THE UNIVERSAL SKINS. 287 



The brain of the sense of right or social man is the skin-princi- 

 ple of the moral man, that is to say, the conscience, the surface upon 

 which the moral sense is felt. For conscience is the jealousy of 

 the virtues, as self is the jealous principle of animal defence. The 

 individual is an intense society in this spaceless space ; a tender 

 feeling outraged there, is a wrong to the poor and the needy; a 

 hatred is a murder ; on the other hand the virtues exerted in this 

 secret chamber toward the least of the little ones, are done in the 

 state of the state, and to him who lives within the conscience. The 

 moral faculties are defended by this sense, whose monition rouses 

 them to self-preservation ; its agonies, and its happiness, are the 

 exterior motives of the virtues. Conscience limits us to its com- 

 pass ; our right and wrong are according to it, for our morality is 

 no larger than our conscience. It individualizes and spaces the 

 virtues, for it gives to each its own grounds of action, and makes moral 

 difference among men. It expresses them, for the beauty of no good- 

 ness can shine nakedly, but through the face of the conscience. It 

 purines, for it is the essential organ of self-examination,* and the 

 supreme area of our approbations and rejections. But it is also elastic, 

 or is wisdom living in circumstances. Finally it is a point of con- 

 science, that there are degrees of its sense which it does not include, 

 and hence it is open to new experiences. And as is the case with 

 all skins, where they are not, the organs underneath them are not ; 

 but where they are, the man comes solid within them. So true it 

 is, that in giving a new conscience, a new man also is given in the 



old.f 



In the soul, the skin principle is identity, whose germ is the / 

 that runs along all our time, governs each human verb, and stands as 

 a focus over our actions ; but its adult body is our sense of immor- 

 tality, which binds us in all things to be and to do for ever. World 



* The body is put into a sieve, which is the skin, and shaken about by the 

 mind and muscles, to clear it of dust and debris ; and the sieve itself knows the 

 dust from the gold, and keeps and rejects accordingly. The skin is therefore 

 the bodily principle of self-examination, the sieve of our daily life and death. 



f Any one may be without some of his bodies if he is without their skins ; for 

 he does not possess until he comprehends them, or has their sense or skin. 

 What is not manifested or revealed, is not, so far as man's faculties are con- 

 cerned. 



