Thus it will be seen that law and the sentiment of
society may each be employed as corrective of the other, and that,
consequently, their comparison implies a higher standard than either, by
means of which each may be tested, and to which each, in its turn, may
be referred. This higher or common standard it will be our business to
consider in a subsequent part of this Essay. Meanwhile, it may be
pointed out that, in addition to its function as an occasional
corrective of the legal sanction, the social sanction subserves two
great objects: first, it largely complements the legal sanction, being
applicable to numberless cases which that sanction does not, and, in
fact, cannot reach; secondly, the legal sanction, even in those cases
which it reaches, is greatly reinforced by the social sanction, which
adds the pains arising from an evil reputation, and all the indefinable
social inconveniences which an evil reputation brings with it, to the
actual penalties inflicted by the law.
The religious sanction varies, of course, with the different religious
creeds, and, in the more imperfect forms of religion, by no means always
operates in favour of morality. But it will be sufficient here to
consider the religious sanction solely in relation to Christianity. As
enforced by the Bible and the Church, the religious sanctions of conduct
are two, which I shall call the higher and the lower sanctions.
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