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C. L. Herrick 
endeavor to realize the ideal. The evils resulting to others are 
no part of our moral life except in so far as our realization of these 
evils affects our motives. 
We come then to the unexpected result that sin, the sense of 
guilt, and the objective effects of sin are good instead of evil. 
Distinguish between sin and the sinful act. The drunken man 
is guilty of no sin while committing the most shocking violations 
of the moral code, for he is irresponsible. With returning con- 
sciousness the enormity of his act produces a sense of guilt. In 
fact, he might be persuaded that he had committed crimes which 
had not been perpetrated at all and he would then feel all the 
remorse proper to the act. 
The habitual indulgence in vice with no sense of guilt betrays 
moral death rather than sin, which was its author. On the other 
hand, if one sets up a false ideal, conscience may conduct a sensi- 
tive soul through purgatory for sins wTich seem to 3"ou or me but 
innocent pastimes. 
But these reflections are ex cathedra and might be proper to a 
god — or a philosopher. The important thing for us, as practical 
men, is that every sense of guilt is an added weight to the burden 
of responsibility. It lays another brick in the structure of char- 
acter. Should the next occasion fail to elicit from us a more 
strenuous effort, guilt grows. Making of our dead ideals stepping 
stones to higher things is no empty poetic fancy. Sin is very 
real. Guilt is, and no logic can avoid it. Were we all-powerful, 
as philosophers, we would not attempt to destroy it, but in our 
individual capacity our true self drives us to eternal conflict with 
this and all evil, and this conflict is the good. 
But two attitudes are possible. The one finds us face to the 
front, undaunted, though defeated. There is perfect, uncon- 
querable allegiance to the higher, larger self as it grows within us. 
The other attitude finds us either supinely fallen, helpless and 
hopeless, neglecting the ideal self, or wilfully combatting, while 
recognizing its demands. The world contains only saints and 
sinners. The change from one moral attitude to the other, 
whatever may be the accompanying machinery, is moral conver- 
sion. The attendant circumstances, such as the acceptance of 
some creed or the recognition of some savior, may be exalted 
above the essence of conversion. Great emotional convulsions 
or extatic visions may seem to be the prominent feature, but one 
