Frequent are the instances in which it is suspended, and as it were drowned, in the inundation of the appetites, passions and imaginations, to which I have resigned myself, making use of my will in order to abandon my free-will; and there are not, I fear, examples wanting of the conscience being utterly destroyed, or of the passage of wickedness into madness;--that species of madness, namely, in which the reason is lost.

For so long as the reason continues, so long must the conscience exist either as a good conscience, or as a bad conscience.
It appears then, that even the very first step, that the initiation of the process, the becoming conscious of a conscience, partakes of the nature of an act.

It is an act, in and by which we take upon ourselves an allegiance, and consequently the obligation of fealty; and this fealty or fidelity implying the power of being unfaithful, it is the first and fundamental sense of Faith.

It is likewise the commencement of experience, and the result of all other experience.

In other words, conscience, in this its simplest form, must be supposed in order to consciousness, that is, to human consciousness.