in the component parts would cease to
be discerned; but this is not enough. Why do these particular
sentiments and no others coalesce in the total--Conscience. The answer
is what was formerly given with reference to Butler; namely, while all
other feelings relate to outward objects, the feelings brought together
in conscience, contemplate exclusively _the dispositions and actions of
voluntary agents_. Conscience is thus an acquired faculty, but one that
is _universally and necessarily_ acquired.

The derivation is farther exemplified by a comparison with the feelings
of Taste. These may have an original reference to fitness--as in the
beauty of a horse--but they do not attain their proper character until
the consideration of fitness disappears. So far they resemble the moral
faculty. They differ from it, however, in this, that taste ends in
passive contemplation or quiescent delight; conscience looks solely to
the acts and dispositions of voluntary agents. This is the author's
favourite way of expressing what is otherwise called the authority and
supremacy of conscience.

To sum up:--the principal constituents of the moral sense are
Gratitude, Sympathy (or Pity), Resentment, and Shame; the secondary and
auxiliary causes are Education, Imitation, General Opinion, Laws and
Government.

In criticising Paley, he illustrates forcibly the position, that
Religion must pre-suppose morality.

His criticism of Bentham gives him an opportunity of remarking on the
modes of carrying into effect the principle of Utility as the Standard.
He repeats his favourite doctrine of the inherent pleasures of a
virtuous disposition, as the grand circumstance rendering virtue
profitable and vice unprofitable. He even uses the Platonic figure, and
compares vice to mental distemper. It is his complaint against Bentham
and the later supporters of Utility, that they have _misplaced_ the
application of the principle, and have encouraged the too frequent
appeal to calculation in the details of conduct. Hence arise
sophistical evasions of moral rules; men will slide from general to
particular consequences; apply the test of utility to actions and not
to _dispositions_; and, in short, take too much upon themselves in
settling questions of moral right and wrong. [He might have remarked
that the power of perverting the standard to individual interests is
not confined to the followers of Utility.] He introduces the saying
attributed to Andrew Fletcher