206 CONSCIENCE. [ESSAY II. knowledge-there are so many paths to the desired temple, that we may choose our own and yet arrive at it. He that thinks he cannot possess sufficient knowledge without plucking the fruit of unhallowed trees, surely does not know how boundless is the variety and number of those which bear wholesome fruit. He cannot indeed know every thing without studying the bad: which, however, is no more to be recommended in literature than in life. A man cannot know all the varieties of human society, without taking up his abode with felons and cannibals. II. But in reality, the second division of moral education is the more important of the two,-the supply of motives to adhere to what is right. Our great deficiency is not in knowledge, but in obedience. Of the offences which an individual commits against the moral law, the great majority are committed in the consciousness that he is doing wrong. Moral edu cation, therefore, should be directed not so much to informing the young what they ought to do, as to inducing those moral dispositions and princi ples which will make them adhere to what they know to be right. The human mind, of itself, is in a state something like that of men in a state of nature, where separate and conflicting desires and motives are not restrained by any acknowledged head. Government, as it is necessary to society, is necessary in the individual mind. To the internal community of the heart the great question is, Who shall be the legislator? who shall regulate and restrain the passions and affections? who shall command and direct the conduct?-To these questions the breast of every man supplies him with an answer. He knows, because he feels, that there is a rightful legislator in his own heart: he knows, because he feels, that he ought to obey it. By whatever designation the reader may think it fit to indicate this legislator, whether he calls it the law written in the heart, or moral sense, or moral instinct, or conscience, we arrive at one practical truth at last; that to the moral legislation which does actually subsist in the human mind, it is right that the individual should conform his conduct. The great point then is, to induce him to do this,-to induce him, when inclination and this law are at variance, to sacrifice the inclination to the law and for this purpose it appears proper, first, to impress him with a high, that is with an accurate, estimate of the authority of the law itself. We have seen that this law embraces an actual expression of the will of God; and we have seen that even although the conscience may not always be adequately enlightened, it nevertheless constitutes, to the individual, an authoritative law. It is to the conscientious internal apprehension of rectitude that we should conform our conduct. Such appears to be the will of God. It should therefore be especially inculcated, that the dictate of conscience is never to be sacrificed, that whatever may be the consequences of conforming to it, they are to be ventured. Obedience is to be unconditional, no questions about the utility of the law,-no computations of the consequences of obedience,-no presuming upon the lenity of the divine government. "It is important so to regulate the understanding and imagination of the young, that they may be prepared to obey, even where they do not see the reasons of the commands of God. We should certainly endeavour, where we can, to show them the reasons of the divine commands, and this more and more as their understandings gain strength; but let it be obvious to them that we do ourselves consider it as quite sufficient if God has commanded us to do or to avoid any thing."* * Carpenter: Principles of Education. V CHAP. 12.] SUBJUGATION OF THE WILL 207 Obedience to this internal legislator is not, like obedience to civil government, enforced. The law is promulgated, but the passions and inclinations can refuse obedience if they will. Penalties and rewards are indeed annexed, but he who braves the penalty and disregards the reward may continue to violate the law. Obedience therefore must be voluntary, and hence the paramount importance, in moral education, of habitually subjecting the will. "Parents," says Hartley, "should labour from the earliest dawnings of understanding and desire, to check the growing obstinacy of the will, curb all sallies of passion, impress the deepest, most amiable, reverential, and awful impressions of God, a future state, and all sacred things."-"Religious persons in all periods, who have possessed the light of revelation, have in a particular manner been sensible that the habit of self control lies at the foundation of moral worth."* There is nothing mean or mean-spirited in this. It is magnanimous in philosophy, as it is right in morals. It is the subjugation of the lower qualities of our nature to wisdom and to goodness. The subjugation of the will to the dictates of a higher law must be endeavoured, if we would succeed, almost in infancy and in very little things; from the earliest dawnings, as Hartley says, of understanding and desire. Children must first obey their parents and those who have the care of them. The habit of sacrificing the will to another judgment being thus acquired, the mind is prepared to sacrifice the will to the judgment pronounced within itself. Show, in every practicable case, why you cross the inclinations of a child. Let obedience be as little blind as it may be. It is a great failing of some parents that they will not descend from the imperative mood, and that they seem to think it a derogation from their authority to place their orders upon any other foundation than their wills. But if the child sees-and