Soon, however, experience comes into play. We learn that there are
other impulses beside the dictates of conscience, that there are
powers within us and without us ready to usurp the throne of
conscience, and busy in tempting us to transfer our allegiance. We
learn that there are many things contrary to conscience, and
therefore to be rejected and utterly excluded, and many that can
coexist with its supremacy only by being subjugated as beasts of
burthen; and others again, as for instance the social tendernesses
and affections, and the faculties and excitations of the intellect,
which must be at least subordinated. The preservation of our loyalty
and fealty under these trials, and against these rivals, constitutes
the second sense of faith; and we shall need but one more point of
view to complete its full import. This is the consideration of what
is presupposed in the human conscience. The answer is ready. As in
the equation of the correlative I and Thou, one of the twin
constituents is to be taken as PLUS will, the other as MINUS will, so
is it here; and it is obvious that the reason or SUPER-individual of
each man, whereby he is a man, is the factor we are to take as MINUS
will, and that the individual will or personalising principle of free
agency ("arbitrement" is Milton's word) is the factor marked PLUS
will; and again, that as the identity or co-inherence of the absolute
will and the reason, is the peculiar character of God, so is the
SYNTHESIS of the individual will and the common reason, by the
subordination of the former to the latter, the only possible likeness
or image of the PROTHESIS or identity, and therefore the required
proper character of man.
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