The reasons are apparent.  For although prudence, as regards self, and sympathy or fellow-feeling, as regards others, would comprehend all the interests of mankind—­everything that morality can desire to accomplish—­nevertheless, the acting out of these impulses by each individual at random would not suffice for the exigencies of human life.  They must be regulated, directed, reconciled by society at large; each person must be made to work upon the same plan as every other person.  This leads to the institution of Government and Authority, with the correlatives of Law, Obligation, and Punishment.  Our natural impulses for good are now directed into an artificial channel, and it is no longer optional whether they shall fall into that channel.  The nature of the case requires all to conform alike to the general arrangements, and whoever is not sufficiently urged by the natural motives, is brought under the spur of a new kind of prudential motive—­Punishment.

Government, Authority, Law, Obligation, Punishment, are all implicated in the same great Institution of Society, to which Morality owes its chief foundation, and the Moral Sentiment its special attribute.  Morality is not Prudence, nor Benevolence, in their primitive or spontaneous manifestations; it is the systematic codification of prudential and benevolent actions, rendered obligatory by what is termed penalties or Punishment; an entirely distinct motive, artificially framed by human society, but made so familiar to every member of society as to be a second nature.  None are allowed to be prudential or sympathizing in their own way.  Parents are compelled to nourish their own children; servants to obey their own masters, to the neglect of other regards; all citizens have to abide by the awards of authority; bargains are to be fulfilled according to a prescribed form and letter; truth is to be spoken on certain definite occasions, and not on others.  In a formed society, the very best impulses of nature fail to guide the citizen’s actions.  No doubt there ought to be a general coincidence between what Prudence and Sympathy would dictate, and what Law dictates; but the precise adjustment is a matter of institution.  A moral act is not merely an act tending to reconcile the good of the agent with the good of the whole society; it is an act, prescribed by the social authority, and rendered obligatory upon every citizen.  Its morality is constituted by its authoritative prescription, and not by its fulfilling the primary ends of the social institution.  A bad law is still a law; an ill-judged moral precept is still a moral precept, felt as such by every loyal citizen.

11.  It may be proved, by such evidence as the case admits of, that the peculiarity of the Moral Sentiment, or Conscience, is identified with our education under government, or Authority.

Conscience is described by such terms as moral approbation and disapprobation; and involves, when highly developed, a peculiar and unmistakeable revulsion of mind at what is wrong, and a strong resentment towards the wrong-doer, which become Remorse, in the case of self.