children are wonderfully quick-sighted in such things-if the child sees that the will is that which governs his parent, how shall he efficiently learn that the will should not govern himself? The internal law carries with it the voucher of its own reasonableness. A person does not need to be told that it is proper and right to obey that law. The perception of this rectitude and propriety is coincident with the dictates themselves. Let the parent then very frequently refer his son and his daughter to their own minds; let him teach them to seek for instruction there. There are dangers on every hand, and dangers even here. The parent must refer them, if it be possible, not merely to conscience, but to enlightened conscience. He must unite the two branches of moral education, and communicate the knowledge while he endeavours to induce the practice of morality. Without this, his children may obey their consciences, and yet be in error and perhaps in fanaticism. With it, he may hope that their conduct will be both conscientious, and pure, and right. Nevertheless an habitual reference to the internal law is the great, the primary concern; for the great majority of a man's moral perceptions are accordant with truth. There is one consequence attendant upon this habitual reference to the internal law which is highly beneficial to the moral character. It leads us to fulfil the wise instruction of antiquity, Know thyself. It makes us look within ourselves; it brings us acquainted with the little and busy world that is within us, with its many inhabitants and their * Carpenter: Principles of Education. 208 HABITS OF INTROVERSION. [ESSAY IL dispositions, and with their tendencies to evil or to good. This is valuable knowledge; and knowledge for want of which, it may be feared, the virtue of many has been wrecked in the hour of tempest. A man's enemies are those of his own household; and if he does not know their insidiousness and their strength, if he does not know upon what to depend for assistance, nor where is the probable point of attack, it is not likely that he will efficiently resist. Such a man is in the situation of the governor of an unprepared and surprised city. He knows, not to whom to apply for effectual help, and finds perhaps that those whom he has loved and trusted are the first to desert or betray him. He feebly resists, soon capitulates, and at last scarcely knows why he did not make a successful defence. It is to be regretted that, in the moral education which commonly obtains, whether formal or incidental, there is little that is calculated to produce this acquaintance with our own minds; little that refers us to ourselves, and much, very much, that calls and sends us away. Of many it is not too much to say that they receive almost no moral culture. The plant of virtue is suffered to grow as a tree grows in a forest, and takes its chance of storm or sunshine. This, which is good for oaks and pines, is not good for man. The general atmosphere around him is infected, and the juices of the moral plant are often themselves unhealthy. In the nursery, formularies and creeds are taught; but this does not refer the child to its own mind. Indeed, unless a wakeful solicitude is maintained by those who teach, the tendency is the reverse. The mind is kept from habits of introversion, even in the offices of religion, by practically directing its attention to the tongue. "Many, it is to be feared, imagine that they are giving their children religious principles when they are only teaching them religious truths." You cannot impart moral education as you teach a child to spell. From the nursery a boy is sent to school. He spends six or eight hours of the day in the schoolroom, and the remainder is employed in the sports of boyhood. Once, or it may be twice, in the day he repeats a form of prayer; and on one day in the week he goes to church. There is very little in all this to make him acquainted with the internal community; and habit, if nothing else, calls his reflections away. From school or from college the business of life is begun. It can require no argument to show that the ordinary pursuits of life have little tendency to direct a man's meditations to the moral condition of his own mind, or that they have much tendency to employ them upon other and very different things. Nay, even the offices of public devotion have almost a tendency to keep the mind without itself. What if we say that the self contemplation which even natural religion is likely to produce, is obstructed by the forms of Christian worship? "The transitions from one office of devotion to another, are contrived like scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with a succession of diversified engagements." This supply of diversified engagements, whatever may be its value in other respects, has evidently the tendency of which we speak. It is not designed to supply, and it does not supply, the opportunity for calmness of recollection. A man must abstract himself from the external service if he would investigate the character and dispositions of the inmates of his own Paley, p. 3, b. 5, c. 5. CHAP. 12.] KNOWLEDGE OF OUR OWN MINDS. 