Note 6 — Introductory material

The logical analysis may be carried further, as by Mr. A. J. Balfour:—‘To assume a special faculty which is to announce ultimate moral laws can add nothing to their validity, nor will it do so the more if we suppose its authority supported by such sanctions as remorse or self-approval. Conscience regarded in this way is not ethically to be distinguished from any external authority, as, for instance, the Deity, or the laws of the land’ (A Defence of Philosophic Doubt, 1879, p. 345).