[Footnote 3: See this subject eloquently argued in Dr. Chalmers' Bridgewater Treatise.]
On this subject we are sometimes triumphantly asked, where is the conscience of the Inquisitor,--as if the moral condition of such an individual incontestably proved, that there can be no such power as we consider conscience to be. But I think it cannot be doubted, that, as in the more common cases which have been mentioned, the conscience of the Inquisitor comes gradually to be accommodated to the circumstances in which he has voluntarily placed himself. This remarkable moral process has been repeatedly referred to. It may originate in various causes. It may arise from passion, or an ill-regulated state of the desires or affections of the mind; it may arise from motives of interest, leading a man by small and gradual steps into actions which his sober judgment condemns; or false opinions, however received, may be allowed to fasten on the mind, until, from want of candid examination, they come to be invested with the authority of truth. In the moral process which follows, each single step is slight, and its influence almost imperceptible; but this influence is perpetuated, and gains strength in each succeeding step, until the result is a total derangement of the moral harmony of the mind.
It remains only that we briefly notice the system of Dr. Adam Smith, commonly called the theory of Sympathy. According to this ingenious writer, it is required for our moral sentiments respecting an action, that we enter into the feelings both of the agent, and of him to whom the action relates. If we sympathize with the feelings and intentions of the agent, we approve of his conduct as right,--if not, we consider it as wrong. If, in the individual to whom the action refers, we sympathize with a feeling of gratitude, we regard the agent as worthy of praise,--if with a feeling of resentment, the contrary. We thus observe our feelings respecting the conduct of others, in cases in which we are not personally concerned,--then apply these rules to ourselves, and thus judge of our own conduct. This very obvious statement, however, of what every man feels, does not supply the place of a fundamental rule of right and wrong; and indeed Dr. Smith does not appear to contend that it does so. It applies only to the application of a principle, not to the origin of it. Our sympathy can never be supposed to constitute an action right or wrong; but it enables us to apply to individual cases a principle of right and wrong derived from another source;--and to clear our judgment in doing so, from the blinding influence of those selfish feelings by which we are so apt to be misled when we apply it directly to ourselves. In estimating our own conduct, we then apply to it those conclusions which we have made with regard to the conduct of others,--or we imagine others applying the same process in regard to us, and consider how our conduct would appeal to an impartial observer.