Considering all these things, it is not surprising that many moralists should have regarded moral excellence as simply the highest form of beauty, and moral cultivation as the supreme refinement of taste. But although this manner of regarding it is, as I think, far more plausible than the theory which resolves virtue into utility, although the Greek moralists and the school of Shaftesbury have abundantly proved that there is an extremely close connection between these orders of ideas, there are two considerations which appear to show the inadequacy of this theory. We are clearly conscious of the propriety of applying the epithet “beautiful” to virtues such as charity, reverence, or devotion, but we cannot apply it with the same propriety to duties of perfect obligation, such as veracity or integrity. The sense of beauty and the affection that follows it attach themselves rather to modes of enthusiasm and feeling than to the course of simple duty which constitutes a merely truthful and upright man.(104) Besides this, as the Stoics and Butler have shown, the position of conscience in our nature is wholly unique, and clearly separates morals from a study of the beautiful. While each of our senses or appetites has a restricted sphere of operation, it is the function of conscience to survey the whole constitution of our being, and assign limits to the gratification of all our various passions and desires. Differing not in degree, but in kind from the other principles of our nature, we feel that a course of conduct which is opposed to it may be intelligibly described as unnatural, even when in accordance with our most natural appetites, for to conscience is assigned the prerogative of both judging and restraining them all. Its power may be insignificant, but its title is undisputed, and “if it had might as it has right, it would govern the world.”(105) It is this faculty, distinct from, and superior to, all appetites, passions, and tastes, that makes virtue the supreme law of life, and adds an imperative character to the feeling of attraction it inspires. It is this which was described by Cicero as the God ruling within us; by the Stoics as the sovereignty of reason; by St. Paul as the law of nature; by Butler as the supremacy of conscience. The distinction of different parts of our nature, as higher or lower, which appears in the foregoing reasoning, and which occupies so important a place in the intuitive system of morals, is one that can only be defended by the way of illustrations. A writer can only select cases in which such distinctions seem most apparent, and leave them to the feelings of his reader. A few examples will, I hope, be sufficient to show that even in our pleasures, we are not simply determined by the amount of enjoyment, but that there is a difference of kind, which may be reasonably described by the epithets, higher or lower.