rement, and the affections lead us to a certain course of
conduct which we feel to be agreeable to ourselves, or useful to others.
But, to act under the influence of conscience is to perform actions,
simply because we feel them to be right, and to abstain from others,
simply because we feel them to be wrong,--without regard to any other
impression, or to the consequences of the actions either to ourselves or
others. He, who on this principle performs an action, though it may be
highly disagreeable to him, or abstains from another though it may be
highly desirable, is a conscientious man. Such a man, under the
influence of habit, comes to act more and more easily under the
suggestions of conscience, and to be more and more set free from every
feeling and propensity that is opposed to it. Conscience seems therefore
to hold a place among the moral powers, analogous to that which reason
holds among the intellectual;--and, when we view it in this relation,
there appears a beautiful harmony pervading the whole economy of the
mind.

By certain intellectual operations, man acquires the knowledge of a
series of facts,--he remembers them,--he separates and classifies
them,--and forms them into new combinations. But, with the most active
exercise of all these operations, his mind might present an accumulation
of facts, without order, harmony, or utility;--without any principle of
combination, or combined only in those fantastic and extravagant forms
which appear in the conceptions of the maniac. It is Reason that reduces
the whole into order and harmony,--by comparing, distinguishing, and
tracing their true analogies and relations,--and then by deducing truths
as conclusions from the whole. It is in this manner particularly, that a
man acquires a knowledge of the uniform actions of bodies on each
other,--and, confiding in the uniformity of these actions, learns to
direct his means to the ends which he has in view. He knows also his own
relations to other sentient beings,--and adapts his conduct to them,
according to the circumstances in which he is placed,--the persons with
whom he is connected,--and the objects which he wishes to accomplish. He
learns to accommodate his measures to new circumstances as they
arise,--and thus is guided and directed through his physical relations.
When reason is suspended, all this harmony is destroyed. The visions of
the mind are acted upon as facts; things are combined into fantastic
forms, entire