as he can doubt of the truth of the science of optics, deduced from ocular experiments. And allowing the inward feeling of shame; a man can as little doubt whether it was given him to prevent his doing shameful actions, as he can doubt whether his eyes were given him to guide his steps."[1] Nor can one doubt, either that conscience is adapted to be the guide and ruler of our conduct, or that the science of morality, deduced from the way in which conscience acts and from the whole structure of human nature, is valid and legitimate.
All that Butler has to say about the action of conscience is then in answer to the question, by what inner process we recognize virtue. But this is purely psychological, and does not exhaust his treatment. If Butler had held that conscience in some mysterious or arbitrary way delivered its judgments ex cathedra, and thereby created or constituted morality, there would be no escape from the fallacious circle. But conscience no more creates morality than the eye creates the things it sees, or the feeling of shame that which is its ground and cause and explanation, or, to use another of Butler's illustrations, than the watch creates the time it measures. Conscience is simply the capacity for virtue. It does not make morality, but it makes moral action possible. "That which renders beings capable of moral government, is their having a moral nature, and moral faculties of perception and action."[2] It is the possession of this potentiality, the highest prerogative and attribute of human nature, that renders man a moral agent and a law unto himself.[3]
From the natural relation of conscience to the other principles of man's constitution, we may learn the secret of its authority, and also what is meant when virtue is said to consist in following nature. In a previous article,[4] it was noted how Butler likens human nature to a civil constitution, and how it is that the principle of authority unites and forms the various parts into one organic whole. Since it is the office of conscience "to adjust,