209 breast. Even the architecture and decorations of churches come in aid of the general tendency. They make the eye an auxiliary of the ear, and both keep the mind at a distance from those concerns which are peculiarly its own; from contemplating its own weaknesses and wants; and from applying to God for that peculiar help which perhaps itself only needs, and which God only can impart. So little are the course of education and the subsequent engagements of life calculated to foster this great auxiliary of moral character. It is difficult, in the wide world, to foster it as much as is needful. Nothing but wakeful solicitude on the part of the parent can be expected sufficiently to direct the mind within, while the general tendency of our associations and habits is to keep it without. Let him however do what he can. The habitual reference to the dictates of conscience may be promoted in the very young mind. This habit, like others, becomes strong by exercise. He that is faithful in little things is intrusted with more; and this is true in respect of knowledge as in respect of other departments of the Christian life. Fidelity of obedience is commonly succeeded by increase of light, and every act of obedience and every addition to knowledge furnishes new and still stronger inducements to persevere in the same course. Acquaintance with ourselves is the inseparable attendant of this course. know the character and dispositions of our own inmates by frequent association with them: and if this fidelity to the internal law, and consequent knowledge of the internal world, be acquired in early life, the parent may reasonably hope that it will never wholly lose its efficiency amid the bustles and anxieties of the world. We Undoubtedly, this most efficient security of moral character is not likely fully to operate during the continuance of the present state of society and of its institutions. It is I believe true, that the practice of morality is most complete among those persons who peculiarly recommend a reference to the internal law, and whose institutions, religious and social, are congruous with the habit of this reference. Their history exhibits a more unshaken adherence to that which they conceived to be right, fewer sacrifices of conscience to interest or the dread of suffering,-less of trimming between conflicting motives,-more, in a word, of adherence to rectitude without regard to consequences. We have seen that such persons are likely to form accurate views of rectitude; but whether they be accurate or not, does not affect the value of their moral education as securing fidelity to the degree of knowledge which they possess. It is of more consequence to adhere steadily to conscience, though it may not be perfectly enlightened, than to possess perfect knowledge without consistency of obedience. But in reality they who obey most know most; and we say that the general testimony of experience is, that those persons exhibit the most unyielding fidelity to the moral law whose moral education has peculiarly directed them to the law written in the heart. 210 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. [ESSAY II. CHAPTER XIII. EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. WHETHER the education of those who are not able to pay for educating themselves ought to be a private or a national charge, it is not our present business to discuss. It is, in this country at least, left to the voluntary benevolence of individuals, and this consideration may apologize for a brief reference to it here. It is not long since it was a question whether the poor should be educated or not. That time is past, and it may be hoped the time will soon be passed when it shall be a question, To what extent ?-that the time will soon arrive when it will be agreed that no limit needs to be assigned to the education of the poor, but that which is assigned by their own necessities, or which ought to be assigned to the education of all men. There appears no more reason for excluding a poor man from the fields of knowledge than for preventing him from using his eyes. The mental and the visual powers were alike given to be employed. A man should indeed "shut his eyes from seeing evil," but whatever reason there is for letting him see all that is beautiful, and excellent, and innocent in nature or in art, there is the same for enabling his mind to expatiate in the fields of knowledge. The objections which are urged against this extended education are of the same kind as those which were urged against any education. They insist upon the probability of abuse. It was said, They who can write may forge; they who can read may read what is pernicious. The answer was, or it might have been, They who can hear, may hear profaneness and learn it; they who can see, may see bad examples and follow them but are we therefore to stop our ears and put out our eyes? It is now said, that if you give extended education to the poor, you will elevate them above their stations, that a critic would not drive a wheelbarrow, and that a philosopher would not shoe horses or weave cloth. But these consequences are without the limits of possibility; because the question for a poor man is, whether he shall perform such offices or starve: and surely it will not be pretended that hungry men would rather criticise than eat. Science and literature would not solicit a poor man from his labour more irresistibly than ease and pleasure do now; yet in spite of these solicitations what is the fact? That the poor man works for his bread. This is the inevitable result. It is not the positive but the relative amount of knowledge that elevates a man above his station in society. It is not because he knows much, but because he knows more than his fellows. Educate all, and none will fancy that he is superior to his neighbours. Besides, we assign to the possession of knowledge, effects which are produced rather by habits of life. Ease and comparative leisure are commonly attendant upon extensive knowledge, and leisure and ease disqualify men for the laborious occupations much more than the knowledge itself. There are some collateral advantages of an extended education of the |