Now, the outer and especially the higher senses may, by reason of the supremacy of the fancy, to which they are subordinate, be termed, with propriety, so many applied faculties of imagination. In the same way we might give the same designation to the inclinations and impulses--the good as well as the evil--if, perhaps, it would not be more accurate to name them an imagination passed into life. In a similar way the memory may be considered as an applied reason which in the application has become quite mechanical and habitual; for unquestionably the logical arrangement is the chief quality in memory. From this it derives both its value and scientific utility. On the other hand, there are certain acquired mental aptitudes which, though originally they can not be formed without the voluntary exercise of memory, become at last a completely unconscious and mechanical operation--the facility, for instance, of learning by heart, or the acquisition of foreign languages, or catching up of musical tunes. In all these the reason has become an instinct, just as the instinct of animals, their artistic impulse and skill, may be designated an unconscious analogy of reason.
In this subordinate faculty of the memory, the reason, agreeably to its specific character, exhibits itself as a useful and ministering agent. In conscience, on the contrary, as its highest function, it assumes a somewhat negative character. But in both relations, whether as a ministerial or negative faculty of thought, the reason, in its place, is of the highest value. If occasionally we have seemed to detract from and to limit its importance, such remarks have been called forth by the undue and overweening authority which the present age would claim for the reason. This is the sole end and meaning of our opposition, which is directed exclusively against that spurious reason which claims to be supreme, and arrogates to itself a productive power; whereas, in truth, it ought not to be the one, and can never be the other. The thought which distinguishes, divides, and analyzes, and that also which combines, infers, and concludes--which, as such, make up the faculty of reason--may be so carried on in indefinite and infinite process, as ultimately to get entirely rid of its object-matter. It is this endless thinking, without a correspondent object, that is the source of scientific error, which, as in all cases it arises solely out of this vacuum in thinking, can only lead to a thinking of nothing--a cogitation absolutely null and false. Far different is the case where a memory, stored with the rich materials of intellectual experience, forms the useful basis of man's studies and pursuits, or where, as is the case with the apperception of the conscience, the object, even while it is less extensive and manifold, is the more highly and more intensely important. Now, as the reason generally is not only a combining and connecting, but also a distinguishing faculty of thought, so likewise the conscience is a similar power of drawing distinctions in the thought and in the internal consciousness, though in a higher and special degree, and also in a different form from that which, in all other instances, is discursive reason. For it is by a simple feeling and immediate perception that the conscience, in obedience to the voice within man, draws between right and wrong, or good and evil, the greatest of all distinctions. This voice of conscience, while it makes itself heard among all nations, nevertheless, under the ever and widely-varying influence of ruling ideas of the age, and of education, and of custom, speaks in different times and places, in differing tones and dialects. But these differences extend only to subordinate matters. The primary and essential point remains unchanged and never to be mistaken; the same dominant tone and key-note sounds through all these variations--the common tongue and language of human nature and of an untaught and innate fear of God. This fact has led many to regard the conscience as the principal source of all higher and divine truth; with whom I can readily concur, so long as they do not mean thereby that it is the only source, to the exclusion of every other.