These, then, are the essential conditions of moral agency--the possession of a _conscience_, and the _power to obey or disobey_ the requirements of moral law. Both these conditions of accountability exist in man. By virtue of his constitution as a spiritual being made in the image of God, he is capable of perceiving what is inherently right, just, and good. His reason intuitively apprehends the good, and affirms the imperative obligation to choose the good. His judgment pronounces upon the relation of human conduct to the law of right, affirming man has or has not done right. And his emotive nature yields him complacence and joy as the reward of well-doing, or inflicts pain and remorse as the punishment of wrong-doing. In the words of Chalmers, "he is endowed with a conscience which performs within his bosom all the offices of a lawgiver and a judge." The possession of this faculty necessarily supposes the existence of power in the agent to comply or not to comply with its behests. A moral law is designed only for the government of a free being, and nothing is moral or immoral which is not voluntary. If there is no self-determination, there is no proper personality to which the law of reason can attach. Remorse, on the one hand, satisfaction on the other, are emotions which are inconceivable and impossible in a being who is not consciously free. _The nature and authority of conscience_ is a question which is earnestly discussed. Among philosophers and theologians there are diverse and conflicting opinions. It has been variously characterized as a _witness_ of our past actions; as a _judgment_ passed upon our actions; or as a _feeling_ arising in view of our actions. By one, conscience is regarded as an _appetite_--a craving for the right, but not a faculty intuitively perceiving the right. Another defines it "as a _capacity_ and a _tendency_ to inquire into duty, but not as supplying a law of duty."[514] While a third regards it as a state of the _sensibility_--"a simple feeling, emotion, or vivid sentiment which arises immediately in the mind in presence of certain actions, and to which we give the name of moral approbation."[515] These definitions of conscience may all be regarded as containing some truth. They are all defective, however, in this one respect--_they fail to recognize an internal law which constitutes a subjective standard of right_, and an intuitive perception of moral distinctions and qualities in human action. As an essay toward a clearer apprehension of the nature of conscience, we present the following propositions: