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whereupon he transfers the sentiment of prohibition from the recognised case to the one not recognised, and makes, not so much a new law, as a new application of what is law already. The abstinence from destroying sentient life becomes a point of conscience by extension or deduction, and is carried into practice by the individual's own promptings, there being a revulsion of remorse every time he sins against it. The remorse is fed from the same fountain as a breach of the citizen conscience, where the mind has adopted or acquiesced in the rules imposed by the society; and there is the same mental satisfaction in complying with the dictates of each.

11. So much, then, for the power of motive belonging to the faculty of conscience. The same supporting adjuncts, detailed with reference to prudence, operate in the sphere of duty, in forming the conscience itself and in strengthening it to overbear opposition. The instruction and example brought to bear upon early years; the usages of society in punishing and stigmatizing the forbidden acts and extolling those that are enjoined; the pressure of admonition, warning, and advice; the systematic preaching and reminders embodied in religious worship; the literature of moral inculcation; the setting forth of illustrious virtue and of the infamy of crime; the poetic beauty associated with the conduct that is approvedare among the influences from without that constitute a strong prepossession and motive in favour of social duty. Religious fears and hopes, and the ascendancy of revered individual men, classes, castes, or dynasties, fall in with the other contributing impressions. Nor must we omit here, any more than in the search for individual happiness, the effect of the mind's own leisurely reflections upon all these various motive forces, through which every one of them takes an increased hold of the system, and adds to the moral strength in the moment of conflict. When the bent for revolving all the considerations of duty is spontaneous or natural to the mind, and when the intellect is strongly retentive of all the pains and pleasures arrayed in behalf of social duty, there emerges a moral genius, as we have already spoken of the genius of prudence.

12. The counter-impulses to duty include, as in the former head, a number of strong temporary and passionate risings, the excitement of some strong sensations, appetites or emotions, which have to be conquered both for our interest and for our duty. But the calculations of prudence itself, and the deliberate pursuit of our own happiness, or chief ends, are in many instances opposed to our duties, no less than the more temporary cravings or passions. A power has to be built up to deter us from seeking our own good in another man's loss or harm. Every one knows well how serious is the task of rearing any human being to that maturity of self-restraint, wherein the egotistic and passionate influences are in easy subordination to the social obligations. We all know the multitude of hard struggles with bare success; of occasional slips amid general conformity, and of downright failures with open defiance. In such instances, however, we are not without a clear and intelligible theory of what has occurred, and a distinct notion of what is proper to be done in practice; neither the theory nor the practice conceding for one moment a want of uniform causation in the sequences that make up the human will. When any one that we are concerned with has failed in a point of duty, we accept it as a fact of character that will certainly re-appear, if in the meantime no change takes place in the mind or the circumstances, and we address ourselves to the task of making some changes sufficient to break the uniformity. We throw new motives into one side, and withdraw them from the other; in other words, by presenting pains and pleasures that were not presented on the former occasion, we hope to avert the repetition of the error or fault. There is no metaphysical perplexity in the mind of the parent, the tutor, the master, the military commander, the civil authority, when punishing for an offence committed, with a view to prevent its renewal, and increasing the severity, if the first application is not powerful enough to deter. As little perplexity hampers the moral teacher, who knows that by judicious and well-sustained lessons he can create a power that shall anticipate punishment by timely obedience. It is

possible to calculate the general effect of all the various aids to the performance of duty in opposition to the ordinary counter-motives; but without uniformity of sequence, calculation is impossible. A fit of remorse tells for a certain length of time in one person, a rebuke or admonition has a definite extent of influence upon another; and these causes are of the same efficacy in the same circumstances. Every one can tell what to expect from a child neglected and starved; the action of the moral agencies at work is sure in its issue when we know enough to make allowance for original differences of character. The right minded parent has no doubt as to the contrast between such a case and the result of a careful application of all the modes of building up a character of moral self-restraint.

