THE WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE
Passing from the physical and mental constituents of man, we turn to
the more distinctly moral elements; and in this chapter we shall
consider that aspect of the human consciousness to which mankind has
given the name of 'conscience.'
No subject has presented greater difficulties to the moralist, and
there are few which require more careful elucidation. From the
earliest period of reflection the question how we came to have moral
ideas has been a disputed one. At first it was thought that there
existed in man a distinct innate faculty or moral sense which was
capable of deciding categorically man's duty without reference to
history or condition. But in modern times the theory of evolution has
discredited the inviolable character of conscience, and sought rather
to determine its nature and significance in the light of its origin and
development. Only the barest outline of the subject can be attempted
here, since our object is simply to show that however we may account
for its presence, there is in man, as we know him, some power or
function which bears witness to divine truth and fits him to respond to
the revelation of Christ. It will be most convenient to consider the
subject under three heads: I. the history of the Conception; II. the
nature and origin of Conscience; and III. its present validity.
I. _History of the Conception_.--'The name conscience,' says a writer
on the subject, 'appears somewhat late in {69} the history of the
world: that for which it stands is as old as mankind.'[1]
1. Without pushing our inquiries back into the legendary lore of
savage life, in which we find evidence of the idea in the social
institutions and religious enactments of primitive races, it is among
the Greeks that the word, if not the idea of conscience, first meets
us. Perhaps the earliest trace of the notion is to be found in the
mythological conception of the Furies, whose business it was to avenge
crime--a conception which might be regarded as the reaction of man's
own nature against the violation of better instincts, if not as the
reflection or embodiment of what is popularly called conscience. It
can scarcely be doubted that the Erinnyes of Aeschylus were deities of
remorse, and possess psychological significance as symbols of the
primitive action of conscience.[2] Though Sophocles is less of a
theologian than Aeschylus, and problems of Ethics count less than the
human interest of his story, the law of Nemesis does find in him
dramatic expression, and the noble declaration put into the mouth of
Antigone concerning the unwritten laws of God that 'know no change and
are not of to-day nor yesterday, but must be obeyed in preference to
the temporary commandments of men,'[3] is a protest on behalf of
conscience against human oppression. And even in Euripides, regarded
as an impious scoffer by some scholars,[4] there are not wanting,
especially in the example of Alcestis, evidence of belief in that
divine justice and moral order of which the virtues of self-devotion
and sacrifice in the soul of man are the witness.
Socrates was among the first teachers of antiquity who led the way to
that self-knowledge which is of the essence of conscience, and in the
'Daemon,' or inner voice, which he claimed to possess, some writers
have detected the trace {70} of the intuitive monitor of man. Plato's
discussion of the question, 'What is the highest good?' involves the
capacity of moral judgment, and his conception of reason regulating
desire suggests a power in the mind whose function it is to point to
the highest good and to subordinate to it all the other impulses of
man. In the ethics of Aristotle there is a reference to a faculty in
man or 'rule within,' which, he says, the beasts lack.
But it is among the Stoics that the word first appears; and it is to
the Roman moralist, Seneca, that we are indebted for the earlier
definite perception of an abiding consciousness bearing witness
concerning a man's own conduct. The writings of Epictetus, Aurelius,
and Seneca approach in moral sublimity and searching self-analysis the
New Testament Scriptures. It was probably to the Stoics that St. Paul
was indebted for the word _syneidêsis_ to which he has given so
distinctive a meaning that it has coloured and determined the whole
later history of the moral consciousness.
2. But if the word as used in the New Testament comes from Greek
sources the idea itself was long prevalent in the Jewish conception of
life, which, even more than the Greek, was constitutive of, and
preparatory to, the Christian view. The word does not, indeed, occur
in the Old Testament, but the question of God to Adam, 'Where art
thou?' the story of Cain and the curse he was to suffer for the murder
of his brother; the history of Joseph's dealing with his brethren; the
account of David's sin and conviction, are by implication appeals to
conscience. Indeed, the whole history of Israel, from the time when
the promise was given to Abraham and the law through Moses until the
denunciations of wrong-doing and the predictions of doom of the later
prophets, is one long education of the moral sense. It is the problem
of conscience that imparts its chief interest to the book of Job; and
one reason why the Psalms in all ages have been so highly prized is
because they are the cries of a wounded conscience, and the confessions
of a convicted and contrite heart.
