Self-Culture

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 Excerpt: ... BY the conscience I mean the principle, or instinct, or power within every man, which shows to him the distinction between right and wrong; makes him feel that he ought to do some things, ought not to do others; and gives him a sense of satisfaction when he does what he believes to be right, of dissatisfaction when he does what he believes to be wrong. Eegarded as an intellectual power, it is the sight of duty as an idea; viewed as a motive, it is that which prompts to moral conduct; considered as sentiment, it is the feeling of merit or demerit, of remorse or self-approbation. There are those, we know, who maintain that there is no such faculty in man as this, asserting that, in the last analysis, these convictions may be reduced to the sense of what is profitable, useful, and pleasant. The reasons for this opinion, as given by Archdeacon Paley, are such as these. "Historians and travellers tell us that there is scarcely a vice which has not in some age or country been approved by public opinion, scarcely a virtue which has not been condemned; that in one country it is thought right for children to support their aged parents, in another to despatch them out of the way. In one age suicide is heroism, in another felony; theft was rewarded in Sparta as meritorious; duelling is praised or condemned, according to the sex, age, or station of the speaker." Hence it is inferred there is no moral sense in man. This objection to a moral sense would be conclusive if we maintain that conscience teaches us what is right or wrong. But this we do not say. We say it gives us the idea of right and wrong; causes us to approve what we believe right, disapprove what we believe to be wrong. What is right and wrong has to be learned, as we learn other truths, by the exercise o...