426 



CONSCIENCE 



CONSCRIPTION 



was his own proudest boast, that in his hundred 

 volumes he had never painted vice in seductive 

 colours. A complete collection of his works 

 appeared at Antwerp in 10 volumes, 1867-80; a 

 German translation of the same at Miinster in 75 

 small volumes, 1846-84. See his Life, in French, 

 by Cekhoud ( Brussels, 1881 ). 



Conscience, COURTS OF, IN ENGLAND. These 

 were courts for the recovery of small debts, cdn- 

 stituted by special local acts of parliament in 

 London, Westminster, and other trading districts. 

 The county courts have superseded them. See, 

 under COUNTY, County Courts, vol. iii. p. 522. 



Conscience Money, money paid to relieve 

 the conscience, is a not inapt term for money sent 

 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in payment of 

 a tax that had previously been evaded, and in regard 

 .to which a tender conscience feels that something 

 remained to be done. The conscience money is 

 often sent anonymously. 



Consciousness. This is the most compre- 

 hensive term employed in designating the mind. 

 In the widest and most unexceptionable meaning, 

 consciousness is a term which includes all mental 

 states, operations, or processes, and, as has been 

 truly said, it is not strictly susceptible of definition, 

 rseeing that we can have no experience of the un- 

 conscious. We may specify different modes or 

 varieties of consciousness, such as thoughts, fee,l- 

 dngs, and volitions ; but the quality in which they 

 all agree, and which constitutes them mental facts 

 or states of consciousness, cannot be otherwise 

 explained than by a mere reference to the constant 

 'experience of every human being. Consciousness, 

 in this its strict sense, thus embraces the whole 

 field of mental experience, and the expression 

 ' facts of consciousness ' is frequently used as 

 synonymous with psychical facts or facts of mind 

 to designate the subject-matter of psychology. 



Popularly, therefore, when we are mentally alive, 

 or performing any of the recognised functions of 

 the mind, we are said to be conscious ; while the 

 total cessation of every mental energy is described 

 by the term ' unconsciousness, ' among other phrases. 

 In dreamless sleep, in stupor, fainting, and under 

 the influence of the anaesthetic drugs, we are un- 

 conscious ; in waking, or rallying into renewed 

 mental activity, we are said to become conscious. 



The difficulties of the subject, however, have 

 prevented a perfectly definite and uniform usage 

 from being adhered to. As the mind in its waking 

 or active condition may be more or less excited, or 

 vary in the intensity of its manifestations, there are 

 degrees of consciousness ; and, accordingly, the name 

 is apt to be applied to denote the higher degrees in 

 opposition to the lower. Thus, in first learning to 

 write, to cast up sums, to play on an instrument, 

 or to ride a bicycle, our mind is put very much on the 

 stretch ; in other words, we are very much excited 

 or highly conscious. But when years of incessant 

 practice have consummated the process into a full- 

 formed habit, a very small amount of mental 

 attention is involved ; and we may then be said 

 to perform the work all but unconsciously. Such 

 habitual actions are frequently designated second- 

 arily automatic, and Sir W. Hamilton, for example, 

 speaks in this connection of ' unconscious mental 

 modifications.' But as he has previously defined 

 consciousness as co-extensive with all mental 

 phenomena, such a phrase evidently involves a 

 contradiction in terms, being equivalent to uncon- 

 scious consciousness. It is explained, though not 

 justified, by the (unavowed) double use of the 

 term consciousness just adverted to. Later writers 

 Jnave sought to escape from this inconvenient ter- 

 minology by speaking of the more obscure mental 

 processes as ' sub-conscious. ' Stress is laid by 



them upon the infinite gradations of consciousness, 

 and some amount of consciousness, however infini- 

 tesimal, is postulated so long as we can speak with 

 propriety of mental phenomena at all. This sub- 

 conscious region is understood to include not only 

 the phenomena of habit referred to above, but the 

 mass of organic or bodily feelings which, though 

 intellectually unanalysed, are constantly present as 

 a kind of background to our more distinct con- 

 sciousness, and mainly determine both our habitual 

 temperament and our varying moods. The hypo- 

 thesis is also employed to explain the phenomena 

 of memory as well as that instinctive basis of 

 human life to which, under the name of the Uncon- 

 scious, Hartmann (q.v. ) has of late assigned such 

 important philosophical functions. 



Consciousness is sometimes used in a special 

 sense to denote the mind's cognisance of itself, 

 as opposed to the cognisance or examination of the 

 outer world. Hence, in studying our o\vn minds, 

 we are said to be using consciousness as the instru- 

 ment ; but in studying minerals or plants, we 

 resort to external observation by the senses. A 

 contrast is thus instituted between consciousness 

 and observation, which contrast gives to the former 

 word a peculiarly contracted meaning ; for in the 

 wide sense above described, observation is truly an 

 act of consciousness. But such a usage is confusing 

 and undesirable, and has been generally abandoned 

 by accurate writers. The study of our own mind 

 may be more appropriately expressed by such 

 phrases as 'self -consciousness,' 'reflection,' or 'in- 

 trospection. ' 



Important philosophical points are involved in 

 the determination of the conditions of consciousness, 

 or the circumstances attendant on the manifesta- 

 tion of mental energy. The most general and 

 fundamental condition of our becoming conscious 

 is difference or change. The even continuance of 

 one impression tends to unconsciousness ; and there 

 are a number of facts that show that if an influence 

 were present in one unvarying degree from the 

 first moment of life to the last, that influence 

 would be to our feeling and knowledge as if it 

 did not exist at all. This condition of our mental 

 life has been formulated by Professor Bain as the 

 Law of Relativity. For the varieties or divisions 

 of our conscious states, see PSYCHOLOGY. See also 

 PERSONALITY. 



Conscription has been defined as the call to 

 military service by the drawing of lots, a certain 

 annual contingent of men for the army being 

 selected by lot from the youths who have reached 

 military age, while a man with sufficient means 

 has the right to buy himself ott', or pay for a substi- 

 tute. This system obtained in France, with inter- 

 vals, from 1798 until 1872, when substitutes were 

 abolished and personal military service made oblig- 

 atory upon every Frenchman not physically inca- 

 pacitated. All such must enter the army at the 

 age of twenty ; but those who choose to enlist may 

 do so at eighteen. The term, originally twenty 

 years, was extended by the Military Bill of 1888 to 

 twenty-five viz. three in the regular army, six 

 and a half in the army reserve, six in the terri- 

 torial army (militia), and nine and a half in the 

 territorial reserve. At forty-five years of age 

 liability to service ceases. A register is kept of 

 the number of youths in France who reach the 

 age of twenty in each year (about 280,000). All 

 under 5 feet 2 inches in height are exempt ; also 

 any whose natural infirmities unfit them for active 

 service ; the eldest of a family of orphans ; the only 

 son of a widow, or of disabled fathers, or of fathers 

 above seventy years of age ; and the pupils at 

 certain colleges. Moreover, if the younger of two 

 brothers is efficient, the elder is exempt ; and if of 

 two only brothers one is already in the army, or 



