detractor then supplies their place by the needful vices,--perhaps
with his own; then, indeed, he is ripe for hatred. When a sinful act
is made personal, it is another affair; it then becomes a _part_
of _the man_; and he may then worship it with the idolatry of
a devil. But there is a vast gulf between his own idol and that of
another.

To prevent misapprehension, we would here observe, that we do not
affirm of either Good or Evil any irresistible power of enforcing
love or exciting abhorrence, having evidence to the contrary in
the multitudes about us; all we affirm is, that, when contemplated
abstractly, they cannot be viewed otherwise. Nor is the fact of
their inefficiency in many cases difficult of solution, when it is
remembered that the very condition to their _true_ effect is
the complete absence of self, that they must clearly be viewed _ab
extra_; a hard, not to say impracticable, condition to the very
depraved; for it may well be doubted if to such minds any act or
object having a moral nature can be presented without some personal
relation. It is not therefore surprising, that, where the condition is
so precluded, there should be, not only no proper response to the
law of Good or Evil, but such frequent misapprehension of their true
character. Were it possible to see with the eyes of others, this might
not so often occur; for it need not be remarked, that few things, if
any, ever retain their proper forms in the atmosphere of self-love;
a fact that will account for many obliquities besides the one in
question. To this we may add, that the existence of a compulsory power
in either Good or Evil could not, in respect to man, consist with his
free agency,--without which there could be no conscience; nor does it
follow, that, because men, with the free power of choice, yet so often
choose wrong, there is any natural indistinctness in the absolute