“against them, the only true answer consists in an appeal to the conscience of every

uncontaminated mind;—by which we mean chiefly the consciousness of its own moral
impressions, in a mind which has not been degraded in its moral perceptions by a course of
personal depravity. This is a consideration of the utmost practical importance; and it will
probably appear that many well-intended arguments, respecting the first principles of moral
truth, have been inconclusive, in the same manner as were attempts to establish first truths
by processes of reasoning,—because the line of argument adopted in regard to them was
one of which they are not susceptible. The force of this analogy is in no degree weakened by
the fact, that there is, in many cases, an apparent difference between that part of our
mental constitution, on which is founded our conviction of first truths, and that principle
from which is derived our impression of moral truth:—For the former continues the same in
every mind which is neither obscured by idiocy nor distorted by insanity; but the moral
feelings become vitiated by a process of the mind itself, by which it has gradually gone
astray from[…]”

Excerpt From: John Abercrombie. “The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings.” iBooks.
https://books.apple.com/id/book/the-philosophy-of-the-moral-feelings/id511136753