It is necessary to proceed by common ideas, in order to advance one degree in the research of truth: thus I ought at first, in this place, to recollect, that the penal laws cannot be applied but to offences known and proved; this consideration contracts their power within a very narrow circle; however, crimes secretly committed, are not the only ones which are beyond the cognizance of laws; we must place in this rank every reprehensible action, which, for want of a distinct character, can never be pointed out; the number of them is prodigious: the rigour of parents, ingratitude of children, the inhumanity of abandoning their nurses, treachery in friendship, the violation of domestic comfort, disunion sown in the bosoms of families, levity of principles in every social connexion, perfidious counsels, artful and slanderous insinuations, rigorous exercise of authority, favour and partiality of judges, their inattention, their idleness and severity, endeavours to obtain places of importance, with a consciousness of incapacity, corrupt flatteries addressed to sovereigns or ministers, statesmen indifferent to public good, their vile and pernicious jealousies, and their political dissensions, excited in order to render themselves necessary, wars instigated by ambition, intolerance under the cover of zeal; in short, many other fatal evils which the laws cannot either follow or describe, and which often do much mischief, before they give any opportunity for public censure. We ought not even to desire that this censure pass certain bounds, because authority, applied to obscure faults, or those susceptible of various interpretations, easily degenerates into tyranny; and as there is nothing so transitory as thought, nothing so secret as our sentiments; none but an invisible power, whose authority seems to participate of the divine, has a right to enter into the secrets of our hearts. It is then only, at the tribunal of his own conscience, that a man can be interrogated about a number of actions and intentions which escape the inspection of government. Let us beware of overturning the authority of a judge so active and enlightened; let us beware of weakening it voluntarily, and let us not be so imprudent as to repose only on social discipline. I will even venture to say, that the power of conscience is perhaps still more necessary in the age we live in, than in any of the preceding; though society no longer presents us with a view of those vices and crimes which shock us by their deformity; yet licentiousness of morals, and refinement of manners, have almost imperceptibly blended good and evil, vice and decency, falsehood and truth, selfishness and magnanimity; it is more important then ever, to oppose to this secret depravity, an interior authority, which pries into the mysterious windings of disguise, and whose action may be as penetrating as our dissimulation seems artful and well contrived.