Conscience (Hastings' Dictionary)

A. Historical Sketch. B. Christian Doctrine. i. The Nature of Conscience, ii. The Competence of Conscience. uL Tile Education of Conscience. 1. Social. 2. Imiividual. Iv. The Witness of Conscience. A. Historical SKETCn.—yfhen man begins to reflect on his experience as a moral agent, two questions emerge. (1) Wliat is the highest good for man ? What is the ' chief end ' in attain- ment of which man finds satisfaction ? (2) What is the source of moral obligation?

What power commands and regulates human action ? In the history of thought, these two questions occur in the order stated ; and it is not till the second has been asked that a doctrine of conscience is possible. 1. Greek philosophy in its prime is mainly con- cerned with the first of these.

The ethics of Plato and Aristotle are largely occupied \vith discussing the nature of the Good ; and practically their doc- trine amounts to this, that man finds his highest welfare in the duties of citizenship. Man is regarded as part of the pnysical and social world in which he finds himself ; and his welfare lies in playing his due part therein. This doctrine was sufficient as long as the Greek State lasted.

When this was broken up, however, and there was no longer a life of free and ennobling activity open to men, the moral problem assumed the second form. Man is thrust back on himself. His indiriiuality becomes emphasized over against the world, in which he can now no longer realize himself. Turning in upon himself, he seeks within the guidance he has hitherto found in the life which waited for him without.

This type of mind, so char- acteristic of thoughtful and earnest men under the Roman Empire, finds e.xpression in the philo- sophical doctrines of the Stoics and Epicureans. These are as intensely subjective as the systems of Plato and Aristotle "had been comprehensive and objective. Not, therefore, till man has become aware of himself as an individual, and looks out on life from the standpoint of his subjectivity, does the question of the rule of conduct clearly emerge.

In discussing this question, the Stoics found the rule in reason, the Epicureans in sense. The Stoics made wide the opposition between reason and sense. Virtue, according to them, is reasonableness, and is exercised in absolute control of sense, utter indillerence to material things, and austere rejection of pleasure. Noble things are said by them in praise of virtue, and eloquent testimony is borne against the views of a corrupt age.

But by their own admission the leading principle of their thought and action is sublime but powerless. The moral world needed an active principle which should regenerate character and reconstitute society. This power came with Christianity. 2. In the history of religion as set forth in the Christian Scriptures, we find a similar succession in the order in which the above-mentioned problems emerge.

A doctrine of conscience is not found till late in the development of Christian thought, when the consciousness of individuality is strong and full. There are indeed traces of the operations of conscience. Man is always treated as a moral being (so in the prophets, and especially in Ezekiel, whose sense of individual responsibility is new and strong), susceptible of communications from a personal God, and amenable to His judgment.

Itut conscience, or the source of obligation for the individual, is not made a subject of special treat- ment in the earlier stages of man's spiritual history Broadly speaking, there is no doctrine of conscienca in the ()T. The heart is the centre of man's whole spiritual energy, whether intellectual or moral ; and no subtle analysis of mental or moral powers is attempted. The characteristic work of conscience, that of condemning us when we do wrong, is ascribed to the heart, Job 27*.

The absence of a doctrine of conscience from the OT is to be explained, not by any reference to the alleged disinclination of the Heb. mind for psycho- logical study, but by the fact that the stage of religious development at which the Hebrews were under Mosaism, precluded the question to which the doctrine of conscience is an answer.

The law may be compared to the systems of Plato and Aristotle, inasmuch as it answers the first of the moral questions which arise on consideration of man's life, viz. What is the Good ? The Good is the will of God expressed in this body of legis- lation. The question of principle of action, or an organ of moral judgment, cannot emerge till the conception of the Good has been made explicit. The law is the conscience of the Heb. community.

Hence, as Oehler points out, the idea of a yi^os ypavrbs (v KapSlais is wholly alien to the OT. This absence of a doctrine of conscience is to be found also in our Lord's teaching. He never uses the word, and for a similar reason. His teaching is essentially revelation. He is dealing with the highest good for man, stating it in words, exhibit- ing it in life.

His teaching and example are addressed to conscience, and are meant to awaken conscience ; and for this very reason He does not and cannot discuss conscience. Many of His say- ings apply to conscience, and cast light on it, e.g. 'the lamp of the body,' Mt 6, -^ ; but con.seience itself does not form part of His express teaching. With Christ's work as Redeemer a new stage of man's history is entered on. The first question is answered ; the first need is met.

The tlood is revealed as truth ; it is accomplished in act ; it is present as power. What Greek philosophy sought after in the speculations of I'l.ato and Aristotle, is possessed in the kingdom of God. The parallel is more than fanciful. As the Greek realized the good in the duties of citizenship in the State, the Christian realizes it in the duties and privileges of citizenship in the kingdom of God. Tlie virtue of the Gree'r:, narrowed by the limitations of the Gr.

State, is the obligation and possibility of mankind in the wide realm of grace, which no political change can restrict or destroy. Now, accortlingly, man as an individual gets his rights, and becomes the subject of special study. The NT, apart from the teaching of our Lord, is largely occupied with the consideration of man in relation to the grace of God which has come with Christ. Human nature is studied as it could not be .at an earlier stage.

It is true that there is no merely speculative treatment, the interest of the NT being practical and not technical. Refer- ences, however, to various aspects of man's moral constitution abound. In particular, the question of man's relation to the Good as the will of God receives special treatment, and is answered by an explicit doctrine of conscience. Man is confronted by the revealed will of God, revealed not only in a book, but in a Person.

How does this will make itiself felt in the sphere of man's individual con- sciousness? How is man guided and impelled towards the fulfilment of this will? The answer of St. Paul, and other writers in the NT, is con- science. Conscience, therefore, at once becomes the object of special practical interest.

It is the great aim of a Christian to have a conscience that shall be 'good,' 'void of oll'ence,' or 'pure'; and it is of paramount importance that conscience I CONSCIEXCE CONSCIENCE 469 should be maintained in a condition of enlighten- ment and power adequate to the discharge of its great function as the organ of moral apprehension and moral Jud^'ment. 3.

