A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

XINTRODUCTION.of the island, the lover of virtue. The water is inperpetual agitation. The slightest zeph}'T wafts itinto billows. It then covers the inscription : we nolonger see the characters : we no longer hear conscienceread them. But the calm soon rises from thebosom of the ocean. The island reappears as before,and conscience resumes its employment*." It seemstherefore no valid objection against the existence of themoral instinct to urge that it is liable to counteraction.A further objection is derived from the fact, that itscarcely operates at all in infancy, and from its graduallybecoming stronger with advancing age, a circumstancewhich would seem to favour the idea of itsbeing an acquired rather than an original principle.It may however be replied, that this is nothing morethan is true respecting other of our susceptibilities,which have ever been deemed to be instinctive. Theinstinct of self-preservation, for instance, which causesthe eye to close upon the near approach to it of a dangerousobject, and the hands to be raised when we arein danger of falling, scarcely operates at all in infancy.It begins to operate when it is needed, when the augmentedstrength of the child renders it less dependentupon the parents, and when therefore it is more exposedto personal danger. So the moral instinct maybe imagined to remain dormant, without inducing anydoubt as to its existence, till the maturity of ourpowers generally may have prepared us to enter uponthe period of our responsibility.It has been further oljected, that if there had been