_Importance of this Position._--This is a point of some importance. If, with certain writers, we make the moral faculty a matter of mere feeling, overlooking the intellectual perceptions on which this feeling is based, we overlook and leave out of the account, the chief elements of the process. The moral faculty is no longer a cognitive power, no longer, in truth, a faculty. The distinctions which it seems to recognize are merely _subjective_; impressions, feelings, to which there may, or may not, be a corresponding reality. We have at least no evidence of any such reality. Such a view subtracts the very foundation of morals. Our feelings vary; but right and wrong do not vary with our feelings. They are objective realities, and not subjective phenomena. As such, the mind, by virtue of the natural powers with which it is endowed by the Creator, recognizes them. The power by which it gives this, we call the _moral faculty_; just as we call its power to take cognizance of another class of truths and relations, viz., the beautiful, its _æsthetic_ faculty. In view of these truths and relations, as thus perceived, certain feelings are, in either case, awakened, and these emotions may, with propriety, be regarded as pertaining to, and a part of, the phenomena of conscience, and of taste; the full discussion of either of these faculties will include the action of the sensibilities; but in neither case will a true psychology resolve the faculty into the feeling. The mathematician experiences a certain feeling of delight in perceiving the relation of lines and angles, but the power of perceiving that relation, the faculty by which the mind takes cognizance of such truth, is not to be resolved into the feeling that results from it. _Result of Analysis._--As the result of our analysis, we obtain the following elements as involved in, and constituting, an operation of the moral faculty: (1.) The mental perception that a given act is right or wrong. (2.) The perception of obligation with respect to the same, as right or wrong. (3.) The perception of merit or demerit, and the consequent approbation or censure of the agent, as doing the right or the wrong thus perceived. (4.) Accompanying these intellectual perceptions, and based upon them, certain corresponding emotions, varying in intensity according to the clearness of the mental perceptions, and the purity of the moral nature. II. _Authority of Conscience._--Thus far we have considered the _nature_ of conscience. The question arises now as to its _authority_--the reliableness of its decisions. If conscience correctly discerns the right and the wrong and the consequent obligation, it will be likely to judge correctly as to the deserts of the doer. If it mistake these points, it may approve what is not worthy of approval, and condemn what is good.