After the varied Christian life of the early- centuries of our era had died away, Christian ethic, like Christian theology, fell under the blight of niediii'val scholasticism. Christiau truth was stilfened into a system of dogma. Christian morality was elaborated into a legal system more cumbrous and wearisome than ever the Mosaic code had been. Under this double burden the souls of men groaned in bondage. Yet even in the darkest ages there were not wanting sjmptoms of revolt.

Mysticism claimed the power of holding fellowship with God, without the intervention of ecclesiastical machinery ; but it failed to base its protest on a sound conception of human nature, and so never rose beyond the position of a secret in possession of a few uniijue spirits. Final deliverance came in the epoch of the Reformation. The Reformation was in essence a religious revival.

The cumbrous ecclesiastical machinery by which the mediajval Churcli, while professing to unite God and man, had really held them apart, was swept away in a burst of righteous wTath. The relations of God and man came to be re-stated under the inspiration of original Christian ideas. In this process conscience necessarily played an im]>ortant part.

Conscience accentuated the an- tagonism between man and God, and showed man guilty in a degree for which indulgences and priestly absolutions brought no sound relief. Con- science, in like manner, in view of the complete atonement wrought by Christ, testified, to him who rested on Christ alone for salvation, perfect peace with God. Conscience, accordingly, occupies large 6]>ace in the writings of the Reformers, as it must do in all Christian teaching.

It is not made, how- ever, the subject of special theoretical treatment. Speculative interest in the question of the source of moral judgment has not awakened ; and the necessity of its discussion is not yet felt. The Reformation, in fact, was not an individualistic movement. It is a misrepresentation to describe it as such, or to quote such phrases as ' the right of private judginunt,' as embodying its character- i.-itic ideas.

Those philosophical writers who most fully express in the domain of pure thought the I'rotestant spirit — Descartes and Spinoza — are by no means individualists. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the Reformation contained the ])Ossibility of individualism. The external unity of the Church had been broken up.

Before a conception of spiritual unity could be formed and wrought out in moral and political life, it was inevitable that an ejioch of indiWdualism should sui)ervene, in which man should seek to find the solution of intellectual and moral problems within bis own subjectivity. This movement predomin- ated most largely in England, and obtained almost exclusive sway, till within the present century it has met a counter current of thought.

Ethical tlii'iiy during such a period is largely occupied with the (luestion of the source of moral obligation, and the faculty of moral judgment. British mornlists may be distinguished and classified mainly by their views on this toi)ic. At the head of the long line stands Thomas Ilobbes(l,')88-1079), a writer whose fertile supgestivene.«s, virile force, and daring ]iaradox, made him a paramount in- fluence in the dcvelojiment of ethical doctrine in Britain.

His fundamental position is that man's natural tendencies are only and altogether ' self- regarding.' The pood for the individual is simply what he desires for himself. The result of eacii individual seeking the gratification of his own dosireajs, of course, a state of war, whose miseries llobbes depicts to the life. Reason, accordingly, intervenes to stop this intolerable state of matters, and does so by enjoining submission to a strong government.

Hobbes thus pushes individualism to an extreme in which it becomes intolerable, and is replaced by an iron system in which the indi- vidual is practically extinguished. In such a system there is no place for conscience, properly speaking. llobbes uses the word only in con- nexion with the analogous phrase 'conscious.' Conscience is no more than opinion shared by various individuals. Any higher sense is mere metaphor.

The moral faculty is no other than reason, calculating how best to secure individual advantage, and deciding upon submission to the State as the best means of securin<r the end aimed at. Such a doctrine was rather tlie projiounding of a problem than its solution. Accordingly, we find that ethical thought in England consists mainly in answers to Hobbes, or ratlier in answers to the moral problem so acutely stated by him : What is the source of moral obligation ?

What is the nature of the moral faculty ? These answers follow three rflistinct lines. ( 1 ) Appeal is made to reason. Reason is regarded as the power by which universal truths and principles are perceived and proclaimed. This is, in general, the view of Cudworth (1617-1088), whose Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, not published tQl 1731, is directed against the teaching of Hobbes as destructive of the e.ssential dis- tinctions of good and evil; and of Clarke (IG75- 1729).

Both the.se writers claim for man this facidty of recognizing truths, ideas, or relations of things, prior to and apart from the .suggestions of sensation. Here we have a real answer to Hobbes, and a most hopeful line of ethical thought. If man have this power, then we are lifted at once above the degrading view of man as a creature of merwly selfish instincts, and have morality based, not on conventions, but on eternal fact.

The value of such ' dianoetic ethics,' to use Martineau's designation, depends obviously on the view taken of reason ; and in the above-mentioned writers, reason is conceived too much as a mere formal power, limited to the recognition of truths submitted to it. Thus, while phrases in Cudworth, for instance, remind one of Kant, there is no approach to the Kantian doctrine of knowledge, still less to its subsviiuent idealist development. (2) A fuller analysis of human instincts is at- temjited.

Hobbes had said man's primary instincts are self-regarding. It was obviously open to reply that they were not, or that they all were not. Ac- cordingly, we have such writers as Shaftesbury (1071-1713) and Hutcheson (1G94-1747) elaborately proving that man possesses social as well as scllish instincts, and placing virtue in the proper balance of the two. 'rtie perception of this balance or pro- portion is due to a moral sense, which, like the 8en.

se of beauty in things artistio, ^ides us in things moral. At a first glance it might appear, as no doubt it did to the writers themselves, that they were answering Hobbes, and giving a more dignified conception of human nature. Really, however, they are in substantial agreement with Hobbes, entirely so as to presuppositions, and practically so as to result. They also appeal to instincts as providing motives and impulses.

Some of these, indeed, they say are not selfish ; but if we press them we find that the special power of unsiUish instincts is the superior gratification they all'ord, i.e. they are at bottom selfish still. Scllishne.ss, or, to give it a more refined but more misleading title. Utility, is the spring and standard of action.

