all. Comply to the utmost of your power with the general conditions of health, which are equally to be observed by everybody, and which, when diseases can be cured, will generally suffice to cure them-though a wise physician may do much to aid the Take all the indications nature itself gives you, and act process. upon them rigidly. Be regular in your hours-take plenty of air and exercise-do not rob yourself of the proper quantum of sleep (which I suspect you do) for business, or for anythinghowever necessary you may deem it; for your first necessity is to get well. Above all, be careful to take that diet which you feel by experience best agrees with you. One word as to that deceptive appetite-that illusive voracity, which you say sometimes plagues you. Dr. S says that you are not to listen to this lying oracle in the stomach, which often deceives a dyspeptic patient. When the organ is empty, it assures him that it can and will deal with a full meal; and then when full, fails to fulfil its promises. This miscalculation,—either from a morbid appetite, which seems at present to be your case, or from a too voracious appetite, which is the case with the majority of mankind,—is a frequent cause, as well as symptom, of dyspepsia. We almost all eat more than can be fairly assimilated, and hence a chronic failure in the tone of the organ habitually overworked. There is certainly something very provoking in the not uncommon case of a disproportion between a factitious hunger which the empty stomach affects, and its power of performance; because the clamour it sets up is a false sign-post, and misleads. As to those who, while the stomach says nothing, or even grumbles and resents, will overload the poor drudge, they deserve all that they suffer. It is the old story of a perverted will-a moment's present gratification, and a future costly price of torment for it. The wheedling palate says, "another slice, or another cup" and down it goes into the reluctant receptacle. Here pity is out of the question.

But there is something very pitiable when a poor mortal is the victim of a deceitful lure-a factitiously voracious appetite, itself the result of disease not of health. The true way of

taming this wolf, as sometimes other wild beasts, is by letting it fast.

But whether the taking of food beyond what nature requires be the effect of involuntary or voluntary depravity of appetite, your old Mentor and mine is of opinion that, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, it is the cause, remote or proximate, of all the infinite forms of that comprehensive disease, which lets our consciousness into a secret which nature intended we should be ignorant of—namely, "that we have stomachs." He affirms, and I rather think with truth, that nearly all the learned talk that is made about the quality of food, as wholesome or otherwise, difficult or easy of digestion, might be spared, if only people sinned not in quantity. He says, men in health might almost take anything that can be digested, provided they took it in no excess. This seems confirmed by the general experience of most who have plenty of vigorous exercise, pure air, and but little to eat. Nay, how soon does the pampered dweller in cities, who, perhaps, at home was complaining from morning to night of a queasy stomach, find this out in a rough tour through a country like this! What a solvent is the keen mountain air. what a power of dealing with anything that comes to hand (short of gravel and oyster-shells) does the stomach attain; and, if moderate in quantity, how little does it "keck" at the quality thereof!

Let me know how you are soon. Dr. S- I should add (for the opinion of a physician one confides in is itself one of the very best prescriptions), predicts that your symptoms will soon pass away.

Yours truly,

R. E. H. G.

My dear Sir,

LETTER LXVII.

To R- S--.

Arran, Aug. 12, 1851.

If I do not comply with your request so fully as you may wish-for I have time only for a few brief hints. -it is, as you will be sure, from no lack of interest in your pupil. As the son of an old friend, his welfare will never be indifferent to me. But to the point. He says, "It seems it can never be wrong to follow conscience, let it lead to what it will-and to do it must always be pleasant; that, therefore, even a conscientious Atheist must be blameless, and may be happy and safe." But suppose there is no conscientious Atheist! What then? At that supposition he would, no doubt, be indignant. Well, then, let us waive it.

