But when my conscience speaks to me, I can by
repeated efforts render myself finally insensible; to which add this
other difference, namely, that to make myself deaf is one and the
same thing with making my conscience dumb, till at length I became
unconscious of my conscience. Frequent are the instances in which it
is suspended, and, as it were, drowned in the inundation of the
appetites, passions, and imaginations to which I have resigned
myself, making use of my will in order to abandon my free-will; and
there are not, I fear, examples wanting of the conscience being
utterly destroyed, or of the passage of wickedness into madness; that
species of madness, namely, in which the reason is lost. For so long
as the reason continues, so long must the conscience exist, either as
a good conscience or as a bad conscience.
It appears, then, that even the very first step--that the initiation
of the process, the becoming conscious of a conscience--partakes of
the nature of an act. It is an act in and by which we take upon
ourselves an allegiance, and consequently the obligation of fealty;
and this fealty or fidelity implying the power of being unfaithful,
it is the first and fundamental sense of faith.
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