The psychological and even the ethical principles of Hobbes are really continued in Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Hume 470 COXSCIEXCE COXSCIEXCE (3) Kefercnce is made to a distinct power of human nature, viz. to Conscience, as supreme arbiter in morals. Butler (1092-1752) is dis- tinguished among British moralists for the em- pliasis he lays on this faculty.

He sees that Shaftesbury's reply to Hobbcs is defective in this respect, that his ' moral sense ' lacks the quality of supremacjf, which is reciuired to face and quell the imperiousness of sellish instincts. He labours, therefore, to establish the supremacy of conscience, and to vindicate for it mat;istcrial position and authority. Of the inipressiveness and moral strength of Butler's writings it is impo.ssible to speak too highly.

As a practical protest against the immorality of his own age, they are deeply interesting ; and as a moral tonic in any age, they are invaluable. As ethical theory, or doctrine of conscience, however, they cannot be said to be final or satisfactory. Butler was, to quote the words of T. H. Green, ' the victim of the current psychology.'* To him, as much as to Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Locke, or Hume, feeling was the source of action, as of knowledge. Objects of desire are given.

Then conscience, a power whose origin and nature are unexplained and inexplicable, appears to decide among the com- peting motives. It speaks with authority, but is unable to make its authority felt. Ultimately, Butler is driven to admit practical supremacy to self-love, and takes refuge in the identity of duty and self-interest. A higher principle does indeed appear in Butler, viz. the love of God.

But as he never reconsidered his psychology, this rather eontributes additional confusion to his scheme. Human nature remains ' a cross of unreconciled principles,' self-love, benevolence, conscience, the love oi God. Plainly, such a view of man cannot provide a sure basis of ethics. The whole moral problem must be reconsidered. What is implied in moral action ?

If it shall appear that the sensationalist psychology is at fault, If feeling cannot present objects of desire, if in the simplest aiction there is implied the presence of a Self, .

making itself its own object, then we are led to a view of man as a being who finds his true good in the good of others, and of conscience as not merely authoritative, but also mighty to carry its preceits into effect, being indeed the presence within the individual consciousness of that Reason, Mind, Spirit, or Personality whose revelation is found in all reality and all good. It is not needful to pursue the line of British moralists any further.

Whoever they happen to be, Paley, Bentham, James Mill, J. S. Mill, or Bain, whatever their minor differences or their special excellences, they unite in retain- ing the psychology which reifjned throughout the eighteenth century. In vam for them did Hume carry the conclusions of that psycliology to a scepticism which provoked Kant to a reply, which introduced a new conception of man and the spiritual world.

All alike they cling to the conviction that it is possible by dissection to arrive at the living man, and by analyzing his sensations to account for knowledge and morality. They may vary in detail, but they are in suu- stantial agreement as to results. The chief end of man is liaiipiness. The moral faculty is a vari- ously described compound of feelings, whose fiuid- ity 18 stiffened by tlie sanctions and punisliments of society.

This psychology has more recently allied itself with the hypothesis of organic evolu- tion, and made drauglits of illimitable time aid in e8ta.blishing its conclusions. Prolonged experi- ence ai pleasure in connexion with actions, which eervo social ends, has resulted in certain physio- * The most illumiiifttlDf; critique of Butler with which I am acquainted is contained in Green's Works, vol. iii. pp. 98-104.

logical changes in the brain and nervous system, whicli render these actions constant. Thus, according to Spencer, is begotten a conscience ci faculty, to whicli lie i ven gives the name of intui tion. Phis sensational ist psychology, thus strenj^th- ened by evolution, has called forth various replies. (a) Intuitionism enters its earnest denial. Dr. Martineau's strictures on evolutionary ethics are powerful, and his general ethical doctrine is most earnest and impressive.

His position dosely resembles that of Butler in last century. Like Butler, he gives an account of the springs of moral action. But whereas Butler only mentions two, Self-love and Benevolence, Martineau's list is most elaborate, containing no fewer than thirteen pas- sions, propensions, sentiments, or affections. Quito as Butler had done, he gives to conscience a judicial function in respect to these springs of action.

Distinctive in Rlarttneau, however, is his doctrine that conscience judges, not of the ri"ht- ness of acts, but of the rank of motives. Con- science he defines to be ' the critical perception we have of the relative authority of our several principles of action.' Right and wrong he defines thus : ' Every action is ri"ht whicli, in presence of a lower principle, follows a higher ; every action is wrong whicli, in presence of a higher principle, follows a lower.' Eloquent and powerful as Dr.

Martineau's exposition is, it is open to the objection which may be brought against Butler. Wh'^nce come these springs of action ? Do they simply appear before the judgment-seat of con- science, without any prior determination by se f- consciousness ? Then we are thrown back, as we were by Butler, upon current sensational psy- chology. And whence comes conscience ?

Does it simply appear, and seat itself in judicial state, a separate, unique faculty, inexplicable and mysterious, owning no organic relation to self- consciousness ? Then its authority is blind, and, as in Butler's doctrine, is unsupported by power. (6) A conclusive answer can be reached only through ■■% consideration of the po.ssibility of experience in general, and of moral experience in particular. Such an answer is to be fourd in Green's Prolegomena to Ethics.

Press the analysis of sensation as far back as we please, make our list of feelings and instincts as detailed as possible, we never get a mere sensation or instinct, such as we might suppose it to be in the lower animals, but always the sensation as it is to a self, already modified by its relation to self- consciousness. In the simplest sensation, there is implied the operation of a spiritual principle, which is the basis of the possibility at once of knowledge and of morality.

The sensationalist psycholo^ is thus deprived of its whole raison d'etre. It exists in order to get personality out of sensations. It can do so, only because personality is therein already implied. The hypothesis of evolution is of no use to sensa- tionalism, and does not invalidate the argument of idealism.

' That countless generations should have passed during which a transmitted organism was progressively modified by reaction on its surround- ings, by struggle for existence or otherwise, till its functions became such that an eternal conscious- ness could realize or reproduce itself through them, — this might add to tlie wonder Nvith which the consideration of what we do and are mu.st always fill us, but it could not alter the resulta of that consideration.

