less perfectly expressed, in all rational beings: now whatever is
found in all the individuals of a kind, is taken to belong to the
_specific nature_, or type of that kind. Again it is called the
_Natural Law_, because it is a thing which any rational nature must
necessarily compass and contain within itself in order to arrive at
its own proper perfection and maturity. Thus this inner law is
natural, in the sense in which walking, speech, civilization are
natural to man. A man who has it not, is below the standard of his
species. It will be seen that dancing, singing--at least to a pitch of
professional excellence--and a knowledge of Greek, are not, in this
sense, _natural_. The Natural Law is not _natural_, in the sense of
"coming natural," as provincial people say, or coming to be in man
quite irrespectively of training and education, as comes the power of
breathing. It was absurd of Paley (_Mor. Phil._, bk. i., c. v.) to
look to the wild boy of Hanover, who had grown up in the woods by
himself, to display in his person either the Natural Law or any other
attribute proper to a rational creature.

3. We call this the _natural law of conscience_, because every
individual's conscience applies this law, as he understands it, to his
own particular human acts, and judges of their morality accordingly.
What then is conscience? It is not a faculty, not a habit, it is an
act. It is a practical judgment of the understanding. It is virtually
the conclusion of a syllogism, the major premiss of which would be
some general principle of command or counsel in moral matters; the
minor, a statement of fact bringing some particular case of your own
conduct under that law; and the conclusion, which is conscience, a
decision of the case for yourself according to that principle: _e.g._,
"There is no obligation of going to church on (what Catholics call) a
_day of devotion_: this day I am now living is only a day of devotion;