240 SSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



been the judgment if the evidence had been other 

 than it was, but they presuppose the judge and his 

 authority. 



Here, then, we have reached the real point of 

 union between the different systems of Theology 

 and Law. They are different. We cannot derive 

 the one from the other. But Conscience is the 

 source of both, and hence it is that Theology, 

 Ethics and Law are, if we may dare to use the 

 phrase, a Trinity in unity. For Conscience, the 

 ultimate authority in our legislative and judicial 

 systems, the formal principle of ethics and of our 

 moral practice, is also " the creative principle of 

 religion " and the first source of our knowledge of 

 God. Be it that men have tried to explain it 

 away as a long-sighted selfishness, or an instinctive 

 power of measuring utility, or the growth of many 

 an age of ingenious self-seeking : yet in the strong 

 vigorous life of intellectual and moral health it 

 stands firm as it has ever done, claiming to be, 

 what it has been grandly called, "the messenger 

 from Him, Who both in nature and in grace speaks 

 to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by 

 His representatives, . . . the aboriginal Vicar of 

 Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in 

 its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and 

 anathemas ! " the undying witness in the heart of 

 man to the sacerdotal principle. In religion it 

 speaks as the Prophet of Him, Whom now we 