If such be discovered to be the case, the discovery cannot affect the analysis of knowledge of what is implied in there being a world to be known, and in our knowing it, on which we found our theory of the action of a free or self-conditioned and eternal raind in man ' (Prolegomena, p. 82). Man. therefore, is a self or CONSCIENCE CONSCIEJSCE 471 personality, which is not, however, an incident in a series, but is rooted in an infinite self or per- sonality.

Uur individual self-consciousness derives from an I is maintained by an infinite, eternal, UMversal, self-consciousness ; Green would say, is a ' reproduction ' of it, — a phrase open to miscon- struction. Knowledge, therefore, is the gradual discovery of mind or spirit in tliin;;s, the e.xliibi- tioii of tlie world as tlie self-manifestation of an infinite per.sonality, with wliom the finite intelli- gence of man is one.

Morality is the progressive accomplishment of an eternal purpose, with which the individual is and ought to be at one, wliose poal is the perfection of man. The good for man IS self-realization, but it is the realization of an inlinite self, and is thus identical with the widest possible range of good for others, and is attained l)y the [irofoundest self -.surrender. The moral faculty in man, the practical rea.son or conscience, is no special inexplicable endowment, a vox ctiimanti.

i in dcsi-Ho. It is the man himself, con- scious in all action of a good, which he either reaches or fails to reach, which in either case stands above his separate impulses, in the one case apjiroWng and beckoning him onward and upward, in tlie otlier condemning him and binding on him the penalty due to one who has broken the law of his own being.

Conscience, thus conceived, may also with equal truth be described as the revelation of inlinite good to man, or the voice of God witness- ing to eternal right within the individual soul. It is the voice of the man's true self, and his true self is ideally one with God. On such lines alone is the sen.sationalist attack on ab.solute right and on conscience successfully met, and room found for Christian ethic, and a Christian doctrine of con- science. B. OuTLiSE OF Christian Doctrine. i.

The Nature of Conscience. — The locus ctn.txicus here is Ro 2'*- ". The connexion of thought is the responsibility of all men for their actions, their condemnation in sin, their acceptance in righteous- ness. This apjilies to Gentiles as well as Jews. It would not apply had Gentiles no revelation of absolute good made to them, as the Jews had in the Law. Such a revelation, however, the Gentiles have. They (v.") do by nature, i.e.

instinctively, the things wliicli are articulately prescribed in the Law, and accordinglj' while they have not the Law as a ^\^^tten code, yet they have it in another sense. In what sense is now explained (v.") The comparison in the apostle's mind is between Jew and Gentile, in respect of the delivery to each of God's Law. To the Jews, this delivery was made at Sinai, and so in speaking of its delivery to the Gentiles he uses Sinaitic imagery. The apostle's description involves three points.

(I) The delivery of the Law in the dictates of natural impulse ; ' the work of the law,' i.e. a course of conduct conforming to the will of God, being ' written in their hearts,' as in the case of the Jews it was written on tables of stone. (2) The recognition of the Law in its binding obligations by a moral faculty, just as the Jews heard with bodily ear t!io proclamation of the Ten Command- ments ; ' their conscience bearing witness there- with,' i.e.

along with the heart, when it speaks and prompts to duty. (3) .Judgments passed u|>on actions in the light of the witness of conscience, some being favourable, others (as the emphasis implies, the greater number) being unfavourable ; ' their thou<ditsone with another, accusing or else excus- ing them.' The doctrine of this passage, borne out by other Scripture usage, tlierefore, is : (a) That man has received a revelation of good, sullicient to make biin morally responsible.

This reve- lation conies in dilferent forms to men differently placed in the providential disposition of affairs. Kven those who seem least advantageously situ, ated have the revelation of 'nature.' Man is so made that he finds the satisfaction of his true self in moral good only ; and towards this the forward imi)ulse of his heart goes forth.

The race, charged with the special function of guarding and triiusmitting the spiritual heritage of human- ity, has ajipropriately a special revelation of good, explicitly hearing the stamp of superhuman origin. Finally, when 'the fulness of time' in the moral disci]iline of mankind is reached, the good linds complete revelation in a person, the man Christ .lesus.

' Nature,' with its few rudimentary facts of moral life, and ' Law,' with its greater articulate- ness, are summed up in ' Christ,' in whom moral good is perfectly realized. (/3) That man possesses a moral facultj', or is jjossessed by it, that he l^s a conscience, which is indeed his .

self-consciousness in respect of moral action, in virtue of which he recognizes, ajjproves, and binds upon himself the Goocl, in whatsoever form it is revealed to him, and by the authority of which he pronounces judgment upon himself.

This doctrine obviously rests upon the general scriptural doctrine of man as made in the image of Go<l, of man as spirit even as God is spirit or personality, a conception which we have seen to be the suggestion of philosophy in its criticism of unphilosophical sensationalist psycho- logy. God reveals His will to man, partially in Nature and Law, fully in Christ. Man as a spiritual being is susceptible of this revelation ; his consciousness of it in things moral is conscience.

This view of conscience greatly simplifies it, and reduces it from the position of an inexplicable faculty, fulminating in impotent majesty above the warring impulses of man s nature. It is simply the faculty, if we must u.se the term, through which we apprehend the divine will so that it may govern our lives. It is no more a separate faculty than faith, and deserves no more thap faith the credit of its operations.

As faith lays hold of Christ, and thus saves and sanctifies ; sc conscience lays hold of the divine will, and thus legislates and judges. It is not an independent source of law and judgment. It voices the will of God. It is plain, however, that this view, if in one sense it deprives conscience of the proud position which an intuitionist theory would confer u])()n it, in another confers ujion it unique and awful supremacy.

When conscience wakes and speaks, it means that man is in spiritual contact with God, that God is making His will felt in the depths of man's constitution. Thus it is that ' to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it net, to him it is sin ' ; sin, not error or mistake, nor only shortcoming, but tres[iass against the law of God, which is recognized as the law of our own being, in keeping which our welfare lies.

