To these intuitionists, and to the popular mind very often, the
approval or disapproval of conscience is immediate, intuitive, and
unerring. Its authority is absolute and not to be questioned. We have
this faculty within us that tells us as surely what is right and what
wrong as our color-sense tells us what is red and what green. Some
people may, to be sure, be color-blind, or have defective consciences;
but the great mass of unsophisticated people possess this innate guide
and commandment, a quite sufficient warrant for all our distinctions
of good and evil. Honest men do not really differ in their moral
judgments. They may misunderstand one another's concepts and engage
in verbal disputes; but at bottom their moral sense approves and
disapproves the same acts. Our moral differences come mainly from the
deluding effects of passion and the sophisticated ingenuities of the
intellect. We should "return to nature," go by ourselves alone, and
listen to the inner voice. If we sincerely listen and obey we shall
always do right. [Footnote: "But truth and right, founded in the
eternal and, is what every man can judge of, when laid before him.
'T is necessarily one and the same to every man's understanding, just
as light is the same, to every man's eyes." (S. Clarke, Discourse upon
Natural Religion, 1706.)]
We cannot but recognize a certain amount of practical truth in this
picture. But it is over-simplified, and it is fundamentally
unsatisfactory to the intellect.
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