having come to an agreement, tyrannically dictates conduct. There
are two dispositions eternally opposed: that in which we recognise
that one thing is wrong and another right, and that in which, not
seeing any clear distinction, we fall back on the consideration of
consequences. The truth is, by the scope of our present teaching,
nothing is thought very wrong and nothing very right, except a few
actions which have the disadvantage of being disrespectable when
found out; the more serious part of men inclining to think all
things RATHER WRONG, the more jovial to suppose them RIGHT ENOUGH
FOR PRACTICAL PURPOSES. I will engage my head, they do not find
that view in their own hearts; they have taken it up in a dark
despair; they are but troubled sleepers talking in their sleep.
The soul, or my soul at least, thinks very distinctly upon many
points of right and wrong, and often differs flatly with what is
held out as the thought of corporate humanity in the code of
society or the code of law. Am I to suppose myself a monster? I
have only to read books, the Christian Gospels for example, to
think myself a monster no longer; and instead I think the mass of
people are merely speaking in their sleep.

It is a commonplace, enshrined, if I mistake not, even in school
copy-books, that honour is to be sought and not fame. I ask no
other admission; we are to seek honour, upright walking with our
own conscience every hour of the day, and not fame, the
consequence, the far-off reverberation of our footsteps. The walk,
not the rumour of the walk, is what concerns righteousness. Better
disrespectable honour than dishonourable fame. Better useless or
seemingly hurtful honour, than dishonour ruling empires and filling
the mouths of thousands. For the man must walk by what he sees,
and leave the issue with God who made him and taught him by the