It shows, I think, that there are in our composite mental and bodily constitution principles, or laws, of morality, which, as they are indestructible, and capable of maintaining themselves, and of acting vigorously, under even the most adverse circumstances, must be regarded as inseparable and essential parts of our being. This fact in the natural history of morality may be illustrated by an analogous fact in the natural history of language. A man cannot but use language, and he cannot but use it in conformity with certain rules and laws. He cannot alter one law of language any more than he could invent a new language: he can even hardly add a single word, deliberately and designedly, to an existing one. And he must not only use language in conformity with its natural laws, but he must also use that particular form of it which the working of general laws has developed, necessarily, both for him, and in him. Just so is it with morality. Indeed, the parallel is so complete as to lead one to suspect that morality must to some considerable degree be dependent upon language. Man seems to invent it; and so he does in a certain sense. But, however, he cannot help inventing it; and he must invent it in conformity with certain laws. Over these he has no control: for though he must use, yet he does not invent, or originate, them. That falls within the sphere of a Higher Power. In some form or other, better or not so good, and in some measure, more or less, morality is a congenital necessity of our being, and if society be fairly and wisely dealt with (but of this when we speak of the wisdom of Egypt, and again in our summing up) there are grounds for disposing us to believe that moral, and not animal instincts, may in any people be made the lords of the ascendant. It will be enough to say here that extremes, then, appear in some sense to have met. We believe just as distinctly as the Jew, or as the Egyptian, that the law came from God; that in it God speaks within us, and through us; and that our part is to hearken to, to bow down before, and obey the Divinity. This involves morality, religion, responsibility, conscience. They saw this through moral intuition. We see it also through history and science. The primæval intuition, and the modern demonstration, constructed out of the materials with which our hoards of experience and observation have supplied us, are in perfect accord. Intuition prior to knowledge, and accumulated knowledge reasoning out the problem, have both arrived at the same conclusion: and so we have sufficient grounds for believing that no other conclusion is possible; and that what history has demonstrated to be inseparable from the working of society, and from the being of man, will endure as long as society and as man shall endure.[7] CHAPTER XXVI. THE EFFECT OF EASTERN TRAVEL ON BELIEF. Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing whereby we fly to Heaven.—SHAKSPEARE.