The practical result is that conscience claims, and must receive if we are to be true to our very nature, a position of absolute supremacy. I'Acry action must be brought beneath its sway ; in popular phrase, we must make conscience of all we do. Actions laiil upon us by outward authority, we arc to do, not because the authority is supported by force, but because con.scienco re- cognizes the good of which this authority is an cxjiression ; ami .so we obey ' for conscience' sake ' (Ro l.'l").

Actions which seemingly lie outsi<le the moral judgment, bavin" apparently no relation to moral questions, are toTie brought before con- science and carefully scrutinized, so that even in such matters as what wo are to eat or refrain from eating, we are still to act 'for conscience' sake' (I Co lO^-*). The whole domain of life is to 472 CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE be brou^lit within the sweep of conscience, and every element in it is to be made subject to that great and just arbitrament.

It may be true that in a society so largely Chris- tianized as ours, tlie man who acta from conscience will not behave in a manner markedly distinct from the behaviour of those who simply tollow the con- ventions of society. There will, however, be very distinct differences on a closer scrutiny. He will dis- cover new meaning's in actions prescribed by con- vention, and will perform them the better that he does them with conscience.

He will be on t lie outlook for new duties and new means of realizing the gooil which he apprehends, not as a code, but as an inner spiritual inijjulse. Apart from specific differences of action, there is a dill'erence in spring of action, which cannot but tell in the long run.

Perceiving the disparity between his own attainments and that good of which conscience is the witness, and to which it summons him, he has within him a divine discontent which drives him to further efforts, and secures for him greater excellences. The morality of a code is rigid, self-satisfied, pharisaic. The morality of conscience is ever aspiring, humble, dissatisfied with self.

A conscience thus kept in its supremacy is described as ' good ' (Ac 23', 1 Ti P- ^, He 13", I P 3"*- ^), not in the sense that he who has it has never sinned, but because he has yielded himself to the will of God, and is living in the spirit and aim of his career for the glory of God, while he never permits unforgiven sin to lie upon his heart : 'void of offence toward God and toward man ' (Ac 24'^), because the pleas- ing of God in all things, and his neighbour in all things for his good unto edification, is the man's constant aim and exercise: 'inire' (1 Ti 3', 2 Ti 1"), bevause there is no doubleness of mind, or secret nlicnation from the will of God, but a sincere desire, an unwavering resolution to live so that He may approve.

It is, of course, always open to man as a free agent to disobey conscience, reject its supremacy, disiegard its witness, and defy its authority. (3n an intuitionist theory, which regards conscience as a part of man, separable from other parts, it would be dillicult to ^'indicate the terrible conse- quences of such conduct. It is because the con- science is the man himself in his consciousness of the divine will, that the ccnseiiuences are so injurious, penetrate so deeply, and extend so widely.

Conscience disobeyed is: (1) Defiled; and this defilement may be either (a) occasional (1 Co 8'), or (/3) permanent and pervasive (Tit 1"). (2) Branded or seared (1 Ti 4*), where the figure is either the branding of a slave with a stamp, or the extinction of faculty by the use of hot iron, in any case expressing the reduction of conscience to a state of moral incapacity.

(3) Perverted (Mt O'-*), so that conscience, the light of the soul, gives, not merely no deliverance, but a deliverance on the wrong side, the man being now, not a servant of the good, but of the evil, hai-ing sinned against the Holy Spirit. That conscience is disobeyed in countless in- stances is patent fact ; and these consequences may be traced in the history of indiNaduals. It is more ditlicult to see the fact and to trace the con- sequence in the records of the race.

Yet it is certain that sin is not merely an incident in the career of an individual, but a quality inherent in the conduct of man universally, and that tlie effects of sin are traceable, to what extent it is impossible to define, in the general conscience of mankind. ii.THE COMPETENCK ofConscience.— In all that is said of the supremacy of conscience its competence i8,of course, presupposed.

This, however, is precisely what is denied by those who desire to explain the phenomena of conscience on the hypothesis of evolution, and facts are urged in disproof of the claim of original authority. It must be remem- bered, however, what it is that is claimed bj- the Christian doctrine on behalf of conscience.

It is not the infallible authority of an independent faculty, but the ability on the part of a being made in God's image to recognize God's will as it is pro- gressively revealed to him. Much of the sensationalist and evolutionary attack on conscience really applies only to the intuitionist theoiy of conscience, and does not touch the Christian doctrine or the idealist philosophy, whose criticism of sensationalist psychology we have noticed above.

The special ditliculties which call for consideration are these — 1. The diversity of moral judgments, as among different nations now, or at aifferent stages of the world's history. The heathen conscience enjoins what the Christian conscience condemns. Jewish feeling rejoiced in deeds at which Christian senti- ment shudders. Amid such divergences, is not the supremacy of conscience lost? The answer to this puzzle lies in our general %new of man and his con- science of good.

If man be a personal being in constant communication with the infinite Person, God, we can understand how his moral history is an education or development, each step in advance being gained through obedience to conscience, which proclaims as absolute the will of God. The stages of the revelation of good are marked by advance up to the full realization of good in Christ. Con science at each stage is supreme, though its deliverances, compared together, vary according to the stage reached.

Combined with this view is the fact of deterioration through disobedience, so that the conscience of a nation or religious community may become perverted, and proclaim as duty a bloody crime or an unnatural offence. Even among races which have formed the most mistaken standard of duty, it is found, as missionary records amply show, that the revela- tion of higher excellence meets with ready response, and conscience, revivified by the light, calls upon man to follow it.

In order to prove the supremacy of conscience, we do not need to prove uniformity amid the deliverances of conscience, from age to age. The very divergences set its per- sistent authority in more vivid light. 2. The alleged conflict of duties, which occasion- ally arises, reducing conscience to perplexity and silence. This certainly would be a fatal objection, not to the supremacy of conscience only, but to morality as a whole.

If there arise circumstances, not due to any human crime or error, in which duty confronts duty in absolute contradiction, so that merely to act is to transgress, not only is conscience proved incompetent, but the moral sphere is shown not to include the whole of life, and righteousness by being demonstrated to be impossible is made unnecessary. The question can be met only by analyses of cases. Those cases must, of course, be excluded which are not, properly speaking, cases of conscience.

