210 
favour of the pofition ; and, by the way, 
this lat is not fo abfurd as may at firft 
fight appear: it may be oppugned in the 
elofet, but it will be believed in the count- 
ing-houfe: it may be nothing among phi- 
lofopers, but has great weight with finan- 
ciers: and it convinces me, that if we 
could find the foul, the confcience would 
not be far off ; for Dean Swift, an admir- 
able manager of fuch d:fcuffions, a man 
after my own heart in ali matters of this 
defcription, compares the conicience to 4 
pair of breeches—I omit his indelicate 
parallelifms : we are too nice in thefe days 
to repeat fuch things—bnt doubtlefs he 
had an eye to the pocket when he wrote 
this, and probably Fielding, a pofterior 
writer, might take the hint from him. 
We know that the fympathy between the 
foul and the breeches-pocket is great ; 
and whether owing to connexion by nerves 
filled with a fine imperceptible fluid, or 
feme folid’ fubftance in the a& of pcuring 
orof melting ; or to fome unknown oper- 
ation of the mind—fomeé affociation of 
ideas: there can be no doubt that there 
does exift a moft wonderful and acute fym- 
pathy between the parts, and that even 
where we fhould fuppofe them moft remote ; 
for if you touchthe one, you infallibly 
affe&t the other. Of this I could advance 
a thoufand proofs, which is the reafon why 
¥ fhall advance none ; for of a faét fo fa- 
miliar to common experience, and fo ftrik- 
ing to even fcperficial obfervation, all 
manner of formal proof would be an af- 
front to my readers, and I have every in- 
ducement to keep them in the beft poffible 
humour, while treating on fuch a fubjeét. 
I ‘may, however, add, on the aforefaid 
fympathy between the fouland the breeches- 
pocket, that they are fuppofed by fome 
writers to fupply the place of each other 
eceafionally ; that ts, that they are not 
always (to {peak learnedly) in fimultaneous 
eperation, and that,as thelofs of fight makes 
the hearing more acute, and the touch par- 
ticularly, fo the abfence of the foul or 
confcience greatly promotes an attention 
to the other part. But I advance this 
only in a digreffive way. It has no im- 
mediate relation to the main fubjeét, to 
which [ now return, 
With refpeé to the feat of the foul, I 
have given the opinion of two parties ; 
there remains a third who, not being able 
to untie the knot, fairly cut it, and fay 
there is no fuch thing as a foul; now 
were this true, it would follow that there 
is no fuch thing as aconfcience. But I 
am difpofed to deny both propofitions, 
aud I humbly conceive that the public at 
On Confcience. 
[March ¥, 
large will think with me, that both foul 
and confcience muft be retained as ufeful 
component parts, and without which we 
could not fwear properly, either before 2 
magiftrate or in genteel company. A 
great man could not utter his promifes, 
nor a fhopkeeper vend his commodities, 
without them. 
Innumer able difficulties, theréfore, arife 
on the fubjeét of confcience from our ig+ 
horance of: its topography. In natural 
hiftory, no man can deferibe a {pecimen 
which he has neither feen, nor knows where 
tofind. Even if a traveller wifhes to eke 
out his book with the defcription of fomé 
famous twenty-times deferibed caftle, he 
will, if he does not go to look at it, at leaft 
make himfelf fure of where it-ftands. 
Now if the moft learned of our writers had 
adverted to thefe plain analogies, fo fimplé 
that I am afhamed to have committed them 
to paper, they would not have copied from 
one another fuch vague idéas on the fub- 
je&t of confcience, without informing us 
where it is placed, and whether it is an 
animal, a vegetable, or a mineral fub- — 
fiance. It muftbe one of the three, and 
I frankly confefs, with fubmiffion to thefe 
gentlemen, my opinion, that if they had 
only taken this into confideration, they 
might have approached nearer to the truth. 
It is a trite, yet juft maxim, ‘ Let us all 
ftart fair,’ but if wedo not know where 
to ftart from, it will be a curious race. 
I have no inclination to promote dif- 
putes; indeed, I have no turn for contro- 
verfy ; I would not even tell a man what 
o’clock it was, if I thought it woald lead 
to an argument—but were my polemical 
fkill of the firft rate, I fhould from ex- 
perience and evidence of faéts be inclined 
to contend that, of the three, confcience 
inclines moft to the mineral quality. I 
allow at the fame time, that there is. great 
feope for objection here, becaufe fome of 
its properties are peculiar to the animal 
and fome to the vegetable kingdom; and 
becaufe, althongh minerals are the hard- 
eft fubftances we know, there- are fome 
men whofe confciences are as thin as a 
bank-note, and feem rather the property 
of the paper-mill than the mine. Yet 
ftill I think there would be a preponde- 
rance in favour of my hypothefis,and as an 
hypothefis only I would at firft propofe 
it. Nothing becomes us writers more 
than modefty at fir fetting out. There 
will be time enough for obftinacy and 
‘calling names,” when we have applied 
thofe operations of chemiftry, which, we 
know, will difcover the true nature of 
any fubfance. For fuch Si i 
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