3 LORD GRIMTHORPE 
denied to be so by some people who set up for moralists, 
or who choose to neglect or to do them without setting up 
for anything except “being as good as their neighbours,” 
which depends on “ who is their neighbour,” and, if true, 
proves nothing except that vice is common in their society, 
and therefore more noxious to the world than if they were 
solitary offenders. At what age does uneducated conscience 
begin to convince children that absolute selfishness is not 
the true euide of life: nay does it ever convince some 
educated adults ? : 
So I cannot accept conscience as an assumable proposi- 
tion to base responsibility on. You know that Paley took 
this view, and I think proved it in his usual lucid way, in 
his Moral Philosophy, cap. vy. An ingenious writer has sent 
me a paper called “ Ratio Rationis,” professing to refute it, 
by dividing morals into our own and other people’s, and 
saying that the province of conscience is not to discover 
what is right, but to warn us to do what we believe to be 
right: “The question for my conscience is how far my 
present conduct tallies with my present lght;” which 
obviously comes to this, in its simplest terms: Conscience 
only tells us that we ought to do what we believe we ought. 
So it is quite right and virtuous, and a thing to be rewarded 
here and hereafter, to act on the rule that selfishness is the 
true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world, until he is taught better and convinced that that light 
is darknees; and if he should be seduced into an act of bene- 
volence against his interest, his conscience will rebuke bim. 
I daresay something will; but a diabolic or natural conscience 
of that kind is not a very solid basis for a doctrine of 
responsibility. So that queer piece of reasoning only ends 
in affirming, not contradicting, the great Senior Wrangler 
who wrote the Evidences of Christianity and Natural Theo-. 
logy, and could put more good reasoning, and more intel- 
higible, into a page than most moral philosophy-makers in a 
ence or a volume. Dr. Row says: “ Men therefore feel 
themselves to be responsible.” It is no use saying “ there- 
fore” unless the conclusion as well as the premiss is a fact 
either demonstrable or self-evident. If it were a fact that 
all men feel themselves to be responsible, it would be a 
waste of time to write papers to prove it. It would indeed ° 
be not far from the truth to say that all men feel all other 
men to be responsible, and at any rate take care to treat 
them so, subject to reasonable excuses; and an excuse is 
only a mitigation, not a plea of not guilty. Every man 
