'The wicked flees when no one pursueth;' then why does he flee?
whence his terror? Who is it that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the
hidden chambers of his heart? If the cause of these emotions does not
belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is
directed must be supernatural and divine; and thus the phenomena of
conscience as a dictate avail to impress the imagination with the picture
of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing,
retributive."[16]
Now I have quoted this passage because it seems to me to convey in a
concise form the whole of the argument from Conscience. But how tremendous
are the inferences which are drawn from the facts! As the first step in our
criticism, it is necessary to point out that two very different orders of
feelings are here treated by Dr. Newman. There is first the pure or
uncompounded ethical feelings, which spring directly from the moral sense
alone, and which all men experience in varying degrees. And next there are
what we may term the _ethico-theological_ feelings, which can only spring
from a blending of the moral sense with a belief in a personal God, or
other supernatural agents. The former class of feelings, or the
uncompounded ethical class, have exclusive reference to the moral
obligations that subsist between ourselves and other human beings, or
sentient organisms. The latter class of feelings, or the ethico-theological
class, have reference to the moral obligations that are believed to subsist
between ourselves and the Deity, or other supernatural beings.
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