154 



CLEMENT C. J. WEBB^ ESQ., ON 



That is the essence of the Christian religion. Conscience, indeed, 

 supplies the very basis of all respect for authority and government. 

 It lies at the very basis of all religion. If I were asked to define 

 Conscience, I should be asked to do what has never yet been suc- 

 cessfully accomplished, I think. I cannot agree with the definition 

 (on p. 143) that Conscience is simply consciousness of good and evil. 

 I cannot agree that that, though true so far as it goes, is adequate. 

 There is much more in Conscience than simple consciousness of good 

 or evil. We find what the great German philosopher, Kant, calls the 

 categorical imperative. It tells us what we ought to do. It does 

 not merely show ; it commands and guides. 



The importance of Conscience we recognize continually in the 

 affairs of daily life. If w^e meet anyone who appears to be con- 

 scienceless, we generally give him more or less a wide berth. Quite 

 rightly, for such a person is unreliable. What are we seeing now in 

 Europe but a terrible illustration of the result of disregarding Con- 

 science. We know we did wrong," said the German Chancellor, 

 "in violating the neutrality of Belgium, but it was military neces- 

 sity." That Nemesis has pursued Germany, and will pursue her until 

 the War is over. When one looks at those battlefields where some 

 of the best manhood of Europe has shed its blood, the voice of that 

 blood cries from the ground, and it finds an echo in desolate homes 

 and in broken hearts, in the cries of the widows and the children, 

 against making jettison of great moral principles. 



What is Conscience, indeed 1 I am disposed to define it — 

 and I hope I shall not burn my fingers where so many have 

 burnt theirs — as the faculty of duty. We may say duty to God 

 and duty to man. From duty to God, however, follows duty to man 

 because God has commanded it. The faculty of duty. What is it 

 that Conscience does This spiritual faculty, as I call it, compares 

 moral qualities with the supreme law, the Moral Law. Just as you 

 may compare a line with a ruler to see whether it is straight or not, 

 so Conscience compares the moral qualities in moral action — the 

 moral qualities such as justice, truth, mercy, and love and their 

 opposites ; compares those with the moral standard — the Law of God, 

 the Moral Law. If a quality is straight, and agrees with the 

 straight or rigJiteous law, it is called good ; but otherwise it is 

 called bad, and the more it deviates the worse it is. 



That I take to be the faculty of Conscience, or the moral sense, as 



