and bad, what men
were accustomed to think good. And as the people of Israel, although
they had God's revelation among them, had yet let their standard of good
and evil become low, even so it has been in the Christian Israel. We
have God's will in our hands, yet our judgments are not formed upon it;
and, therefore, they who would prepare us for Christ's coming, must set
before us a commandment which is new, although old: in one sense old, in
every generation, inasmuch as it is the same which we had from the
beginning; in another sense, in every generation more new, inasmuch, as
the habits opposed to it have become the more confirmed; and the longer
the night has lasted, the more strange to our eyes is the burst of the
returning light.

But when we thus speak of the common notions of our age and country
being deficient, and thus, in effect, commend notions which would be
singular, do we not hold a language inconsistent with our common
language and practice? Do we not commonly regard singularity as a fault,
and attach a considerable authority to the consent of men in general?
Nay, do we not often appeal to this consent as to a proof which a sane
mind must admit as decisive? Even in speaking of good and evil, have not
the very words gained their present sense because the common consent of
mankind has agreed to combine notions of self-satisfaction, of honour,
and of love, with what we call good, and the contrary with what we
call evil?

A short time may, perhaps, not be misapplied in endeavouring to explain
this matter; in showing where, and for what reasons, the common opinion
of our society is to be followed, where it is to be suspected, and
where it is absolutely to be shunned or trampled under foot, as clearly
and certainly evil.

I must begin with little things, in order to show the whole question
plainly. Take those tastes in us which most resemble the instincts of a
brute; and you will find that in these, as with instinct, common consent
becomes a sure rule. When I speak of those tastes which most resemble
instincts, I mean those in which nature, doing most for us at first,
leaves least for us to learn for ourselves. This seems the character of
instinct: it is far more complete than reason in its first stage, but it
admits of no after improvement; the brute in the thousandth generation
is no way advanced beyond the brute in the first. Of our tastes, even of
those belonging to our bodily senses, that which belongs