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3. If we turn to the New Testament we find, as we might expect, a much
clearer testimony to the reality of the conscience. The word came into
the hands of the New Testament writers ready-made, but they gave to it
a richer meaning, so that it is to them we must go if we would
understand the nature and the supremacy of the conscience. The term
occurs thirty-one times in the New Testament, but it does not appear
once in the Gospels. It is, indeed, principally a Pauline expression,
and to the apostle of the Gentiles more than to any other writer is due
the clear conception and elucidation of the term. It would be a
mistake, however, to assume that the doctrine itself depends entirely
upon the use of the word. Our Lord never, indeed, employs the term,
but surely no teacher ever sounded the depths of the human heart as He
did. It was His mission to reveal men to themselves, to convict them
of sin, and show the need of that life of righteousness and purity
which He came to give. 'Why even of yourselves,' He said, 'judge ye
not what is right?' Christ, indeed, might be called the conscience of
man. To awaken, renew and enlighten the moral sense of individuals, to
make them know what they were and what they were capable of becoming
was the work of the Son of Man, and in contact with Him every one was
morally unveiled.
The word occurs twice in Acts, five times in Hebrews, three times in
the Epistles of Peter, and more than twenty times in the Pauline
Epistles. St. Paul's doctrine of the conscience is contained in Romans
ii. 14, 15, where he speaks of the Gentiles being 'a law unto
themselves,' inasmuch as they possess a 'law written in their hearts,'
'their conscience bearing witness, therewith accusing or excusing
them.' The idea underlying the passage is the responsibility of all
men for their actions, their condemnation in sin, and their acceptance
in righteousness. This applies to Gentiles as well as Jews, and it
applies to them because, though they have not the explicit revelation
of the law, they have a revelation of the good in their hearts. The
passage therefore teaches two things: (1) That man has received a {72}
revelation of good sufficient at all stages of his history to make him
morally responsible; and (2) That man possesses a moral faculty which
indeed is not a separate power, but the whole moral consciousness or
personality in virtue of which he recognises and approves of the good
which, either as the law written in his heart or as the law
communicated in the Decalogue, has been revealed to him, and by whose
authority he judges himself.
II. _Nature, and Origin of Conscience_.--While experience seems to
point to the existence of something in man witnessing to the right,
there is great diversity of view as to the nature of this moral
element. The word 'Conscience' stands for a concept whose meaning is
far from well defined, and the lack of definiteness has left its trace
upon ethical theories. While some moralists assign conscience to the
rational or intellectual side of man, and make it wholly a faculty of
judgment; others attribute it to feeling or impulse, and make it a
sense of pleasure or pain; others again associate it more closely with
the will, and regard its function to be legislative or imperative.
These differences of opinion reveal the complexity of the nature of
conscience. The fact is, that it belongs to all these departments--the
intellectual, emotional, and volitional--and ought to be regarded not
as a single faculty distinct from the particular decisions, motives,
and acts of man, not as an activity foreign to the ego, but as the
expression of the whole personality. The question of the origin of
conscience, though closely connected with its nature, is for ethics
only of secondary importance. It is desirable, however, to indicate
the two main theories which have been held regarding its genesis.
While there are several varieties, they may be divided broadly into
two--Intuitionalism and Evolutionalism.
1. _Nativism_, of which Intuitionalism is the most common form,
regards the conscience as a separate natural endowment, coeval with the
creation of man. Every individual, it is maintained, has been endowed
by nature with a distinct faculty or organ by which he can immediately
and clearly {73} pronounce upon the rightness or wrongness of his own
actions. In its most pronounced form this theory maintains that man
has not merely a general consciousness of moral distinctions, but
possesses from the very first, apart from all experience and education,
a definite and clear knowledge of the particular vices which ought to
be avoided and the particular virtues which ought to be practised.
This theory is usually connected with a form of theism which maintains
that the conscience is particularly a divine gift, and is, indeed,
God's special witness or oracle in the heart of man.
Though there would seem to be an element of truth in intuitionalism,
since man, to be man at all, must be conceived as made for God and
having that in him which points to the end or ideal of his being, still
in its most extreme form it would not be difficult to show that this
theory is untenable. It is objectionable, because it involves two
assumptions, of which the one conflicts with experience, and the other
with the psychological nature of man.
(1) Experience gives us no warrant for supposing that duty is always
the same, and that conscience is therefore exempt from change. History
shows rather that moral convictions only gradually emerge, and that the
laws and customs of one age are often repudiated by the next. What may
seem right to one man is no longer so to his descendant. History
records deeds committed in one generation in the name of conscience
which in the same name a later generation has condemned with horror.
