nged and are changing, and are not alike in various ages
and countries. Conscience has nothing to do with the excesses of
Torquemada, or libidinous rites of Astarte. Reason was at fault, not
conscience, and that supreme judge, misguided by the reason, appeared
to give a false judgment, whereas, true to itself for ever, it simply
pronounced in each and every instance, that the right must be obeyed.
Like the needle in the compass, it undeviatingly points to the polar
star of duty.

Let us proceed with our analysis of the conception of the moral law.

There are various schools of ethics, but they are all united in
maintaining _some_ obligatory force in morality, that whatever may be
the precise meaning of the solemn word right, the right is binding on
the allegiance of our will. Hence Emerson, of the rational school, is
philosophically accurate when he deduces purity of heart, or
uprightness of intention, and the law of gravitation from the same
source. They are both laws, one valid in the spheres, the other valid
among men, the one only difference being that whereas the spheres
compulsorily obey the law of their existence, man by the noble
obeisance of his will--an obeisance which, as Kant points out, raises
him to an immeasurable dignity--voluntarily submits himself to his law,
and thereby fulfils the purpose of his life.

Moreover, we must reflect, as the law of gravitation, which as physical
beings we obey, is none of our making, but merely our discovery, so is
the moral law, the eternal distinction between right and wrong, no
creation of man's. He is born into a world not his own, and he finds
himself surrounded by an order which is not within the sphere of his
control. The law, for instance, of numbers, the law of thought, the
facts of the universe, organic and inorganic, the bases on which he has
erected what is compendiously called civilisation--are all provided
otherwise than by his efforts. He is born into an order of reason
which, by obedience to the law and light of reason within him, he has
developed into the stately fabric of organised, social, political,
intellectual, in a word, civilised life. But, I would repeat, the
basic facts of this life are none of our creation; they are our
_discovery_, and no more the _invention_ of man than America is the
invention of Columbus. Hence, with the master-poet of Hellas, we must
acknowledge those--

_agrapta kasphale theon_
_nomima_
_ou gar ti nun g