(One might ask how, if a man worship these ideas with all his heart, a portion could be left? but the sense is so excellent, I cannot quarrel with a slight inaccuracy in the expression. I never quite understood before why it is difficult to subscribe to the truth of the phrase “He is a good but a narrow-minded man,” but felt the incompatibility.)
9.
He says “the word useful implies the idea of good robbed of its nobleness.” Is this true? the useful is the good applied to practical purposes; it need not, therefore, be less noble. The nobleness lies in the spirit in which it is so applied.
10.
Benthamism (what is it?), Puritanism, Judaism, how he hates them! I suppose, because he fears God and fears for the Church of God. Hatred of all kinds seems to originate in fear.
11.
What he says of conscience, very remarkable!
“Men get embarrassed by the common cases of a misguided conscience: but a compass may be out of order as well as a conscience; and you can trace the deranging influence on the latter quite as surely as on the former. The needle may point due south if you hold a powerful magnet in that direction; still the compass, generally speaking, is a true and sure guide,” &c.; and then he adds, “he who believes his conscience to be God’s law, by obeying it obeys God.”
I think there would be much to say about all this passage relating to conscience, nor am I sure that I quite understand it. Derangement of the intellect is madness; is not derangement of the conscience also madness? might it not be induced, as we bring on a morbid state of the other faculties, by over use and abuse? by giving it more than its due share of power in the commonwealth of the mind? It should preside, not tyrannise; rule, not exercise a petty cramping despotism. A healthy courageous conscience gives to the powers, instincts, impulses, fair play; and having once settled the order of government with a strong hand, is not always meddling though always watchful.
Then again, how is conscience “God’s law?” Conscience is not the law, but the interpreter of the law; it does not teach the difference between right and wrong, it only impels us to do what we believe to be right, and smites us when we think we have been wrong. How is it that many have done wrong, and every day do wrong for conscience’ sake?—and does that sanctify the wrong in the eyes of God, as well as in those of John Huss?[1]