Moreover, the possibility of a conflict between duties proves that
unconditional truth exists at no stage of moral development. There is
no law so sacred that it may not in special cases have to yield to the
sacredness of a higher law. When duties conflict, our choice cannot be
determined by any _a priori_ principle residing in ourselves. It must
be governed by that wider conception of the moral life which is to be
gained through one's previous development, and on the basis of a ripe
moral experience.[5] (2) Nor is this theory consistent with {74} the
known nature of man. We know of no separate and independent organ
called conscience. Man must not be divided against himself. Reason
and feeling enter into all acts of will, since these are not processes
different in kind, but elements of voluntary activity itself and
inseparable from it. It is impossible for a man to be determined in
his actions or judgments by a mere external formula of duty, a
'categorical imperative,' as Kant calls it, apart from motives.
Moreover, all endowments may be regarded as divine gifts, and it is a
precarious position to claim for one faculty a spiritually divine or
supernatural origin which is denied to others. Man is related to God
in his whole nature. The view which regards the law of duty as
something foreign to man, stern and unchangeable in its decrees, and in
nowise dependent upon the gradual development and growing content of
the moral life is not consistent either with history or psychology.
2. _Evolutionalism_, which since the time of Darwin has been applied
by Spencer and others to account for the growth of our moral ideas,
holds that conscience is the result of a process of development, but
does not limit the process to the life of the individual. It extends
to the experience of the race. While admitting the existence of
conscience as a moral faculty in the rational man of to-day, it holds
that it did not exist in his primitive ancestors. Earlier individuals
accumulated a certain amount of experience and moral knowledge, the
result of which, as a habit or acquired capacity, was handed down to
their successors. From the first man has been a member of society, and
is what he is in virtue of his relation to it. All that makes him man,
all his powers of body and mind, are inherited. His instincts and
desires, which are the springs of action, are themselves the creation
of heredity, association and environment. The individual takes its
shape at every point from its relation to the social organism of which
it is a part. What man really seeks from the earliest is satisfaction.
'No school,' says Mr. Spencer, 'can avoid taking for the ultimate moral
aim a desirable {75} state of feeling.'[6] Prolonged experience of
pleasure in connection with actions which serve social ends has
resulted in certain physiological changes in the brain and nervous
system rendering these actions constant. Thus, according to Spencer,
is begotten conscience.
While acknowledging the service which the evolutionary theory has done
in calling attention to the place and function of experience and social
environment in the development of the moral life, and in showing that
moral judgment, like every other capacity, must participate in the
gradual unfolding of personality, as a conclusive explanation of
conscience it must be pronounced insufficient. Press the analysis of
sensation as far back as we please, and make an analysis of instincts
and feelings as detailed as possible, we never get in man a mere
sensation, as we find it in the lower animal; it is always sensation
related to, and modified by, a self. In the simplest human instincts
there is always a spiritual element which is the basis of the
possibility at once of knowledge and morality. 'That countless
generations,' says Green, 'should have passed during which a
transmitted organism was progressively modified by reaction on its
surroundings, by struggle for existence or otherwise, till its
functions became such that an eternal consciousness could realise or
produce itself through them--might add to the wonder with which the
consideration of what we do and are must always fill us, but it could
not alter the results of that consideration.'[7]
No process of evolution, even though it draws upon illimitable ages,
can evolve what was not already present in the form of a spiritual
potency. The empiric treatment of conscience as the result of social
environment and culture leads inevitably back to the assumption of some
rudimentary moral consciousness without which the development of a
moral sense would be an impossibility. The history of mankind,
moreover, shows that conscience, so far from being merely the reflex of
the prevailing customs and institutions of a particular age, has
frequently {76} closed its special character by reacting upon and
protesting against the recognised traditions of society. The
individual conscience has often been in advance of its times; and the
progress of man has been secured as much by the champions of liberty as
by those who conform to accepted customs. In all moral advance there
comes a stage when, in the conflict of habit and principle, conscience
asserts itself, not only in revealing a higher ideal, but in urging men
to seek it.
III. _The Validity and Witness of Conscience_.--It is not, however,
with the origin of conscience, but with its capacities and functions in
its developed state that Ethics is primarily concerned. The beginning
must be interpreted by the end, and the process by the result to which
it tends.
