52 LORD GRIMTHORPE 
universal approval of certain lines of conduct may be accounted for in 
various ways. For instance, ‘ having experienced at some time, a particular 
conduct to be beneficial to ourselves, or observed that it would be so,a 
sentiment of approbation rises up in our minds, which sentiment after- 
wards accompanies the idea or mention of the same conduct, although the 
private advantage which first excited it no longer exist.’ By these means 
the custom of approving certain actions commenced: it is kept up by 
authority, by imitation, by inculcation, by habit. Besides, say they, none 
of the so-called cnnate maxims are absolutely and universally true, but all 
bend to circumstances. Thus, veracity, which seems, if any be, a natural 
duty, is excused in many cases towards an enemy, a thief, or a madman ; 
and so with the obligation to keep a promise. Nothing is so soon made as 
a maxim: Aristotle laid down, as a fundamental and self-evident maxim, 
that nature intended barbarians to be slaves. ‘Upon the whole,’ says 
Paley, ‘it seems to me, either that there exist no such instincts as compose 
what is called the moral sense, or that they are not now to be distinguished 
from prejudices and habits ; on which account they cannot be depended 
upon in moral reasoning ; that is, it is not a safe way of arguing, to assume 
certain principles as so many dictates, impulses, and instincts of nature, 
and then to draw conclusions from these principles, as to the rectitude or 
wrongness of actions, independent of the tendency of such actions, or of 
any other considerations whatever’; and he finishes by dismissing the 
question as of no concern except to the curious.” 
“But a very different complexion is put upon the matter by a careful 
classification of the chief terms. J/orals may be divided into our own 
and other people’s, and under both these heads we may place on one side 
overt acts, habits, &c., and on the other side, what are summed up under 
the designation of motives—those secret springs of thought and action 
which may be inferred, but cannot be perceived, by outsiders. These 
motives act in the higher regions of the being’s nature, in those parts 
which are in immediate relation with the sentient power, and they pro- 
duce an impression, agreeable or otherwise, according to their harmony 
or discord with what the being himself accepts as right. As the rain- 
drops descend upon the sides of a mountain, and, percolating through 
the several strata, reach the central reservoir whence the streams receive 
their supply, and as the set of the strata determines in great measure 
the particular side of the mountain on which the spring will appear, so a 
man’s deeds are the resultants of the various influences brought to bear 
upon him, and, in his reaction upon the outer world, he is able, by his 
Will, to determine more or less the character of his acts. It is at this 
juncture that the conscience comes in, its province being to perceive the 
equality or inequality of a nascent act to the being’s accepted standard of 
right, that is, to the degree of light he possesses. If, at the critical 
