Page:From Rome to Rationalism (1896).djvu/9

Rh days. One is strongly tempted to regard it as an escape from the scepticism which centuries of discussion have naturally engendered, for only in these latter days has the discovery been made that conscience furnishes a valuable proof of the existence of God. There is a terrible irony, not wholly unfounded perhaps, in the passage of Heine where he describes Kant, after demolishing every other form of proof, reconstructing the Deity from the moral sense, to stem the tears of his aged and superstitious servant.

In the analysis of conscience it is necessary to distinguish the moral sense as such, the perception of the moral character of actions, from the sense of obligation consequent upon the perception. Sometimes the argument rests upon the mere power of discriminating between moral and immoral acts, and it is urged that an idea of this specific character could not be evolved from non-moral ideas; more frequently, however, it is said that we recognize the necessity of a supreme legislator in the sense of obligation to fulfil the moral law, in the remorse that haunts its transgression, or the approval that smiles upon its fulfilment. Now, taking conscience in the first aspect, it is difficult to find in it anything that transcends ordinary psychological explanation. Take a volume of moral theology, as it is elaborated in the Roman Church. First we find an analysis of conscience, which is purely naturalistic, and which is entirely at variance with the popular tendency to make of conscience an isolated, supernatural gift—an echo of the voice of God in man’s heart; it is described as human reason pronouncing certain actions to be out of harmony with our rational nature, and prejudicial to the welfare of society. Sin or immorality is analyzed in like fashion; an act is forbidden because it is immoral, not immoral because God forbids it; to be sinful an action must be either (1) directly opposed to one or other prerogative of the Deity (and these sins stand or fall with belief in God), or (2) prejudicial to society, or (3) injurious to our neighbour. The same principle is acted upon throughout the whole complex system of morals, and yet we have Catholic writers, like Dr. Mivart, contending that moral distinctions cannot be explained by evolution; while it is attempted to establish a legislator other than humanity for a moral code which is exclusively concerned with the interests of humanity.

Newman, who declared he would be an Atheist but for the argument from conscience, rests his inference upon the second aspect of conscience—the feeling of constraint and the remorse that follows sin. But surely, if the preceding analysis of the moral law (taken from Roman theology) is correct, it has in itself a sufficient basis and sanction, and our natural impulse to observe it is easily understood. On the one hand, we have the inherited experience of innumerable ancestors and the deeply impressed associations of our early training pointing out