1. The Christian doctrine is committed neither to the intuitional nor
the evolutionist theory, but rather may be said to reconcile both by
retaining that which is true in each. While it holds to the inherent
ability on the part of a being made in God's image to recognise at the
different stages of his growth and development God's will as it has
been progressively revealed, it avoids the necessity of conceiving man
as possessing from the very beginning a full-fledged organ of
infallible authority. The conscience participates in man's general
progress and enlightenment. Nor can the moral development of the
individual be held separate from the moral development of the race. As
there is a moral solidarity of mankind, so the individual conscience is
conditional by the social conscience. The individual does not start in
life with a full-grown moral apparatus any more than he starts with a
matured physical frame. The most distinctively spiritual attainments
of man have their antecedents in less human and more animal capacities.
As there is a continuity of human life, so individuals and peoples
inherit the moral assets of previous generations, and incorporate in
their experience all past attainments. Conscience is involved in man's
moral history. It suffers in his sin and alienation from God, becoming
clouded in its insight and feeble in its testimony, but it shares also
in his {77} spiritual advancement, growing more sensitive and decisive
in its judgments.
(1) Conscience, as the New Testament teaches, can be _perverted_ and
debased. It is always open to a free agent to disobey his conscience
and reject its authority. On the intuitional theory, which regards the
conscience as a separable and independent faculty, it would be
difficult to vindicate the terrible consequences of such conduct. It
is because the conscience is the man himself as related to the
consciousness of the divine will that the effects are so injurious.
Conscience may be (_a_) _Stained_, defiled, and polluted in its very
texture (1 Cor. viii. 7); (_b_) _Branded_ or seared (1 Tim. iv. 2),
rendered insensible to all feeling for good; (_c_) _Perverted_, in
which the very light within becomes darkness. In this last stage the
man calls evil good and good evil--the very springs of his nature are
poisoned and the avenues of his soul are closed.
'This is death, and the sole death,
When man's loss comes to him from his gain.'[8]
(2) But if conscience can be perverted it may also be _improved_. The
education is twofold, social and individual. Through society, says
Green, personality is actualised. 'No individual can make a conscience
for himself. He always needs a society to make it for him.'[9] There
is no such thing as a purely individual conscience. Man can only
realise himself, come to his best, in relation to others. The
conditions amid which a man is born and reared--the home, the school,
the church, the state--are the means by which the conscience is
exercised and educated. But the individual is not passive. He has
also a part to play; and the whole task of man may be regarded as an
endeavour to make his conscience effective in life. The New Testament
writers refrain from speaking of the conscience as an unerring and
perfect organ. Their language implies rather the possibility of its
gradual enlightenment; and St. Paul specially dwells upon the necessity
of 'growing in spiritual {78} knowledge and perception.' As life
advances moral judgment may be modified and corrected by fuller
knowledge, and the perception of a particular form of conduct as good
may yield to the experience of something better.
2. 'It is one of the most wonderful things,' says Professor Wundt,
'about moral development, that it unites so many conditions of
subordinate value in the accomplishment of higher results,'[10] and the
worth of morality is not endangered because the grounds of its
realisation in special cases do not always correspond in elevation to
the moral ideas. The conscience is not an independent faculty which
issues its mandates irrespective of experience. Its judgments are
always conditioned by motives. The moral imperatives of conscience may
be grouped under four heads:[11] (1) _External constraints_, including
all forms of punishment for immoral actions and the social
disadvantages which such actions involve. These can only produce the
lowest grade of morality, outward propriety, the mere appearance of
virtue which has only a negative value in so far as it avoids what is
morally offensive. (2) _Internal constraints_, consisting of
influences excited by the example of others, by public opinion and
habits formed through education and training. (3) _Self-satisfaction_,
originating in the agent's own consciousness. It may be a sense of
pleasure or feeling of self-approbation: or higher still, the idea of
duty for its own sake, commonly called 'conscientiousness.' (4) _The
ideal of life_, the highest imperative of conscience. Here the
nobility of life, as a whole, the supreme life-purpose, gives meaning
and incentive to each and every action. The ideal of life is not,
however, something static and completed, given once and for all. It
grows with the enlightenment of the individual and the development of
humanity. The consciousness of every age comprehends it in certain
laws and ends of life. The highest form of the ideal finds its
embodiment in what are called noble characters. These ethical heroes
rise, in rare and exceptional circumstances, above the ordinary level
of {79} common morality, gathering up into themselves the entire moral
development of the past, and radiating their influence into the
remotest distances of the future. They are the embodiments of the
conscience of the race, at once the standard and challenge of the moral
life of mankind, whose influence awakens the slumbering aspirations of
men, and whose creative genius affects the whole history of the world,
lifting it to higher levels of thought and endeavour.