One case only needs to be stated to be dismissed, that in which a verdict of conscience, in itself clear and distinct, is opposed by strong passion or self-interest which clamorously demands to be obeyed. Here, plainly, there is no question of the competence of conscience, or its claim to be obeyed. Another case is that in which the clear testimony of conscience is con- fronted by some instinct of the soul, itself true and noble.

Here also there is, strictly speaking, no perplexity of conscience, and it is admitted that there is no wavering in its demand to ba obeye<l. Hesitation arises from the strong appeal of feeling. Sir Walter Scott has presented such a situation in the classic instance of Jeanie Dean» COXSCIKXCE CONSCIENCE 473 tempti'ii to tell IV falsehood in order to .save her sister's life. Here the <>lili;.'ation of truth is con- fronted l>y sisterly alViition.

Tlie action of Jeanie Deans uniinestionalily represents the true Bolution. Conscience is oheyed, while love goes forth in nohlest sjurilice on hehalf of the heloved.

The dilliculty of such cases is not speculative, but practical, and is to be met, not by intellectual discus>i(>n on the occasi<m when the dilliculty arises, for which, indeed, there would be no time, Imt by the life habit of obedience, begetting an insight into the nature of the highest f;ood for others, even our best beloved, as well as for ourselves, which will be available in the sudden emergency as an intuitive judgment.

Ceases which do affect conscience and seem to perjilex it, are those in which there is a ' coiillict Detween diil'erent formuhe for expressing the ideal of good in human conduct, or between dilVerent institutions for furthering its realization, which have alike obtained authority over men's minds without being intrinsically entitled to more than a nartial and relative obe<iience,' or an ' incompati- bility of some such formula or institution, on the one side, with some moral impulse of the individual on the other, which is really an impulse towards the attainment of human perfection, but cannot adjust itself to recognized rules and established institutions' {Prolegomena, p.

:U'2). In such eases ' the requirements of conscience seem to be in conflict with each other. However disposed to do what his conscience enjoins, the man finds it difficult to decide what its injunction is' (ibid. p. "iSl). Such cases may, indeed, become peculiarlj' complicated, and exceedingly painful. But they do not really constitute a conflict of duties.

Ilight seems to be divided against itself, when in reality it is only rising through contest of opposite one- aided views to a fuller conception, or through the break-np of a system to a higher realization than could be contained within its limits. There is no such thing really as a conflict of duties.

'A man's duty under any particular set of circumstances is always one, though the conditions of the case may be so complicated and obs< me as to make it difficult to decide what the duty really is ' {ibid. p. 355). Here, in like manner, the ability and claim of conscience are not involved. It is true that there is no extant formula which will serve by its mere ? notation to settle the case. Conscience is not so ormal and unnatural a faculty as such a view would im|ily.

Yet it is not incompetent, becau.so it moves slowly and grows in knowledge and power through the discipline of life and the practice of obedience. With characteristic caution IJutler states the matter, ' Let any plain, honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself. Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong ? Is it good, or is it evil ?

I do not in the least doubt but that this question would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue by almost any fair man in almost any circumstances ' (Sermon III). A recent essayist, to the question, How am I to know what is right ? makes answer, ' By the ate8rj(rii of the ippSfifiot ' (Bradley's Ethical Sttidie.i, p. 177). ' If any man willeth to do his will, he snail know of the teaching,' or system, or in- stitution, or formula, 'whether it be of Uod'(.Jn7"). iii. The Education of Con.

scienck.— We thus see that objections, which might be valid against a doctrine which made conscience an infallible oracle, are not valid against the view which regards con- science as man's consciousness of the will of (lod. It is now to be regarded, not as an inexplicable part of man, but as man himself in relation to the revelation of right. It is the apprehension of God as Kightcousness, just as faith is the apprehension of God as Grace ; and Luther, as Dorner points out.

speaks of faith as the Christian conscience. Cmi science, accordingly, is involved in man'? moral history. It suffers in his sin and alienation from (;od, becoming clouded in its insight, feeble in its testimony, anil may even come to be jjrievously pervertea in its judgments. It gains in hu restora- tion through grace, its knowledge is clarified, its judgment strengthened. The deepest characteristic of sin is a liberty, which is, in truth, the bondage of man's will or person.ality.

The deepest characteristic of grace is a service, which is perfect freedom. Man, in yielding himself to God, accepts a law, which is the law of his o«ti being. He is therefore free, self-determining, and self-realizing; a person as (!od is a person, realizin<' the fulness of personal life in harmony with God. Con.scicnce shares in this subjection ' which is also emancipation.'

Th ■ NT ever3'where claims for conscience this indi^- pendence of action, this immediacy and certainty of Its deliverances, undetermined by a formal code or the voice of a spiritual director (Ro 141- »• ''■'■Oj Col 2'", Ja 1''"*). Toward this point, therefore, the growt h of conscience must be directed under the guidance of special education. This education is twofold. 1. Social. — The highest good for man ahvay-ii involves the relation of man to man.

' Through society,' saj's Professor Green, ' is personality actnalized.' Hence it follows ' that the human spirit can only realize itself, or fulfil its idea, in persons ; and that it can only do so tlirouL;h society, since society is the condition of the development of a personality ' {Prolegomena, pp. 200, 201). Conscience, therefore, being per.sonalitv in its relation to right, is also socially conditioned. There is no such thing as a merely individual conscience.

Even when seemingly most individual, as when a reformer rises to protest against the injustice of some institution, its testimony is still on behalf of a good for man, which this institution, founded, no doubt, to further it, now fails to express and practically oppo.ses. It is plain, therefore, that ' no individual can make a conscience for himself. He always needs a society to make it for him' (Prolegomena, p. 351).

Conscience is born and cradled in the home, trained and exercised in the Church, in civil society, and the State. The enormous importance of this social education of conscience is thus evident. The ethical functions of parent, teacher, pastor, employer, statesman, are seen to be the highest and most sacred. Umler their influence, the conscience of the individual receives its revelation of duty, and its preparation for the exercise of its legislative and judicial vocation. 2. Individual.

