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to such a law. They do not mistake their precepts for morality; they are scrupulous, not conscientious, in their obedience to them. Occasionally to throw a slight coloring of morality over their actions, is the most they aim at. In a community in which slavery for many generations has been the law of the land, we find, nevertheless, an independent moral element getting a foothold. Conscience is appealed to, and a vigorous moral warfare springs up in the teeth of uniform custom. Nor do those who justify slavery do it on the ground of uniform practice, except so far as this is regarded as an expression of opinion on the part of those who have thus held their fellows in bondage. Other grounds than the mere fact of custom are sought, grounds which, so far as they exist, have a true justificatory element in them: the good condition of the slave; his inferiority; the general social order; the exigencies of the case. I may almost say, that never is the appeal directly made between intelligent parties in an ethical discussion to naked custom and its penalties, for the defence of a line of conduct. This is a fact very damaging to the explanations offered. Men are never reverting to the bare fact of enforced law, as the ground and justification of law; yet this after all is made the source of the sense of law. Moreover, in the very face of such enforcement, there does spring up, in single minds, a moral sentiment, which with pure moral power breaks down institutions hitherto unanimously sustained. We thus see what prescriptive force can do; that it is by no means identical with morality, and that it constantly comes in conflict with the power this manifests, and yields to it.

(3) Again, this theory fails most signally in cases in which the moral phenomena are most distinct. In the explanation of mixed conduct, of actions assuming an ethical form, disguising themselves under moral sentiments, it prospers somewhat; but when the moral element is prominent