with which the world abounds, and to which our wayward and deceitful hearts are so prone to yield, if we disdain to take refuge in his love and protection? A well informed conscience, however necessary and valuable, is not all that we want. It is requisite also, for the efficient practice of virtue, that we possess a high and holy sensibility, and be armed with an inflexible energy of decision; blessings which God alone eau bestow, and which they only who worship and obey him have a right to expect.

No. 50. APRIL 18, 1816

Answer to the Old Bachelor.

FT is time that I should give the best reply in my power to the letter of the Old Bachelor, published in my forty eighth number. He cannot be ignorant that there are many who feel more disposition to laugh at him and his lamentations than to sympathize with him. But so do not I; being convinced by his letter, as well as by what commonly happens in such cases, that he already suffers punishment enough for his celibacy, without the additional stings of ridicule.

The grand and only effectual remedy for every disconsolation of the mind is religion. My readers know that this is one of my fundamental principles; and I am every day convinced more profoundly of its truth.