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to which that feeling attaches, is theoretically unintelligible, and practically unserviceable. An intuition of right on the other hand, which does not instantly assume the force and pressure of duty, loses its character and slips from the throne of the mind. Intrinsic quality and exterior form, the rational and the emotional elements, are inseparably blended, and give us a command, whose unquestionable authority, like that of one born to rule, is in the immediate fact, in tone, attitude, outspoken power.

If obedience follows the intimations of our moral sense, there sets in a deep and deepening current of pleasurable feelings, of reward. The force and intensity of these emotions will depend very much on the degree in which the judgments which sustain the action of conscience and prepare the way for its decisions have been cultivated; on the relative force which the moral sentiments have secured in our constitution by obedience. Ethical feelings, like esthetical ones, are very dependent on cultivation. The reason of this is obvious, since in neither case are we dealing, as in external perception, with a direct, immediate faculty, but with one acting on previous intellections, previous conceptions of the mind, and therefore limited in its scope and correctness to them. It is evident that the character of phenomena should be judged by instances in which they are most manifest and complete, not by cases in which they are obscure and furtive. A powerful moral nature makes itself at once felt in the pleasures it pours in upon the obedient mind, of such degree and quality that the appreciative heart prefers them to all others, and purchases them at any price of suffering which can be exacted of it. Yet these enjoyments are of a tranquil rather than a violent kind; a deep sense of satisfaction in the choices made, a thorough contentment in actions done, an inner approval which anticipates a like outward acceptance on the part of the wise and just.