knowledge, their moral judgments would be in perfect agreement. Unless men have a certain stock of knowledge, reflection is either impossible or futile. In order that our moral judgments may be sound we must have knowledge.
(3) If men have adequate knowledge and form habits of reflecting before acting, their consciences will function before action instead of after. As it is, in the case of many men, the sting or prick of conscience comes too late: it is not felt till after the action has been done, and the only remedy then may be a vain remorse. Thus we often hear those who suddenly realise the sinfulness or wrongness of their conduct exclaim, "I never thought," "If I had only thought!" If conscience had pronounced the action wrong before it was done, it would probably never have been performed. Therefore let reflection precede action: "Look before you leap."
(4) Of course, there is a danger here. A man may look so long that he will never leap. But in such cases reflection has been indulged until it has become morbid. It has become an introspective inquisition of the depths of one's own moral life. And such self-examination is apt, in addition to weakening the springs of conduct, to turn men into canting prigs. But it is possible to avoid this result. There is such a thing as an honest conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is simply the formed habit of bringing conscience or intelligence to bear upon the actual moral situations in which we daily find ourselves. Hence the ethical and educational maxim: So train the child to refer his moral difficulties to the judgment of his conscience, that he will gradually come
