The insertion of the sermon on Conscience is somewhat artificial; it was one of Sterne's sermons, a popular one, and he felt it would provide good reading even in the context of Tristram Shandy. But the use that he puts it to is in complete harmony with the story. The occasion that it provides for the arguments between Walter and Dr. Slop and the emotions it provokes in Corporal Trim make it an organic part of the novel.
Tristram leaves us suspended with Uncle Toby's wish about our seeing the "prodigious armies" in Flanders. It will turn out to be another demonstration of Toby's childlike reasoning — direct and very simple. The interruption in which Tristram outlines his father's theory about the brain and his trust in Dr. Slop's forceps is important; we know that it will play a role at the right time, and we suspect that since it is a cherished theory of Walter's, something is going to go wrong.
Before ending the second volume, Tristram tells us what we still have to find out, matters that he has raised but not resolved yet. This final paragraph functions like a cliff-hanger; the interested reader will be sure to buy — and read — the next installment.
In this last chapter, there is a strange and very interesting footnote that has a most important function. Apropos of the title of a "learned" work on childbirth, we find this at the bottom of the page: "The author is here twice mistaken. . . . Mr. Tristram Shandy has been led into this error" by such and such — more learned jargon. Sterne, the author of the novel, is pretending to be merely the editor of Tristram Shandy's Life and Opinions, putting distance between himself and "Mr. Tristram Shandy." There are two or three other such footnotes, and they remind us — Sterne wants us to know — that the person doing the "internal" writing is not Laurence Sterne, but Tristram Shandy.
