Chap. 16.] tte Moral Senfe. 493 



of reafoning or deduction ; thefe fentiments are alfo 

 excited even in children, long before they have learned 

 to make ufe of their reafon, or to form in their own 

 minds any regular judgment concerning the good or 

 evil confluences of action. 4-thly, The general 

 agreement of all nations (only making fome allow- 

 ances for local circumftances) with refpect to moral 

 excellence or moral turpitude, is alfo cited as a proof 

 that thefe fentiments muft proceed from fome general 

 and inftinHve principle. 5thly, It is afked, what is 

 meant by the term confcience, and that uneafy fenfa- 

 tion which accompanies guilt, if there is nothing con- 

 ftitutionally in man to direct him in the purfuit of good 

 and the abhorrence of evil ? 



In oppofition to this doctrine it is urged, with fome 

 plaufibility, ift, That the moral fenfe improves * with 

 years and knowledge. What moral ideas, it is faid, 

 had the favage girl caught in the woods of Champaine ? 

 What had the young man of Chartres, who recovered 

 his hearing at the age of twenty-four f ? Uninformed 

 perfons of every nation have not an exquifite moral 



fenfe, 



* This argument is, however, npt decifive, fince any one of 

 our fenfes, and even our bodily -powers, may be improved by 

 practice and inftruftion. 



f A young man of the town of Chartres, between the age of 

 twenty-three and twenty- four, the fon of a tradefman, and de.af 

 and dumb from his birth, began to fpeak of a fudden, to the afto- 

 nifhment of the whole town. He gave them to underftand, that, 

 about three or four months before, he had heard the found of the 

 bells, and was greatly furprifed at ihis new and unknown fenfa- 

 tion. After fome time a kind of water iffued from his left ear, 

 and he then heard perfectly well with them both. During thefe 

 three months he was feduloufly employed in liftejiing, without 

 faying a word, and accuftoming himfelf to fpeak foftly, fo as not 

 to be heard, the words pr6nounced by others. lie laboured hard 



alfo 



