Physiology. 405 



good and evil, praise and blame, reward and punishment. 

 Such words express the perception of man's true interest, of his 

 duty, of the relation of actions to character. What we blame 

 is a violation of a natural law. Gluttony, drunkenness, lust, 

 uncleanliness, we see and feel are violations of the laws of 

 purity and health. Fraud, theft, violence, and murder, are 

 trespasses upon the rights of others, in which we also do vio- 

 lence to our own sense of justice and right. Seduction and 

 adultery are personal injuries and social crimes. Detraction 

 and slander are injuries to the individual, frauds upon society, 

 and a still greater injury to those who are guilty of them. 

 Conscience is, intellectually, the perception of the relations of 

 good and bad actions to the individual and society; morally, 

 it is the desire for the right for its own sake. We see and feel 

 things to be right in harmony with nature and the Author of 

 Nature just as we see a line to be straight, a circle to be round, 

 a square not to be a triangle; just as we perceive and enjoy 

 the harmonies of accords in music, or feel pained at discords. 

 It is a moral sense analogous to taste or smell, sight or hear- 

 ing; and, like these, liable to be perverted by education and 

 habit. We need a healthy, pure, unperverted conscience, or 

 sense and love of truth and justice, equity and harmony in all 

 our relations, as a guide to the true life which will give us all 

 we can have or wish of earthly happiness. 



Morality is wonderfully simple. Its laws are self-evident, 

 based in the nature of man, and therefore as easily recognised 

 as the most fundamental mathematical truth. It is no more 

 "a matter of opinion" whether things are right or wrong, than 

 it is a matter of opinion whether two and two make four, or 

 that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. 

 Man has no right to injure himself, because he belongs to 

 others to God who made him, and to the society of which he 

 is a member. He has no right to injure others; for his true 

 relation to them is that of comrade, helper, friend, brother. 



