THE CONSCIENCE. 



143 



whereof we, when overcome by pleasure or by passion, or some- 

 times even when deceived by a show of reason, perceive that we 

 are sinning. Here, then, has been recognized, under the name 

 of ISyiidercsis, a fundamental capacity for perceiving moral 

 values, unaffected by the Fall, and so common to all members 

 of our race, a capacity yielding what may be called a natural 

 conviction of sin. 



Of the precise relation of syncleresis to conscientia different 

 accounts were given by different schoolmen ; we may content 

 ourselves with mentioning that of St. Thomas, by whom 

 syncleresis is considered as the habitus, the disposition or capacity 

 whereof conscientia is the actus or exercise in particular cases. 

 It is, as I said, in my judgment a loss that the use of a word 

 should have been laid aside, the employment of which secured 

 the recognition of an important distinction, which, too often, 

 for want of a corresponding distinction of name, has escaped 

 notice ; I mean the distinction between the capacity for 

 discriminating right from wrong, a capacity which we must 

 claim for ourselves, if morality is to have any meaning for us 

 at all, and the exercise of that capacity in particular cases, an 

 exercise sometimes supposed to be invested with a sort of 

 infallibility and finality which are only the reflection of the 

 %dtimateness, if I may use the word, properly belonging to the 

 capacity, as it belongs to all the fundamental capacities of our 

 spirit, which do not suffer explanation beyond themselves. 



This is not to imply that the capacity and its exercise are 

 separable, as they are certainly distinguishable. They are not. 

 I will try to illustrate what I take to be their mutual relations 

 by an analogy from the sphere of mathematical intuition. 



It is only as existing in lines that we can be aware of 

 straightness or of curvature. We are not first acquainted with 

 abstract straightness and then recognize it in a line. Yet if 

 we had not already recognized straightness or curvature in lines 

 actually seen, we could not come to learn what they are from 

 repeated experiences of straight or curved lines. That is to say 

 that straightness, the universal quality of straightness, is only 

 known or knowable in particular straight lines, yet our 

 acquaintance with it is not obtained by induction from numerous 

 instances of straightness, still less (as Mill suggested) by in- 

 duction from lines which are not themselves really straight at 

 all but only approximate to straightness. The a priori 

 character, nevertheless — to use Kant's expression — which must 

 thus be recognized as belonging to our fundamental geometrical 

 intuitions, does not secure us from mistakes due to defective 



