card-playing or attendance at balls or theatres from the much stricter
views which prevailed in many respectable English households a
generation ago. On the other hand, excess in eating and drinking is
regarded with far less indulgence now than it was in the days of our
fathers and grandfathers. On these points, then, at least, and such as
these, it must be allowed that there is a variation of moral sentiment,
or, in other words, that the acts condemned or approved by the moral
sanction are not invariably the same. Moreover, any of us who are
accustomed to reason on moral questions, and can observe carefully the
processes through which the mind passes, will notice that there is
constantly going on a re-adjustment, so to speak, of our ethical
opinions, whether we are reviewing abstract questions of morality or the
specific acts of ourselves or others. We at one time think ourselves or
others more, and, at another time, less blameable for the self-same
acts, or we come to regard some particular class of acts in a different
light from what we used to do, either modifying our praise or blame, or,
in extreme cases, actually substituting one for the other. But, though
these facts are patent, and may be verified by any one in his experience
either of himself or others, there have actually been moralists who have
appeared to maintain the position that, when a man is unbiassed by
passion or interest, his moral judgments are and must be invariably the
same. This error has, undoubtedly, been largely fostered by the loose
and popular use of the terms conscience and moral sense. These terms,
and especially the word conscience, are often employed to designate a
sort of mysterious entity, supposed to have been implanted in the mind
by God Himself, and endowed by Him with the unique prerogative of
infallibility. Even so philosophical and sober a writer as Bishop Butler
has given some countenance to this extravagant supposition, and to the
exaggerated language which he employs on the prerogatives of conscience,
and to the emphatic manner in which he insists on the absolute, if not