Essays and Treatises on Moral, Political, and Various Philosophical Subjects Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799 Excerpt: ...veracious, for of it he is immediately conscious to himself. In the former case he compares his asseveration with the object in the logical judgment (by the underfunding); but in the latter, as he professes Vol. II. O his his holding-true, with the subject (before conscience). Does he make the profession relating to the former, without being conscious;to himself of the latter? he lies, as he gives out something else than what he is conscious of.--The, observation that there is such an impurity in the human heart, is not new (for Job made it); but one would almost think that the attention to it is new to teachers of morals and religion: so little is it found, that they, notwithstanding the difficulty which a purifying of the minds of men, even if they would act conformably to duty, carries with it, have made sufficient use of that ohservar tion.--This veracity may be named the formal conscientiousness, the material consists in the circumspection to venture nothing on the risk of its being wrong: as on the contrary that consists in the consciousness of having employed this circumspection in the given case.--. Moralists speak of an erring con science. But an erring conscience is a nonenj tity; and, were there such a thing, one could never be sure to have acted right, because the judge himself in the last instance might err. I may err, it is true, in the judgment, in which I believe to be in the right: for that belongs to the understanding, which only judges objectively (whether true or false); but in the consciousness, IJ hether in fact I believe to be in the right (or merely pretend it), I absolutely cannot err, as this judgment or rather this position says nothing but that I thus judge the object. In the carefulness to be conscious to one's, self self of thi...