Conscience. 279 



their acknowledged action and results. Whenever 

 our relations to other beings are understood by us, 

 conscience demands that we act according to those 

 relations. It is a moral instinct to secure uniform 

 ills in moral relations, as natural instinct works 

 among the lower orders of sentient beings. We 

 may mistake in our judgment right for wrong, and 

 as free moral agents we have power to do violence 

 to our : but coi never lails to 



demand what the jr. pronounces to be right. 



We tin; were made to do right, be- 



:hut tends to wrong-doing is anta 

 nistic to COI i we have th< 



nee. If, then, we have implanted within us 

 a principle that ever demands the right, and con- 

 demns the wro: nd we have given to us the 

 tutor* we have the highest 



of that * 'i-d by a moral Heing, by one 



who p: t to wrong, and preferred it to 



hadegn iV gave us in our constitution the 



sir.- possible towards the right that 



could be given without taking away our ; ncy 



or accountability. But because we have in us this 

 conscience, and at the same time the ability to 

 choose in reference to ends and with a knowledge 

 of results, we have strong grounds for inferring that 

 we are accountable beings. We infer so, because 

 accountability seems needed to complete our rela- 

 tions to moral acts. If there were no accountability 

 or retribution, the forebodings of conscience would 

 be to man what instinct would be to the animal if 



