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and an inside, or to tell how an idea affects it as distinct from 
the way in which it is affected, say by a state of the aural 
nerve. While it is of vast importance to mark distinctions 
when true differences exist, it is equally important to make 
the most that truth allows of likenesses such as this. 
The moral sense is not the conscience. That is the judg- 
ment when giving us the moral idea, or when showing us 
right as distinguished from wrong ; but this is not a judgment 
giving us an idea, but a capacity of feeling affected by the 
idea when given. This distinction is, 1 think, of great 
importance. The province of conscience is to judge so that 
the true right shall be presented in the soul as the right, and 
the real wrong as the wrong; but the moral sense has no 
more to do with such judging than the sense of hearing has to 
do in determining the character of the sounds which fall upon 
the ear. That which has in it as an idea the element of right 
will produce in the soul having that idea the feeling appro- 
priate to the right, whether the idea is true or false, just as a 
certain state of the aural nerve will give the sensation of 
hearing, though no actual sound is in the atmosphere at the 
time; and a certain state of the optic nerve will give the 
sensation of seeing, though no light is falling upon the eye. 
It is the work of conscience to decide whether the right is 
real ; but the moral sense must feel in accordance with the 
idea entertained, whether that right is real or unreal. 
It is interesting and important, even repeatedly, to trace in 
some measure the likeness of the moral sense to the other 
senses. One man does not hear so well as another ; so there 
is great diversity of moral susceptibility among men. One 
has the sense of hearing so keen that it is impossible for him 
to be comfortable unless in the midst of silence ; another is 
not affected amid deafening din ; so is it with the moral sense. 
One is so easily affected by the least wrong, real or imaginary, 
that be can scarcely be said to be fit to live under the ordinary 
conditions of social life ; while another is unaffected even by 
many and serious instances of iniquity. As sounds affect the 
ear, whether emitted by ourselves or others, so do actions 
in their moral character affect us, whether our own or those of 
our fellow-men. As it does not at all affect the reality of 
hearing, that sounds that are delightful to one are horrible to 
others ; so it does not affect the reality of the moral sense that 
men differ ever so widely in their feelings of what is right and 
what is wrong. 
I am thus particular as to this sense in its true character, 
because sufficient place is hardly given to it in the discussions 
of morality, or, perhaps, I should rather say moral philosophy. 