— Man cannot be merely passive in education. All true education is self education. The education of conscience, in particular, must be the work of the individual, consciously fitting himself for the service in which freedom and life for him lie. The means at his disposal are mainly three. (a) The institutions of society, the sacred rights of life, honour, property, reputation, with all tue de- tailed obligations to which these give rise.

Only through the most careful obedience to these element- ary conditions of moral life can conscience be kept clear and strong. Negligence here, even in name of high spirituality, has always produced a terrible Nemesis, and those who have claimed emancipation in name of religion have sunk beneath the load of that mere morality they affected to despise.

Hence the NT ethic is remarkable for its abundance of commonplace, and has the homeliest directions to give to children, servants, citizens, to fulfil the duties of their station, while it frequently recalls those who are thrilling with consciousness of new light and life to the rudiments of morality, truth, honesty, purity, industry, etc.

The attempt 474 CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE to be religious at tlie expense of morality is very ancient and is still very prevalent, and requires continually the prophetic rebuke (Mic C°'). (i) The literature in which the conscience of humanity has given utterance to itself. Tlie whole field of liistory, biography, and fiction is ojiened up for the education of conscience. By diligent study, conscience grows informed, and becomes more sure of itself.

Alon" with such general literature we may class the Bible. It reouires no a priori doctrine of inspiration to establisn the supremacy of biblical ethic. Here we have a revelation of right, wliich has never been seriously questioned, and has com- manded the unaffected approval even of unbelievers. The Bible is the touchstone of conscience.

Con- science can only be maintained in truth and vigour, according as it is continually refreshed by earnest study of the unveiling of the ideal con- tained in Scripture and principally in the character of Jesus Christ. (c) Communion with God. Here we are on the borderland of ethic and religion. The education of books becomes the education of li^nng intercourse.

The conscience whose sole sources of information have been natural laws, or the records of literature, fails of the highest light, breaks down in critical instances, and is, besides, gloomy stern and hopeless. The conscience which rises through obedience to mor.al law and study of ethic into fellowship with Him who is Righteousness and Truth, becomes clear and full in its testimony, a reliable guide in the perplexities of life. Or course this result is not reached by a leap.

It implies a process carried on through life. The growth of conscience will have its periods of weakness, onesidedness, acrid fan- aticism, morbid tenderness, all of which must be most patiently borne ^^^th, not only by observers, but by the individual himself. Conscience will even pronounce judgments that are needless, foolish, or actually erroneous. The utmost care must be taken not to wound conscience at such times.

Specially must it not be overborne by those who rejoice in higher light and claim a larger liberty. Their higlier duty, indeed, may be to deny themselves a liberty which is their right (1 Co g7-i3 io-3-s3^ Ro 15'- 2). The stage of weakness is, however, in itself an effect of sin, and to continue in it is added sin. Strength and truth of conscience are the aim to be consciously striven after (He 5"). The testimony of conscience is meant to be part of our assurance toward God (2 Co 1'-, 1 P 321).

iv. Thr Witness of Conscience.— The work of conscience lies, no doubt, within the moral sphere. But in considering the basis of ethics, we are led to see that moral action implies a reference to an infinite Personality as the ground and origin of man's personal being. Morality presupposes re- ligion as the basis of its possibility, ana prepares for religion through its incompleteness.

Con- science, accordingly, as the supreme moral faculty, points beyond the merely moral sphere, and be- comes a witness to the truth of religion. The witness of conscience is not to be regarded as logical demonstration. In point of fact, spiritual realities cannot be reached by logical processes. The only valid argument for religious truth is that which proceeds by consideration of the constitution of man, and discerns in that con.

stitution the necessity of the existence of a Divine Being in whose image man has been made. In that argu- ment, the witness of conscience forms an important element. To trace this witness fully belongs to dogmatics. We conclude this article by a bare outline of the direction which this witness takes. 1. God. — Conscience we have seen to he man's consciousness in action of right to be done.

This U with eotial truth to be described as the revelntinn of right within us, or the voice of God speaking in the soul of man. In moral action we are deal- ing with more than tlxe judgments of our fellow- men, with more even than our own judgment upoD ourselves. There is present in the court of con- science an inNasible Assessor, who is, indeed, the ultimate source and standard of right by which the judgment proceeds.

Individual experience presents this line of proof with an intensity which 13 best expressed in silence. Biography and his- tory present the demonstration often ■vvith tragic articulateness. In conscience, the consciousness of God cannot be got rid of. It haunts the sinner in his revolt as shadow of doom. It accompanies the seeker in his upward movement with ever- growing confirmation. All other arguments for the being of God find their force increased by being combined with this.

If the ontological argument leads us to a reason or universal self- consciousness, through man's relation to which knowledge is possible ; if the argument e con- tingentia Tnunai brings us to an eternal substance in which all things inhere ; if the teleological argu- ment requires a purpose fulfilling itself in creation, — thi moral argumen* enables us to define that reason, substance, purpose, as a Person whose very nature is righteousness.

(See suggestive treatment in lUingworth, Personality, Lect. iv.) 2. Christ. — The constitution of man requires as its root a Personal God, to whom conscience in man ascribes moral perfection. But Personality is incon- ceivable apart from Self-revelation and Self-com- munication. An Incarnation of God, therefore, ia profoundly congruous with thedemand for God which arises out of the constitution of man. Jesus Christ is presented to the mind of man as such an Incar- nation.

It vnll scarcely be denied that He used language regarding Himself which implies such a claim. It is certain that the Church with growing fulness has made it on His behalf. Conscience makes in in tensest form the demand for a Per- sonal God. It is fair, therefore, to ask if con- science is satisfied with the claim advanced for Christ. Here there is no hesitation in the answer. The conscience of humanity has recognized in Christ, in His teaching and in His life, the final revelation of Good.

Christ is the conscience of humanity. The words of J. S. Mill are often and justly adduced as consenting to this dictum. ' Even now it would not be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life.' Here we have a moral argument, not only for Theism, but for Christianity.

