5520. MORAL SENSE, Want of.—[continued].
When the moral sense
is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect
by education, by appeals to reason and calculation,
by presenting to the being so unhappily
conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew
evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or
the rejection of those among whom he lives, and
whose society is necessary to his happiness and
even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation
that honesty promotes interest in the
long run; the rewards and penalties established
by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a
future state of retribution for the evil as well as
the good done while here. These are the
correctives which are supplied by education, and
which exercise the functions of the moralist, the
preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a
course of correct action all those whose depravity
is not too profound to be eradicated.—
To Thomas Law. Washington ed. vi, 350.
(M.
1814)
