CONSCIENCE
260
CONSCIENCE
should lie gatherod with the gradations of the develop-
ing structure. In the morally good family the chiUl
slowly learns right conduct by imitation, by instruc-
tion, by sanction in the way of rewards and punish-
ments. Bain exaggerates the predominance of the
last named element as the source whence the sense of
obligation comes, and therein he is like Shaftesbury
(Inquiry, II, n. 1), who sees in conscience only the re-
prover. This view is favoured also by Carlyle in his
"Essay on C'h.aracteristics", and by IJr. Mackenzie in
his "Manual of Ethics" (3rd ed., Ill, § 14), where we
read: " I should prefer to say simply that conscience is
a feeling of pain accompanying and resulting from our
non-conformity to principle." Newman also has put
the stress on the reproving office of conscience. Carlyle
says we should not observe that we had a conscience if
we had never offended. Green thinks that ethical
theory is mostly of negative use for conduct. (Prole-
gomena to Ethics, IV, 1.) It is better to keep in view
both sides of the truth and say that the mind ethically
developed comes to a sense of satisfaction in right doing
and of dissatisfaction in wrongdoing, and that the re-
wards and the punishments judiciously assigned to the
young have for their purpose, as Aristotle puts it, to
teach the teachable how to find pleasure in what ought
to please and displeasure in what ought to displease.
The immature mind must be given external sanctions
before it can reach the inward. Its earliest glimmer-
ing of duty cannot be clear light : it begins by distin-
guishing conduct as nice or as nasty and naughty: as
approved or disapproved by parents and teachers, be-
hind whom in a dim way stands the oft-mentioned
God, conceived, not only in an anthropomorphic, but
in a nepiomorphic way, not correct yet more correct
than Caliban's speculations about Setebos. The per-
ception of sin in the genuine sense is gradually formed
until the age which we roughly designate as the seventh
year, and henceforth the agent enters upon the awful
careerof responsibility according to the dictates of con-
science. On grounds not ethical but scholastically
theological, St. Thomas explains a theory that the un-
baptized person at the dawn of reason goes through a
first crisis in moral discrimination which turns simply
on the acceptance or rejection of God, and entails mor-
tal sin in case of failure. (I-II, Q. Ixxxi.x, a. (i.)
III. What Conscience Is in the Soul of Man? — It is often a good maxim not to mind for a time how a thing came to be, but to see what it actually is. To do so in regard to conscience before we take up the history of philosophy in its regard is wise policy, for it will give us some clear doctrine upon which to lay hold, while we travel through a region perplexed by much confus- ion of thought. The following points are cardinal : (a) The natural conscience is no distinct faculty, but the one intellect of a man inasmuch as it considers right and wrong in conduct, aided meanwhile by a good will, by the use of the emotions, by the practical experience of living, and by all external helps that are to the pur- po.se. (b) The natural conscience of the Christian is known by him to act not alone, but under the enlight- enment and the impulse derived from revelation and grace in a strictly supernatural order, (c) As to the order of nature, which does not exist but which might have existed, St. Thomas (I-II, Q. cix, a. 3) teaches that both for the knowledge of God and for the knowl- edge of moral duty, men such as we are would require some assistance from C!od to make their knowledge suf- ficiently extensive, clear, constant, effective, and rela- tively adequate; and e.specially to put it witnin reach of those who are much engrossed with the cares of ma- terial life. It would be absurd to suppose that in the order of nature God could be debarred from any reve- lation of Himself, and would leave Himself to be searched for quite irresponsively. (d) Being a prac- tical thing, con.science depends in large mea.sure for its correctness upon the good use of it and on proper care taken to hee<l its deliverances, cultivate its powers,
and frustrate its enemies, (e) Even where due dili-
gence is employed conscience will err sometimes, but
its inculpable mistakes will be admitted by God to be
not blameworthy. These are so many principles
needed to steady us as we tread some of the ways of
ethical history, where pitfalls are many.
IV. The Philosophy of Conscience Consideked Historically. — (1) In pre-Christian times. — The earl- iest written testimonies that we can consult tell us of recognized principles in morals, and if we confine our attention to the good which we find and neglect for the present the inconstancy and the admixture of many evils, we shall experience a satisfaction in the history. The Persians stood for virtue against vice in their sup- port of Ahura Mazda against Ahriman ; and it was an excellence of theirs toriseabove "independent ethics" to the conception of God as the rewarder and the pun- isher. They even touched the doctrine of Christ's say- ing, " What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" when to the question, what is the worth of the whole creation displayed before us, the Zend-Avesta has the reply: "the man therein who is delivered from evil in thought, word, and deed: he is the most valuable object on earth." Here conscience was clearly enlightened. Of the moral vir- tues among the Persians truthfulness was conspicuous. Herodotus says that the youth were taught "to ride and shoot with the bow", and "to speak the truth". The unveracious Greeks, who admired the wiles of an Odysseus, were surprised at Persian veracity (Herodo- tus, I, 136, 138); and it may be that Herodotus is not fair on this head to Darius (III, 72). The Hindus in the Vedas do not rise high, but in Brahminism there is something more spiritual, and still more in the Bud- dhist reform on its best side, considered apart from the pessimistic view of life upon which its false asceticism W'as grounded. Buddhism had ten jirohiliitive com- mandments: three concerning the body, forbidding murder, theft, and unchastity ; four concerning speech, forbidding lying, slander, abusive language, and vain conversation ; and three concerning the mind internally, covetousness, malicious thoughts, and the doubting spirit. The Egyjitians show the workings of con- science. In the "Book of the Dead" we find an ex- amination of conscience, or rather jirofession of inno- cence, before the Supreme Judge after death. Two confessions are given enunciating most of the virtues (chap, cxxv): reverence for God; duties to the dead; charity to neighbours ; duties of superiors and subjects ; care for human life and limb ; chastity, honesty, truth- fulness, and avoidance of slander; freedom from covet- ousness. The Assyro-Babylonian monuments offer us many items on the favourable side; nor could the peo- ple whence issued the Code of Hammurabi, at a date anterior to the Mosaic legislation by jjcrhaps seven hundred years, be ethically undeveloped. If the Code of Hammurabi has no precepts of reverence to God corresponding with the first three Conunandments of the Mosaic Law, at least its preface contains a recogni- tion of God's supremacy. In China Confucius (c. 500 B. c), in connexion with an idea of heaven, deliv- ercfl a high morality; and Mencius (c. 300 n. c.) de- veloped this code of uprightness and benevolence as "Heaven's appointment". Greek ethics began to pass from its gnomic condition when Socrates fixed attention on the yvue^ atavrbv in the interests of moral reflection. Soon followed Aristotle, who put thescienceonalasting basis, with the great drawback of neglect ing the theistic side an<I oonseqiiently the full doctrine of obligation. Neither for "obligation" nor for "conscience "had the Greeks a fixed term. Still the pleasures of a good con- science and the pains of an evil one were well set forth in the fragments collected by Stobsus vepl toC awiiSlnos. Penandros, asked what was true freedom , answered : " a good conscience" (Gaisford's Stobseus, vol. I, p. 429).
(2) In the Christian Fathers. — The patristic treat- ment of ethics joined together Holy Scripture and the
