By a familiar effect of Contiguous Association, the dread of punishment clothes the forbidden act with a feeling of aversion, which in the end persists of its own accord, and without reference to the punishment.  Actions that have long been connected in the mind with pains and penalties, come to be contemplated with a disinterested repugnance; they seem to give pain on their own account.  This is a parallel, from the side of pain, of the acquired attachment to money.  Now, when, by such transference, a self-subsisting sentiment of aversion has been created, the conscience seems to be detached from all external sanctions, and to possess an isolated footing in the mind.  It has passed through the stage of reference to authority, and has become a law to itself.  But no conscience ever arrives at the independent standing, without first existing in the reflected and dependent stage.

We must never omit from the composition of the Conscience the primary impulses of Self-Interest and Sympathy, which in minds strongly alive to one or other, always count for a powerful element in human conduct, although for reasons already stated, not the strictly moral element, so far as the individual is concerned.  They are adopted, more or less, by the authority imposing the moral code; and when the two sources coincide, the stream is all the stronger.

(2) Where moral training is omitted or greatly neglected, there is an absence of security for virtuous conduct.

In no civilized community is moral discipline entirely wanting.  Although children may be neglected by their parents, they come at last under the discipline of the law and the public.  They cannot be exempted from the associations of punishment with wrong.  But when these associations have not been early and sedulously formed, in the family, in the school, and in the workshop, the moral sentiment is left in a feeble condition.  There still remain the force of the law and of public opinion, the examples of public punishment, and the reprobation of guilt.  Every member of the community must witness daily the degraded condition of the viciously disposed, and the prosperity following on respect for the law.  No human being escapes from thus contracting moral impressions to a very large amount.

(3) Whenever an action is associated with Disapprobation and Punishment, there grows up, in reference to it, a state of mind undistinguishable from Moral Sentiment.

There are many instances where individuals are enjoined to a course of conduct wholly indifferent with regard to universal morality, as in the regulations of societies formed for special purposes.  Each member of the society has to conform to these regulations, under pain of forfeiting all the benefits of the society, and of perhaps incurring positive evils.  The code of honour among gentlemen is an example of these artificial impositions.  It is not to be supposed that there should be an innate sentiment to perform actions having nothing to do-with moral right and wrong; yet the disapprobation and the remorse following on a breach of the code of honour, will often be greater than what follows a breach of the moral law.  The constant habit of regarding with dread the consequences of violating any of the rules, simulates a moral sentiment, on a subject unconnected with morality properly so called.