13. In duty, therefore, as in prudence, Moral Inability is simply weakness of motive, and can be remedied by the aid of new motives. If the avoidance of a fine of five shillings does not deter from an act of insult or violence to a fellow-citizen, a higher penalty is imposed. In the family, duty is supported by rewards as well as punishments, by instruction and admonition, and the evoking of the generous, in opposition to the egotistic, sentiments. Moreover, the unformed mind is carefully withheld from strong temptations. It is considered unfair to place a child under very strong motives to disobey, while the opposing sentiment has as yet gained little strength, and when nothing short of the dread of some very severe penalty would be equal to the occasion. Moral inability is a matter of degree, admitting every variety up to the point where no amount of available motive is enough. Still the inability may not pass out of the character of mental or moral. The incontinent and incorrigible thief may not be restrained by all the terrors of the law, by imprisonment, servitude, or infamy, nor by the persuasive address of kind monitors, nor by remorse and reflection of his own; yet, after all, the weakness that everything fails to make up for, is only moral. True, nothing that can be done at the stage arrived at is of sufficient force to reform the character so degraded; never

theless, had influences been brought to bear sufficiently early, the incorrigible state would have been averted, and there are conceivable promptings that would even now effect a reformation. There is necessarily a limit to the power of the law in surrounding the individual with motives, seeing that its power lies in punishment, and it must work by general rules. After a certain trial made of moral influences, the magistrate proceeds to inflict a physical disability by taking away the life or liberty of the delinquent. In the condition of insanity, we have examples of inability going beyond the bounds of the moral, by passing out of the reach of motives. We may imagine such a weakness of intellect as to make a man forget the consequences of his actions; in such a case it would be useless to hold out either punishment or reward as a motive. So under delusions, the intellect is so perverted as to give a false direction to everything suggested to it. What is most difficult to deal with in the way of legal responsibility, is the state termed moral insanity, where the subject is not beyond being influenced by motives of prospective pain or pleasure, but has contracted such a furious impulse towards some one crime, that the greatest array of motives that can be brought to bear is not sufficient. If the orgasm were somewhat less, the motives might be sufficient; they have their due weight, but are overpowered by a mightier force. A nice legal question arises when a monomaniac, not being put under timely restraint, has committed an outrage against the law. An attempt is always made by his counsel to represent him as irresponsible, and not a subject for punishment. The case is a somewhat complicated one, from the circumstance that the magistrate must always bear in mind, as a principal consideration, the effect of a present punishment in preventing future crime generally. On this ground, he is not justified in allowing the escape of any man who is not clearly in that state wherein motives have lost all their influence. Moral insanity is merely the extreme form of passionate fury which, for the time being, obliterates in the mind all sense of consequences and all deterring motives; yet, inasmuch as the person can be

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influenced by future consequences in ordinary moods, the law will not take as an excuse the frantic condition that caused the crime. Any one who has not to deal with a whole community, but with separate individuals apart, and out of sight, does make allowance for moral inability and for inequality of moral attainment. We are bound to prevent every sort of disobedience, but in private life we do not treat every person in the same way. The public administration is hampered by general rules, and is therefore unable to make the same degree of allowance.

14. There is one form of stating the fact of ability that brings us face to face with the great metaphysical puzzle. It not uncommonly happens that a delinquent pleads his moral weakness in justification of his offence. The schoolboy, whose animal spirits carry him to a breach of decorum, or whose anger has made him do violence upon a schoolfellow, will sometimes defend himself by saying he was carried away and could not restrain himself. In other words, he makes out a case closely allied to physical compulsion. He is sometimes answered by saying that he could have restrained himself if he had chosen, willed, or sufficiently wished to do so. Such an answer is really a puzzle or paradox, and must mean something very different from what is apparently expressed. The fact is, that the offender was in a state of mind such that his conduct followed according to the uniformity of his being, and if the same antecedents were exactly repeated, the same consequent would certainly be reproduced. In that view, therefore, the foregoing answer is irrelevant, not to say nonsensical. The proper form, and the practical meaning to be conveyed is this, 'It is true that as your feelings then stood, your conduct resulted as it did; but I am now to deal with you in such a way, that when the situation recurs, new feelings and motives will be present, sufficient, I hope, to issue differently. I now punish you, or threaten you, or admonish you, in order that an antecedent motive may enter into your mind, as a counteractive to your animal spirits or temper on another occasion, seeing that acting as you did, you were plainly in want of