We frame for them a multitude of plausible excuses, which we should not have thought of doing, had it not been for the endearments and intercourse of our previous connection. Savage life also gives us an illustration of the views now expressed. Owing to the peculiar situation of those in that state and the consequent early associations, a factitious and exaggerated importance is attached to mere courage; and gentleness, equanimity, and benevolence, are, as virtues, proportionally depressed.

§. 276. Illustration of the principle of the preceding section.

In the late expedition to the Rocky Mountains, undertaken by order of the Government of the United States, various interesting facts were ascertained concerning the Savage tribes, through which the party passed. Among other things it was ascertained, that the Omawhaws, a tribe of some note, dwelling a little distance from the river Missouri, are wanting in respectful regard to their old people, and that they look upon them as useless burdens to the community. When the aged go out on a hunting party, or on warlike expeditions against an enemy, they are sometimes left under a hastily erected shelter; and are thus permitted to perish after consuming the scanty stock of provisions, with which they are furnished.

Here, in all probability, we see the influence of early associations. The Omawhaws are taught, even from the cradle, to attach their chief honor to active bravery, to feats in battle, and to achievements in hunting. And they transfer, (as a Savage would be likely to do,) the unquestionable discredit of moral and physical debility in the earlier periods of life, to the period of old age. They carry these views so far, that when through want of provisions some of the tribe or of the party must die, the lot inevitably falls on the aged instead of the young. But we hold, that this fact does not necessarily prove these Savages destitute of natural conscience. It does not appear, that they expose their old men to death in this way before the exhaustion of their provisions. And the probability is, that when in that exigency they leave them to perish, they do it with feelings of regret and with * Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Vol. I, CHS. X, XI.

the consent and choice of the aged sufferers themselves. On the supposition that such are the circumstances, under which their old men are exposed, the most that can justly be said, is, that the feelings of nature, already weakened by the influence of unfortunate associations, are made to bow to the exigencies of their situation. It may appear, that they have a wrong or perverted conscience, (that is to say, a conscience led astray by their early habits and associations,) in permitting the sacrifice of the aged, in preference to that of the young; but it by no means follows that they have no conscience at all. Especially as they are described as being hospitable, so far as they have any thing to give; courteous and respectful in their general intercourse; affectionate in their families; and not wanting in justice, in the ordinary distribution and management of what little they possess.

Let those, who, in civilized lands and under equal governments, are comparatively free from suffering, remember, before they pronounce unfavorably and harshly upon the moral obliquities of others, the intense and uncounted evils, which they sometimes endure. The heart, that thrilled with sensibility and was alive to every moral impulse, may be left, in the intensity of bitter experience and of agonized recollections, to the perpetration of deeds of unspeakable horror. A missionary, dwelling among the Natives of South America, once reproached a woman, with the fearful crime of having put her own infant daughters to death. She replied to the missionary in words of the following purport.

"Father, if you will allow me, I shall tell you what passes in my mind. Would to God that my mother, when she brought me forth, had shown as much regard and compassion for me, as to have spared me the pain I have hitherto suffered, and must continue to suffer until the end of my days. Had she buried me when I was born, I should not have felt death, and she would have preserved me from all I am indispensably subjected to, as well as from labors more cruel than death is terrifying. Alas! who knows the troubles awaiting me before it arrives? Can a mother do any thing more profitable to her daughter, than save her from multiplied disasters, and a slavery worse than death. Would to God, father, I repeat, would to God that she who gave me life had tes

tified her affection by depriving me of it, at my birth my heart would have had less to endure, and my eyes less to weep."*

§. 277. Of diversities of moral judgment in connection with an excited state of the passions.

Furthermore, there may be diversities of moral judgment, in other words the moral nature may occasionally be perplexed and led astray in its action, under the influence of a state of excited passion.The action of all the parts of the mind is a conditional one; that is to say, it takes place only under certain assignable circumstances. It is, for instance, one condition of moral action, as we have repeatedly had occasion to notice, that there must be an antecedent perception of the thing, whatever it is, upon which the moral judg ment is to be passed. This condition of moral action is violated in the case under consideration, as well as in others. In a time of great excitement of passion, the moral emotion, which would have existed under other circumstances, has failed to arise, because the soul is intensely and wholly taken up with another species of feeling. The perceptive and comparing part of the mind is not in a situation to take a right view of the subject, whatever it is. But after the present passion has subsided, so as to give the person an opportunity to inquire and reflect, the power of moral judgment And at once the individual, who has been the subject of such violence of feeling, looks with horror on the deeds, which he has committed. So that the original susceptibility, the existence of which has been contended for, cannot justly be said to be extinct in such cases; although its due exercise, as is sufficiently obvious, is prevented by the accidental circumstance of inordinate passion.

