Conscience 251 



sary of conventions, and it is extended occasionally to 

 grant immunity from the penalties and obligations even of 

 established and accepted codes. The distinction necessary 

 to procure for conduct this consideration is not in the con- 

 duct, but in the motive. The motive must be one of con- 

 science. When a responsible human being sincerely believes 

 a religious declaration, his fellows in altruistic association 

 are inclined to grant him all possible presumption of right, 

 and even strain their customs to permit him to act accord- 

 ing to his belief. Non-conformity to custom is, in effect, a 

 form of that tendency to variation, out of which has arisen 

 the most valuable of new institutions; and we still perceive 

 in its workings the creation of benefits, by unexpected suc- 

 cesses of things first supposed by opponents to be useless or 

 impossible. 



Conversely the conscientious scruples in which individuals 

 have protested against control, have been so frequently jus- 

 tified by riper wisdom, that they have generally provided 

 the impulse which has procured that emancipation of religion 

 from the dictation of the state, which has been surveyed in 

 previous chapters. 



An authority quite different from anything granted to 

 selfish interest, is therefore accorded to that impulse which 

 is expressed through conscience. While self-interest is 

 admitted as a just motive, it applies to the affair of the 

 individual; and the community, if not opposed to it, is not 

 greatly interested. But conscience is a motive, in which the 

 individual may be opposed to the community, and then is 

 so placed by disinterested convictions, feelings, and beliefs, 

 which are not of his own making or control, but which are 



