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 CONSCIENCE

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CONSCIENCE

Ko'vcs in the pursuit with a keen outlook for the chances of error. Really unavoidable mistakes will not count against us; but many errors are remotely, when not proximately, preventable. From all our blunders we should learn a lesson. The diligent examiner and cor- rector of his own conscience has it in his power, by long diligence to reach a great delicacy and responsiveness to the call of duty and of higher virtue, whereas the negligent, and still more the perverse, may in some sense become dead to conscience. The hardening of the heart and the bad power to put light for darkness and darkness for light are results which may be achieved with only too much ease. Even the best criteria will leave residual perplexities for which pro- vision has to be made in an ethical theory of probabili- ties which will be explained inthearticlePROB.*.BiLiSM. Suffice it to say here tliat the theory leaves intact the old rule that a man in so acting must judge that he cer- tainly is allowed thus to act, even though sometimes it might be more commendable to do otherwise. In in- ferring something to be permissible, the extremes of scrupulosity and of laxity have to be avoidetl.

(.3) The approvals ami reprorah of conscience. — The office of conscience is sometimes treated under too nar- row a conception. Some writers, after the manner of Socrates when he spoke of his dannon as rather a re- strainer than a pronioterof action, assign to conscience the office of forbidding, as others assign to law and gov- ernment the negative duty of -checking invasion upon individual liberty. Shaftesburj' (Inquiry II, 2, 1) re- gards conscience as the consciousness of wrongdoing, not of rightdoing. Carlyle in his " Essay on Charac- teristics asserts that we should have no sense of hav- ing a conscience but for the fact that we have sinnetl; with which view we may compare Green's idea about a reasoned system of ethics (Proleg., Bk. IV, ch. ii, sect. 311) that its use is negative "to provide a safegnartl against the pretext which in a speculative age some in- adequate and misapplied theories may afford our self- ishness rather than in the way of pointing out duties previously ignored". Others say that an ethics of conscience should no more be hortatory than art should be didactic. Mackenzie (Ethics, 3rd ed., Bk. Ill, ch. i, sect. 14) prefers to say simply that "conscience is a feeling of pain accompanying and resulting from non- conformity to principle". The suggestion which, by way of contrarj', these remarks offer is that we should use conscience largely as an approving and an instiga- ting and an inspiring agency to advance us in the right way. We should not in morals copy the physicists, who deny all attractive force and limit force to vis a tergo, a push from behind. Nor must we think that the positive side of conscience is exhausted in urging obligations: it may go on in spite of Kant, beyond duty to works of supererogation. Of course there is a theory which denies the existence of such works on the principle that every one is simply bound to the better and the best if he feels himself equal to the heroic achievement. This philosophy would lay it down that he who can renounce all and give it to the poor is simply obliged to do so, though a less Ufiierous nature is not bound, and may take advan- tage — if it be an advantage — of its own inferiority. .Ncit such was the way in which Christ put the case: He s;iid hypothetically, " if thou wilt be perfect", and His fnllower St. Peter said to .\nani;is " \Vas not [thy land] lliiue own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine iiwn power? . . . Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." (Acts, v, 4.) We have, then, a sphere of duty and beyond that a sphere of free virtue, and we include both under the domain of conscience. It is objected that only a prig considers the approving side of hiscon- scicnci', but that is true only of the priggi.sh manner, not of the thJTig itself: for a sound mind may very well seek the joy which comes of a faithful, generous heart, andniakcil an elTort of a conscience that outstrips iluty to ain\ at higher perfection, not under the false persua IV.— 18

sion that only after duty has been fulfilled does merit begin, but under the true conviction that duty is meri- torious, and that so also is goodness in excess of duty. Not that the eye is to be too narrowly fixed on rewards: these are included, while virtue for virtue's sake and for the sake of God is carefully cultivated.

Aristotle. Efh. Ni'c, VI. 5; Petkr Lombard, II Sent., dist. xx.xix, Q. iii; Alexander of Hales, Summa, Ft. H, Q. Ixxi; St. Bonaven-tuhe. In Lib. Stmt., loc. eit.; Albertus Magnus, SumTjui TheoL, Ft. II. Q. xcix. memb. 2, 3; Idem. Summa de Crcal., Ft. II. Q. Ixix. a. 1; St. Thomas. .Summa. I, Q. Ixxix, a.!. 12. 13; I-II. Q. xix. aa. 5. 6; Idem. Dc \ml.. Q. .xvi; Lehre viin W'l SI n l-iss7i; hvTHAnDT, Uiilory of Christian Ethics I,} Ihr H.lonnnliim. tr. from German (EdinburEh, 1858); Janet A\'[> Skmllis, lli.'ilory of the Problems of Philosophi/, tr. from l-renrli bv M<in\han (London, 1902); Paul Janet, The Theory of .\h,r,ils. It. Chapman- (Edinburgh); SiDiiwicK. History of Kllu.-M II..iiiaon. isnfi ; niTj.r.R, Sermons; tiKVrMA-N. Grammar ,.f .\,:s.,it l,..THl.,n. I'llll ; Sii.cwiCK, Methods of Ethics (Lon-

.i..ii, I'.lilli: It[, IK. Ki rMichcs Handlriikon (Munkb.

l!l(17i; ni, W i i.i . II.,,,, ,1. i,.,,„l (Louvain. 1894); Humphrey. Cun.scieme and Law (Luuduu, 1896).

John Rickaby.

Conscience, Examination of. See Examination

OF Conscience.

Conscience, Hendrik, a Flemish novelist, b. at Antwerp. .3 December, 1812; d. at Brussels, 10 Sep- tember, 1S.S3. His father was French and his mother Flemish. Until the age of seven Conscience was a cripple, and was constantly under the care of his mother who used to tell him wonderful tales of fairies and angels. Little by little, however, he grew stronger, and was able to take part in the games of other children, but, as soon as he could read, books were his favourite companions. In fact, it was by reading that he mainly educated himself, for his schooling was limited to what would be considered to-day as the elementarj- grade. In 1S30 he was a tutor in the Delin School, to some degree a fashion- able institution of Antwerp, but at the very begin- ning of the struggle for independence he resigned his position and entered the army as a private.

His military service, which lasted six years, brought liim into contact with the peasants of the northern part of Belgium, and ga\e him an opportunity to study their manners, their customs, and to see the attractive sides of their character, rough as it is on the surface. After lea\-ing the army he was succes- .sively connected with the local admini.<tration of Ant- werp', the academy of the same city, and, in 1857, with the local administration of Courtrui. In 1868 he was appointed commissioner of the royal museums of painting and sculpture. He had taught Flemish to the sons of King Leopold I, and in 1868 refused the chair of Flemish literature in the University of Ghent. In 1809 he became a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.

While" in the army Conscience began to write, but in French. In 1837, following the advice of his friend Jan Delaet, he made up his mind to write in Flemish, an idiom which was then considered too rude for literarj' composition. In this language he published liis first novel, " The Wonderful Year", and six months later a volume of verse and prose, "Phantazij". Tliese two highly romantic productions, where everj-- thing. romance, style, and even language, lay open to criticism, were failures. Conscience, however, was in no way dismayed and took in hand another work. This time his efforts were crowned with success. When, in 1838, "The Lion of Flanders" appeared, it enriched Flemish literature with a masterpiece. After this success he never ceased writing. His com • plete works embrace more than a hundred volumes

Conscience got his inspiration from three main sources: the fatherland, the family, and loyalty to the ("lunch. His conception of art is an idealistic one. though he gives a vivid account of the realities of life. His avowed purpose was always to inspire