tioned by conscience for disregard of its just and necessary laws; and benevolence itself, unregulated by a sense of right and wrong, would become a mere sentiment, following with its tears the robber as readily as the Messiah to his crucifixion, and strewing its flowers as lavishly on the grave of the felon as on that of the martyr. In history have been seen all these exhibitions, not of the absolute elimination of conscience from human life, for conscience has never been wholly wanting in the most degraded epoch of the most degraded nation, but of its obscuration and its effeminacy.

It is, perhaps, more needful to remark that the evils of a character whose conscience is not controlled by other and still higher faculties are quite as great. Conscience combined with self-esteem, uninstructed by faith and unrestrained by benevolence, is the most remorseless and cruel of impulses. The ingenious persecutions which it invented and inflicted in the Middle Ages on the Protestants of Italy, Spain, France, and the Netherlands, far exceeded those which mere brutal combativeness and destructiveness inflicted on the Jews in the reign of Nero. It is not enough that a man be conscientious. He may be conscientious and self-conceited; in that case he will be exacting and despotic, making his own conscience a law for all his neighbors. He may be conscientious and approbative; in that case he will be weak, afraid, and always tormented lest he has not done what to his neighbors will seem to be right. He may be conscientious without faith; in that case he will be constantly led into false judgments by a tendency to measure the moral quality of every act by its immediate effect. He may have a merely retroactive conscience; in that case he will fail to look forward and prepare for what he is to do by measuring proposed action by the standard of right and wrong; he will be habitually looking back and tormenting himself, and perhaps others as well, by perpetually trying himself for actions past and beyond recall. He may use his conscience not as

the restraining motive of his life, but as the impelling motive, not as the governor, but as the steam; in that case he will have nothing of the joy of the perfect love which casteth out fear, but will always act under the spur of necessity, never in the freedom of those who through faith and love have entered into the liberty of the sons of God. It is not enough to have a conscience, and a masterful conscience; it must be a good conscience; a conscience that forecasts; that acts in restraining rather than in impelling; that is instructed by faith, not by sight; that is united to benevolence rather than to approbativeness and self-esteem.

2. Reverence. There is in man an instinct inclined to look up, to admire, to reverence. Something akin to it, something certainly illustrative of it, is seen in the apparent mental attraction of the best and most intelligent dogs toward their masters. But in the brute it is apparently dependent largely on physical services rendered and on fear. It is seen in man in various forms in the social organism, and is in one sense a social instinct, as also is conscience. But in its higher manifestations it is essentially both human and spiritual. It is the basis of all wonder, admiration, awe, reverence.* It is the foundation of that awe which we feel in the presence of the great and sublime in nature: the vast wilderness, the towering mountain, the starry heavens. Fear sometimes, but by no means always, enters into its existence; the two emotions are indeed often in absolute contrast, so that one hardly knows whether to fear or to rejoice. It enters into our experience of admiration of human handiwork, in art, mechanics, architecture. It is the basis of social distinctions, especially as they are seen in countries where hereditary classes exist, and the lower class is habituated to looking up to the class above it, where looking up is as easy and as natural

*The phrenologists recognize two faculties, one of reverence, the other of marvelousness. This seems to me a needless and doubtful distinction. Essentially and at root they are the same.

reverence.

as for an American to look off. It is the instinct of the child toward the parent, making it easy for the one to obey and the other to enforce the command, "Honor thy father and thy mother," a command often read as though it were, what it is not, Obey thy father and mother. It is seen in every form and phase of worship. It impels men every-where to a belief in some superior Being, known or unknown, imagined or unimagined, but deserving and demanding and receiving It exhibits itself alike in the devotee bowing before his hideous image in his magnificent Hindu temple, in the Friend lifting up his heart in silent adoration to the invisible Spirit, and in the spirit of wonder and of awe with which the seemingly undevout scientist approaches the confines of the visible world and looks off and seeks to fathom the beyond, and returns shaking his head in intellectual despair, saying it is the Unknown and the Unknowable. It is ignored by atheists, and therefore atheism has never made many converts, and never can. It is an essential and indestructible principle of human nature.

