to moral self-examination than it is to every other reflection as regards what we have done, and might have done otherwise, where no ethical question is involved.

For it is not only true that the same procedure of indictment, defence, and sentence is occasionally assumed by that obviously spurious and artificial conscience which is based on mere superstition; as, for instance, when a Hindu reproaches himself with having been the murderer of a cow, or when a Jew remembers that he has smoked his pipe at home on the Sabbath; but even the self-questioning which springs from no ethical source, being indeed rather unmoral than moral, often appears in a shape of this sort, as the following case may exemplify. Suppose I, good-naturedly, but thoughtlessly, have made myself surety for a friend, and suppose there comes with evening