Further those, who imagine, that there are no permanent moral distinctions, because they are not regarded in moments of extreme passion, would do well to consider, that at such times persons are unable rightly to apprehend any truths whatever, whether they relate to morals or any thing else. A murderer, when drawing the blade from the bosom of his victim, probably could not tell the quotient of sixteen divided by four, or any other simple results in numbers; but

* Historical Illustrations of the Passions, (Anonymous,) Vol. I, p. 162.

certainly his inability to perceive them under such circumstances does not annul numerical powers and distinctions, nor prove the absolute want of a power to perceive them, Why then should the same inability take away moral distinctions, or prove the absolute absence of a moral susceptibility?

§. 278. Of the action of the conscience in connection with strong temptation.

We may add to the considerations, which have now been brought forward, that there may be expected to be some diversities in the decisions of the moral sensibility, occasioned by diversities in the degree of temptation, which happens to bear upon it. The moral sensibility or conscience, as it developes itself in the feelings of moral obligation, is in immediate contact with the will, and furnishes a powerful motive to action. But the power of these feelings, considered as motives to action, is of course limited; it has its boundaries; it cannot overcome every thing. Of course if our desires, which are the antagonist principle of action, are very strong, there is a possibility at least of the sentiments of duty being overcome. And in point of fact this is sometimes the case.

But how does it happen, that the feelings of obligation or sentiments of duty, which so frequently predominate, have less power in these particular cases, than the desires? It is because the intellect, under the instigation of the desires, gives a distorted view of things, representing our own claims in the most favorable light, and darkening and depressing the claims of others. The conscience labors under the disadvantage of having before itself an erroneous view of the facts; which have the two-fold effect of reacting upon and increasing the intensity of the desires, and at the same time of blunting the edge of moral perception. Hence another class of what are called violations of conscience; that is to say, of apparent want of uniformity in its decisions.

Under this head we may properly introduce a statement from the travels of Mungo Park. He is speaking of a tribe of Africans, called the Mandingoes. After saying, that they discovered an insurmountable propensity to steal the few articles of property which he possessed, he goes on to remark as follows."For this part of their conduct no complete

justification can be offered, because theft is a crime in their own estimation; and it must be observed, that they are not habitually and "generally guilty of it towards each other. This, however, is an important circumstance in mitigation; and before we pronounce them a more depraved people than any other, it were well to consider, whether the lower order of people in any part of Europe would have acted, under similar circumstances, with greater honesty towards a stranger, than the Negroes acted towards me. It must not be forgotten, that the laws of the country afforded me no protection; that every one was at liberty to rob me with impunity; and finally, that some part of my effects were of as great value in the estimation of the Negroes, as pearls and diamonds would have been in the eyes of a European. Let us suppose, a black merchant of Hindostan to have found his way into the centre of England with a box of jewels at his back, and that the laws of the kingdom afforded him no security; in such a case the wonder would be, not that the stranger was robbed of any part of his riches, but that any part was left for a second depredator. Such, on sober reflection, is the judgment I have formed, concerning the pilfering disposition of the Mandingo Negroes towards myself. Notwithstanding I was so great a sufferer by it, I do not consider that their natural sense of justice was perverted or extinguished; it was overpowered only, for the moment, by the strength of a temptation which it required no common virtue to resist.

On the other hand, as some counterbalance to this depravity in their nature, allowing it to be such, it is impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity, and tender solicitude, with which many of these poor heathens, from the sovereign of Sego, to the poor women who received me at different times in their cottages, when I was perishing of hunger, sympathized with me in my sufferings, relieved my distresses, and contributed to my safety."*

§. 279. Of the existence of a moral nature in connection with public robbers and outlaws from society.

In concluding this subject, there are one or two topics re* Park's Travels in Africa, p. 297.