as the other
law--

"Would'st thou live now, regularly draw thy breath!
For, suspend the operation, straight law's breach results in death"--[B]

[Footnote B: _Ibid_.]

then no one would disobey it, nor could. "It is the liberty of doing
evil that gives the doing good a grace." And that liberty would be taken
away by complete assurance, that effects follow actions in the moral
world with the necessity seen in the natural sphere. Since, therefore,
man is made to grow, and earth is the place wherein he is to pass
probation and prove his powers, there must remain a certain doubt as to
the issues of his actions; conviction must not be so strong as to carry
with it man's whole nature. "The best I both see and praise, the worst I
follow," is the adage rife in man's mouth regarding his moral conduct.
But, spite of his seeing and praising,

"he disbelieves
In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives."[A]

[Footnote A: _La Saisiaz_.]

He has a dim consciousness of ways whereby he may elude the consequences
of his wickedness, and of the possibility of making amends to law.

"And now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin',
A certain Bardie's rantin', drinkin',
Some luckless hour will send him linkin'
To your black pit;
But, faith, he'll turn a corner jinkin',
And cheat you yet."

The more orthodox and less generous individual is prone to agree, as
regards himself, with Burns; but, he sees, most probably, that such an
escape is impossible to others. He has secret solacement in a latent
belief that he himself is an exception. There will be a special method
of dealing with him. He is a "chosen sample"; and "God will think twice
before He damns a man of his quality." It is just because there is such
doubt as to the universality and necessity of the law which connects
actions and consequences in the moral sphere, that man's deeds have an
ethical character; while, to disperse doubt and ignorance by the
assurance of complete knowledge, would take the good from goodness and
the ill from evil.

In this ingenious manner, the poet turns the imperfect intellect and
delusive knowledge of man to a moral use. Ordinarily, the intellectual
impotence of man is regarded as carrying with it moral incapacity as
well, and the delusiveness of knowledge is one of the strongest
arguments for pessimism. To persons pledged to the support of no theory,
and to those who have the _naivete_, so h