CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY 135 



to this one, and they are not to be envied. Juvenal does not 

 exaggerate when he tells us that remorse is worse than all 

 the torments that can be devised by any judge, whether 

 human or divine. Moreover, remorse will often make 

 itself felt when a man has offended through inadvertence, 

 and there is no fear of punishment or even of blame. And 

 the reverse may often be true. There is often a very lively 

 fear of detection and punishment when there is no remorse, 

 and even clear self-satisfaction as when a man has har 

 boured a political offender with whom he sympathizes. 

 Finally, the fear of detection will survive in cases where 

 remorse has been extinguished by persistent ill doing. 



It is an important feature in the anatomy of the con 

 science that our remorse is nearly, if not quite, as great 

 when our offence has been involuntary as when it has been 

 deliberately planned. When we discover, after the event, 

 that we have been the unintentional cause of harm or 

 injustice, no considerations that we shall not be held re 

 sponsible will stifle thepain. They will appear to us irrelevant. 

 And our feelings are clearly distinguishable from the sym 

 pathetic pain we might experience were the wrong inflicted 

 by another. The memory of the act torments us, even 

 when there was necessarily an entire absence of intention. 

 We feel that our worth or dignity has been impaired. When, 

 on the other hand, our intentions are evil, but are brought to 

 nought before they come to action, if we feel remorse at 

 all, it is cancelled by our satisfaction at having escaped the 

 commission of the offence. Thus the view is confirmed 

 that originally it is deeds and not intentions that give the 

 occasion to the reaction. 



Another characteristic of the conscience is that it only 

 commands such conduct as may be represented to it as 

 possible. A man is not obliged to perform every action 

 which his conscience tells him is good, for the obvious 

 reason that it may be, and often is, impossible. No man 

 can at the same time attend to a sick wife in England and 

 to famine relief in India. He must make his choice, and the 

 action which his conscience tells him he ought to prefer 



