CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY 159 



never be imposed by any external authority. There is 

 only one authority for every man his inner guide. 



Its relations to religious morality are perhaps the most 

 important of all aspects of the conscience. Nearly all of 

 what has been said of its relations to the collective conscience 

 applies here too with equal force. The conflict, when there 

 is one, is still always between morality and prudence. 

 Obedience to the commands of religion may be based on 

 one of two grounds either faith in the religion as a moral 

 authority or fear of consequences. When Abraham was 

 bidden to slay his son, his reason for complying may have 

 been, either respect for the authority, and a certainty that 

 whatever it commanded must be right ; or a dread of punish 

 ment in the case of refusal. In the first case the compliance 

 would be moral, in the second prudential. It is true that 

 both motives may be present at the same time, and then 

 the conduct would be predominantly moral or prudential 

 according as either respect or fear was the strongest factor. 



The parallel between collective and religious morality 

 holds good in another respect. Both arise when strictly 

 ethical notions are grafted on principles of a separate and 

 independent origin. As the collective conscience has its 

 origin in the needs of society, so religious morality is 

 developed when the apprehension of existences, which are 

 beyond the range of our senses, and not subject to our 

 control, presses into its service the reactions of the in 

 dividual conscience, and utilizes them as the engine through 

 which the supernatural beings may be moved either to anger 

 or to approbation. They become the necessary link through 

 which the divine government, when that conception arises, 

 is exercised, and the determinant and measure of its rewards 

 and punishments. 



Religious usually differs from social morality in being 

 embodied in a written code, with a system of rewards and 

 punishments, and a special agency to interpret and admin 

 ister it, and to this difference it owes, as far as we are compe 

 tent to distinguish them, both its chief excellence and its 

 chief dangers. Being embodied in a code which professedly 