Conscience, as Domer finely says, becomes our ' iraiSayuiyis ' (Gal 3**), and "leads us through obedience into knowledge (Jn 7"). Faith in Christ, accordingly, is no longer an act unrelated to our moral life, but is itself a moral obligation. 3. Atonement. — Con.science, especially as en- lightened by Christianity, witnesses to infinite perfection. At tlie same time, it pronounces upon all our actions sentence of failure.

Between the absolute good and the individual will there is ever a want of complete harmony. Conscience abates none of its condemnation, when action is largely harmon- ized with social institutions or codes of moral law. The more entirely it wins the mastery, the more stern is its refusal to be satisfied. Its demand is for absolute harmony with infinite good. Any breach it treats as infinite ; and lays upon the heart the burden, not of shortcoming merely, hut of guilt.

The question of salvation, therefore, ia a moral question, ft is stated in Hebrews in this form. How can the conscience be cleansed from dead works to seree the living God? (He 9") How can the incubus of guilt be removed, so that COXSCIEXCE CONSORT 475 the will of man may act in unhindered harmony with the will of Uocl ? Two solutions conscience declines. First, that of gratuitous forgiveness. God is ponietimes represented as saying, in virtue of His bare almighty will, ' I lorgive.'

But mere sovereignty is mere unieason. And if to this be added, 'at the pronijiting of His tender heart,' the reply is still, mere feeling is mere unreason. In either case, the bupreme arbiter of life is repre- .sented as mere caprice ; and in order to save man from consequences of immoral act, we have con- founded the whole moral sphere. To conscience, sin is a moral fact, and not until sin is dealt with can the relations of God and man be adjusted on a permanent, i.e. on a moral, biisis.

Second, that of ritual observance. Action that is good, i.e. in absolute moral ((uality, can spring only from harmony with absolute good. lience no action of a merely external kind can produce the requisite h.armony. The historic demon- stration of this incapacity is the Jewish ceremonial law. It did, indeed, cleanse, but the cleansing reached only to the flesh (He 9"), and had to be constantly repeated (He lU'-').

The practical Soint is that the most elaborate scheme ever evised — devised, be it observed, by divine wisdom — failed consciously and intentionally to reach the springs of action, emancipate the will, and purge tne conscience. Is it likely that any other sclieme will succeed, that any niondity which human wisdom can devise or individual care execute, will accomplish what the law failed to do?

Conscience steadily pronounces against every such attempt, in name, not of arbitrary creed, but of essential righteousness. A third solution presents itself. Jesus Christ perfectly reveals God to man, because He is Himself true and perfect man. Accordingly, He not only unveils to men the Absolute Good, but as man He Himself fullils this Good.

If, then, He who is thus in inmost being one with the Good, that is, God, and perfectly satisfactory to Him, shall in virtue of His humanity take man's place, and bear as a substitute man's burden, ollering Himself a sacrilice for sin, will not this meet the rcriuirements of conscience? It is now possible, through faith in the Sin-bearer, to enter into that moral union with God which is the condition of good action. Sin no more interposes its barrier.

It has been recognized and dealt with by One competent to do so. The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit ofl'ered Himself without blemish unto God, avails to cleanse the conscience from dead works, and qualifies us to serve the living God (He 0"). In the death of Christ the demand of con.science is satisfied through atonement being made for sin.

In union to Christ through faith, the ideal to which conscience witnesses is no longer an impossiljility for ever condemning us, but an artual realization upon the ba.sis of which we are justified, and through the power of which we are enabled to fulfil the will of God (Ro .T- 5»- '» C'"- 8""). The witness of conscience, which brings us to God and Christ, directs us also to that which is central in Christianity, atonement made by sacrifice. LiTEliATURR.

— Spcrlal treatment of the cloolrine of consclenoe Ifl to tie lonnfl In thr ethical works of I>orncr, Rotho, Ilarlcwi, Wiittke, Hofniann, Martensen, Manineati, T. H. Orecn, Newman Bniyth. The laMt hoM the (wlvantage of exhihitinp the pla<"0 of conscioneo in relation to the wltulo ayutein of OiriHtian ethiai. Tlie Ttililical Pnyrholoifien of Renk anei Delitzftch also contain HiHi-UHAions of conBcieni-e. Monotrraphs upon conscience have been written by K. II.

Ilofmann (/>i<5 Lfhr^ ron dfin (tewi/mtru, lAiiv7.\g, 1800). W. Oasa (Pit Lehrt mm (ierritien, Berlin, Islili), A. RitHchI (Uet/er dat Gevngiten ; Kin Vortrag, Bonn, 1870), M. Knhler (Dm Gfwufn, Hallo, 1878), F. I). Maurice (Tl<e CnrtMrirnre ; Lfetnrfii on Cauitry\ W. T. Pavison (TA^ Christian Conaeienee ; Fernley Lecture for 1888). An edition of BuUer'i Tkrt4 Sermon) hu been publiihcd by T. & T. Olark with Introduction and Notes by T. B. Eilpatrick ; and Bee Gladstone's ed.

of BxUler'i Work, 1896. T. B. KlLPATRICK. CONSECRATE, CONSECRATION.-InOT several Heb. wolds arc so tr"" : 1. imz'tr Nu G" or nrzcr Nu G'", better 'separate,' 'separation'; see Naziuite. 2. kiddfish as in Ex 28' 3lP, 2 Ch 31«, Ezr 3», or kodesh Jos 6'», 2 Ch 29*, better ' sanctify,' ' sancti- iication ' (wh. see). 3. hrhcrlm Mic 4", better ' devote ' (see CUKSE). 4. milla' yAd ; this is the commonest and only characteristic expression for 'consecrate' (with inillu'im for 'consecration'); lit.

' fill the hand.' The origin of the phrase is quite obscure.* The Heb. millu'im being plu., AV has ' consecrations' (Ex 29^, Lv 7" S'^- »') with- out difterenee of meaning ; KV sing, always. In E.K 29" 'the flesh of the consecrations,' the c. is transferred to the ollering by which the c. took Elace ; so Lv 8^ ' they [the cake of unleavened reail, etc.] were consecrations for a sweet savour.' J. Hastings.