The supreme example--unique, however, both in kind and degree, and
differing by its uniqueness from every other life which has in some
measure approximated to the ideal--is disclosed in Jesus Christ. Thus
it is that the moral consciousness of the world generally and of the
individual in particular, of which the conscience is the organ and
expression, develops from less to more, under the influence of the
successive imperatives of conduct, till finally it attains to the
vision of the greatness of life as it is revealed in its supreme and
all-commanding ideal.[12]
3. Finally, in this connection the question of the _permanence of
conscience_ may be referred to. Is the ultimate of life a state in
which conscience will pervade every department of a man's being,
dominating all his thoughts and activities? or is the ideal condition
one in which conscience shall be outgrown and its operation rendered
superfluous? A recent writer on Christian ethics[13] makes the
remarkable statement that where there is no sense of sin conscience has
no function, and he draws the inference that where there is complete
normality and perfect moral health conscience will be in abeyance.
Satan, inasmuch as he lacks all moral instinct, can know nothing of
conscience; and, because of His sinlessness, Jesus must also be
pronounced conscienceless. Hence the paradox attributed to
Machiavelli: 'He who is without conscience is either a Christ or a
devil.' But though it is true that the Son of Man had no actual
experience of sin, and could not, indeed, feel remorse or contrition,
yet in so far as He was man there was in Him {80} the possibility of
sin, and in the intimate relation which He bore to the human race He
had a most accurate and clear knowledge both of the meaning and
consequences of evil. So far from saying that Christ had no
conscience, it would be nearer the truth to say that He had a perfect
conscience, a personality and fullness of consciousness which was a
complete reflection of, and harmony with, the highest conceivable good.
The confusion of thought into which Professor Lemme seems to fall is
due, we cannot help thinking, to the too restricted and negative
signification he gives to conscience. Conscience is not merely the
faculty of reproving and approving one's own conduct when brought into
relation with actual sin. It is involved in every moral judgment. A
good conscience is not only the absence of an evil one. It has also a
positive sanctioning value. The 'ought' of life is constantly present.
It is the whole man ever conscious of, and confronted by, his ideal
self. The conscience participates in man's gradual progress and
enlightenment; so far from the individual growing towards a condition
in which self-judgment ceases, he is progressing rather in moral
discernment, and becoming more and more responsive to the will of Him
whose impress and image he bears upon his soul.
The tendency of modern physiological accounts of conscience has been to
undermine its authority and empty life of its responsibility, but no
theory of the origin of conscience must be permitted to invalidate its
judgments. If conscience has any moral worth it is that it contains
the promise and witness of God. The prime question is, What is the
nature of its testimony? According to the teaching of Scripture it
bears witness to the existence of a higher than man--to a divine Person
with whom he is spiritually akin and to whom he is accountable.
'God's most intimate presence in the soul.' As the revelation of God's
will grows clearer man's ideal becomes loftier. Hence a man's
conscience is the measure of his moral life. It reveals God, and in
the light of God reveals man to himself. We carry a 'forever' within
our bosom, {81} 'ein Gott in unserer Brust,'[14] as Goethe says, which
reminds us that even while denizens of this earth we are citizens of
heaven and the sharers of an eternal life. Like another John the
Baptist, conscience points to one greater than itself. It emphasises
the discord that exists between the various parts of man's nature, a
discord which it condemns but cannot remove. It can judge, but it
cannot compel. Hence it places man before Christ, and bids him yield
to the sway of a new transforming power. As one has finely said, 'He
who has implanted in every breast such irrefragible testimony to the
right, and such unappeasable yearnings for its complete triumph, now
comes in His own perfect way to reveal Himself as the Lord of
conscience, the Guide of its perplexities, the Strength of its weakness
and the Perfecter of its highest hopes.'[15]
[1] Davidson, _The Christian Conscience_.
[2] Cf. Symonds, _Studies of Greek Poets_, first series, p. 191.
[3] _Antigone_, Plumptre's Trans., 455-9.
[4] Cf. Bunsen, _God in History_, vol. ii. p. 224; also Campbell,
_Religion in Greek Literature_.
[5] Cf. Wundt, _Ethik_, vol. ii. p. 66.
[6] _Data of Ethics_, p. 18.
[7] _Proleg._, section 83.
[8] Browning.
[9] _Proleg._, section 321.
[10] _Ethik_, vol. ii. p. 66.
[11] _Idem_.
[12] Cf. Wundt, _Ethik_, vol. ii. pp. 67-74.
[13] Lemme, _Christliche Ethik_, vol. i.
[14] _Tasso_, act iii. scene 2.
[15] Davidson, _The Christian Conscience_, p. 113.
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