was

J. T― is like many other youths of his age, enamoured of a half-truth, and, none the less that, seen in that state, it looks like paradox, and moreover seems to promise, what youth so dearly loves, a "Principle" which admits of no modification, no exception. His statement contains a truth indeed, but he must not suppose that there is anything very novel in his discovery. It is an undoubted truth, discovered long before J. Tborn, and clearly enough laid down by a host of moralists and casuists,-by Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, Stillingfleet, Chillingworth, that "a conscience, however erroneous, obliges." But though it is true that a man must follow his conscience when made, the question returns, whether he may not have had a trifle to do with making it. It does not follow that because a man must obey his conscience, he is blameless in so doing. To make him so, we must assume that up to the time he is called on to act in obedience to its authority, he has had nothing to blame in the process by which he has come to have such a conscience; no prejudice, no indolence, no remissness in investigation, no disingenuousness, no momentary listening to vanity, waywardness, interest, or any other of the ten thousand warping influences which

bias our judgments. Only in the case in which a man has impartially dealt with evidence, up to the full measure of his oppor tunities and abilities, is he blameless; and he is blameable, much or little, as he has, much or little, deviated from this standard. So far from its being true, therefore, that to follow conscience (no matter whither) is certainly a "safe and pleasant duty," it may be, and often is, the very curse of a man's past unfaithfulness. In a thousand ways may man contribute to the state of mind in which he at last believes a lie to be the truth; and in proportion as he has done so, the necessity under which he brings himself to follow the "blind guide" is certainly no matter of congratulation, unless it be any such "that both shall fall into the ditch."

It is true, indeed, that however pitiable his condition, it is still blameless (I fear it is an apology which will rarely avail), if it was absolutely impossible for the man, be it from the structure of his mind or his inevitable lot in life, to prevent the result or modify it for the better!

We cannot doubt, I think, that many a Thug - many a Mahometan fanatic many a Romish Inquisitor- many millions of Idolaters have conscientiously performed acts which we call the most detestable crimes. Well, the erroneous conscience, while they are in that state, coerces them, as much as a more enlightened conscience binds an apostle. Does it, therefore, leave them as blameless? Are we not only to pardon a Dominick, but to regard him with complacency-as we must if your pupil's principle be true? Is it not absurd to say so? We cannot even pardon him (as I have shown) unless the state of mind into which he has been brought is wholly and absolutely involuntary. If it be, pardon him we must; but even then we shall, at most, pardon and pity; or shall we, like our young philosopher, say that a Bonner deserves admiration as much as a Hooper, — for both are conscientious?

If J. T shrinks from this, and says "no," for it cannot be that any man can conscientiously mistake acts, in themselves inhuman and cruel, for duty (though I fancy he has too much sense, in the face of history, to affirm that), we should, of course,

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say that this is begging the question. If he should say (what, perhaps, he would say) that his apology for "an erroneous conscience" is not designed to apply to the "practical," but to the "speculative" only, - to "opinions," not to "actions," then the next thing must be, - and a difficult task he will find it, — 1st, to state the limits within which the apology for an erroneous conscience" does not apply, by making the requisite distinction between "speculative opinions" and their consequences, involved as these are, especially in all matters of a moral and religious nature, with one another. This complication all superstition too plainly proves, for as is the belief, so, as a general rule, is the practice; 2ndly, to prove that man is not responsible for hist head as well as for his heart; for his speculative opinions as well as for his practical principles; that while an erroneous conscience" does not excuse him for the state of mind in which he conscientiously believes that it is his duty to roast heretics, it does excuse him for conscientiously holding the Pope to be infallible, amidst so many proofs to the contrary; or that there is no God in the universe, amidst so many proofs that there is one ! And yet who does not see, in these very instances, the impossibility of separating between speculative opinions and their practical results ?. for he who holds the former of these tenets will naturally obey it, and, like many a Dominick of the Roman Church, end by roasting heretics, if the Pope bids him; while he who holds the latter will not, I think, have much difficulty in coaxing his conscience to any "practical principles " he pleases.

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In accordance with the spurious charity which characterises our day, J. Tis, I perceive, most indignant with those who think unfavourably of anybody for conscientiously acting upon his opinions, be they what they may. The very argument is selfconfuting, and the bulk of mankind are absolved from attending to it. For if men conscientiously think, as most men do (and are likely to do, I imagine), that men are deeply censurable for the conditions of mind in which they take egregious falsehoods for truth, and practise abominable crimes as duty, they are excused for conscientious condemnation of such conscientious people, by the