But this faculty is no more free from dangerous propensities than the lower social and industrial impulses. It is as dangerous when ill-educated and misdirected as acquisitiveness or self-esteem. If for lack of it men grow skeptical, infidel, atheistic Godward and cynical manward, inclined to take low views of man and none at all of God, its excess leads to idolatry and every form of superstition, to worshiping the unworshipful and reverencing that which is not venerable. Mated to conscience and self-esteem it produces bigotry; uninstructed by faith it begets idolatry or the worship of the visible, and therefore the unreal; combined with fear it begets superstition, the worship not of what is to be venerated, but of what is to be dreaded.

3. Benevolence. By benevolence is meant the impulse which leads its possessor to wish well to all other beings. It is an innate, not an acquired, quality of the mind. It exists.

in all men, though in many buried and almost destroyed by the pre-eminence of other faculties. It has its weak side and its defects. Uninstructed by faith it desires merely the happiness, not the welfare of men, and sacrifices without hesitation their real and permanent good for their apparent and present pleasure. Mated to approbativeness it becomes a mere instinct or impulse of good nature. Unregulated by conscience it is indiscriminating, a mawkish and morbid sentimentality. But it is of all the impulses the one whose vices are the least dangerous, and whose virtues are the most beneficent to mankind. Coupled with veneration, and looking up to a superior, especially to God, it redeems worship from fear, and makes it ennobling, elevating, purifying. Looking upon suffering, it is pity; looking upon sin, it is mercy; looking upon the well-being of the whole community needing protection from sin, it is justice. As an emotion, it is sympathy; it weeps with those that weep, it rejoices with those that rejoice. As a principle of action, it seeks the greatest good of the greatest number. It combines with the social instinct to make the family of man more than the nest of birds, society more than an ant-hill or a bee-hive. It is the secret of patriotism in the State, and is that love which is the bond of perfectness in the Church. It is the queen of the soul, and he only is truly healthy whose whole nature is obedient to love—whose acquisitiveness gathers for it, whose combativeness and destructiveness battle for it, whose caution fears for its wounding, whose conscience is made tender and sympathetic by it, and whose reverence is made fearless and filial and joyous by it. It is incapable of analysis; and no description which has ever been penned of it can compare for intelligent comprehensiveness and spiritual beauty to Paul's psalm of praise to it in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians: "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not pro

voked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

4. Phrenologists add to the impulses thus far given several others, the two most important being hope and firmness. These seem to me to be rather qualities than faculties; not so much impulses to do particular things as a spirit or habit which modifies the method of doing all things. Hope gives vigor of plan, firmness gives continuity of purpose; the one makes radiant, the other makes strong. Neither are simple or primary passions. Both are capable of analysis. Hope is desire and expectation commingled. What a man desires but does not expect, he does not hope for; what he expects but does not desire, he does not hope for; what he both desires and expects, he hopes for. His expectation may be rational or irrational; his hope is accordingly well or ill grounded. Firmness is vigor and persistency combined. It is persistence of force. Vigor without persistence produces dash and impetuosity; persistence without vigor produces inertia. Health of body has much to do with both qualities. Certain diseases invariably produce despondency. Certain physical weaknesses invariably produce more or less vacillation of purpose. Consciousness of power has much to do with both qualities. The man who is conscious of his own resources will be hopeful of results when all around him are in despair; he will be persistent in his purpose when all about him are discouraged and ready to retreat. He may be hopeful and firm in certain directions, despondent and vacillating in others; firm where conscience is concerned, and weak where self-interest is concerned; firm in protecting the interests of others, and weak inprotecting his own, or vice versa. Whether, however, hope and firmness be regarded as impulses, or as temperamental conditions affecting all the impulses, they must certainly be taken into account in any study of human nature.