ore he engages in any course of action, ask himself,--is this I am
going to do right, or is it wrong,--is it good, or is it evil:--I do not
in the least doubt but that these questions would be answered agreeably
to truth and virtue, by almost any fair man in almost any
circumstances." It is in a great measure from the want of this simple
exercise of attention, or of what in common language we call calm
reflection, that men are led away, by passion, prejudice, and distorted
moral habits, into courses of action which their own sober judgment
would condemn;--and when a man, who has thus departed from rectitude,
begins to retrace his way, the first great point is that where he pauses
in his downward career, and seriously proposes to himself the question,
whether the course he has followed be worthy of a moral being. I allude
not here to the means by which a man is led to take this momentous step
in his moral history, but only to the mental process of which it
consists. It is primarily nothing more than an exercise of attention,
calmly and deliberately directed to the truths and considerations by
which his moral decisions ought to be influenced; but, when a man has
once been brought into this attitude of deep and serious thought,
conscience comes to bear its part in the solemn process; and the
inquirer is likely to arrive at just conclusions on those great
questions of which he feels the importance to his moral condition.

It is on the principles now referred to, that, according to a doctrine
which has been often and keenly controverted, we hold a man to be
responsible for his belief. The state of mind which constitutes belief
is, indeed, one over which the will has no direct power. But belief
depends upon evidence;--the result of even the best evidence is entirely
dependant on attention;--and attention is a voluntary intellectual state
over which we have a direct and absolute control. As it is, therefore,
by prolonged and continued attention that evidence produces belief, a
man may incur the deepest guilt by his disbelief of truths which he has
failed to examine with the care which is due to them. This exercise is
entirely under the control of the will; but the will to exercise it
respecting moral truth is closely connected with the love of that truth;
and this is intimately dependent on the state of moral feeling of the
mind. It is thus that a man's moral condition influences the conclusions
of his judgment;--and it is thus