Chapter I. The Notion of Conscience

THE voice of conscience is the authoritative guide of man’s moral conduct. Not that the individual conscience is independent of all authority; if the individual conscience is right, it proclaims the duty of submitting to all properly constituted authority, and especially to the supreme and absolute authority of God. It is, as theologians are fond of saying, the herald or ambassador of God to each individual, making known to him and applying the eternal law of God to the conduct of life.

Although the term is also used with other meanings, here conscience signifies a dictate of the practical reason deciding that a particular action is right or wrong. The process by which we arrive at this judgement of the practical reason may be put in the form of a syllogism. The major premise will be some general law of conduct, the minor will be its application to the particular case, the conclusion will be the judgement, which is nothing else but conscience. Thus when a precept has been given by one who is in lawful possession of authority, the dictate of conscience is implicitly arrived at somewhat as follows: I must obey all who command me with lawful authority. A.B. commands me with lawful authority. Therefore I must obey him is the conclusion and the dictate of conscience.

Conscience is said to be certain, dubious, or probable, as the motive on which it is grounded is morally certain, doubtful, or only probable.

A right conscience is in accordance with the eternal law of morality; an erroneous conscience gives a false instead of a true judgement. If the mistake could and ought to have been avoided by the agent who has a false conscience, the conclusion is vincibly erroneous; otherwise it is invincibly erroneous.

A strict conscience is one which is apt to decide that there is an obligation when none exists, or a greater obligation than there really is; a lax conscience, on the contrary, is apt to deny an existing obligation or to make it less than it is in fact; a scrupulous conscience without sufficient reason apprehends sin where there is none.

A dictate of conscience which precedes the action, judging it to be right or wrong, is said to be antecedent; that which follows an action, approving it as rightly done, or condemning it as wrong and disturbing the inward peace of the soul, is consequent,