587th OKDINAEY GENEEAL MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE KOOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, MARCH 5th, 1917, 



4.30 P.M. 



Professor H. Langiiorne Orchard, M.A., took the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary (Mr. E. J. Sewell) announced the Election of 

 Rev. F. N. Cams- Wilson, M.A., and Mr. A. E. Youssef, B.Sc, as 

 Associates of the Institute. 



The Chairman, in few words, called upon Clement C. J. Webb, Esq.^ 

 M.A., to read a Paper upon the difficult but important subject of " The 

 Conscience." 



THE CONSCIENCE. By Clement C. J. Webb, Esq., M.A., 

 Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. 



IN" doing me the honour of asking me to address you to-night,, 

 you did not, 1 am convinced, expect that I should attempt 

 in the short time at our disposal to treat in any exhaustive 

 fashion the important and difficult subject of the Conscience, or 

 look for more from me than some reflections upon it which 

 might suggest a point of view from which it may be approached, 

 and might prove provocative of further discussion. 



It is at once obvious that the use of the word Conscience in 

 an absolute sense, ancient though no doubt it is, is yet a 

 secondary use. Like the variant Consciousness, which represents 

 along with it in English the Latin conscientict and the French 

 conscience, but from which it is distinguished by its special 

 association with morality, it primarily calls for a genitive to 

 follow it. Consciousness is consciousness of some object ; 

 Conscience in the narrower sense is consciousness of rightness 

 and wrongness, of moral quality, in actions. This should always 

 be borne in mind, for it is apt to be overlooked when Conscience 

 is, as it were, personified and spoken of as though it were an 

 inward witness (the old English word for Conscience was 

 Inwit) — an inward witness and judge of our actions, distinguish- 

 able from ourselves as the performers of the actions which it 

 observes. 



