afterwards, are all the same. And here, perhaps, come in faint
hopes that they may, and half-resolves that they will, one time or
other, make a change.

Besides these there are also persons, who, from a more just way of
considering things, see the infinite absurdity of this, of
substituting sacrifice instead of obedience; there are persons far
enough from superstition, and not without some real sense of God and
religion upon their minds; who yet are guilty of most unjustifiable
practices, and go on with great coolness and command over
themselves. The same dishonesty and unsoundness of heart discovers
itself in these another way. In all common ordinary cases we see
intuitively at first view what is our duty, what is the honest part.
This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is
often the best. In these cases doubt and deliberation is itself
dishonesty, as it was in Balaam upon the second message. That which
is called considering what is our duty in a particular case is very
often nothing but endeavouring to explain it away. Thus those
courses, which, if men would fairly attend to the dictates of their
own consciences, they would see to be corruption, excess,
oppression, uncharitableness; these are refined upon--things were so
and so circumstantiated--great difficulties are raised about fixing
bounds and degrees, and thus every moral obligation whatever may be
evaded. Here is scope, I say, for an unfair mind to explain away
every moral obligation to itself. Whether men reflect again upon
this internal management and artifice, and how explicit they are
with themselves, is another question. There are many operations of
the mind, many things pass within, which we never reflect upon
again; which a bystander, from having frequent opportunities of
observing us and our conduct, may make shrewd guesses at.