Conscience

1889 278 The question may arise, How far grounds of judgment, and so far of reason, enter into conscience; and I answer, Not at all: they go to lead to the estimate of the fact of the relationship, and whether it be violated; and I conclude that the thing is wrong. I then pronounce judgment, not on the thing, but on myself; or another conscience is at work. I call it wrong: but conscience always judges the thing. But there are thus three ideas connected in our mind with conscience, which we must look at if we would not have confusion in our minds: (1) the sense of responsibility to a Being above us, principally to God, not the duty of loving Him (this is law), but authority (this Adam had before the fall); (2) the sense of good and evil; (3) the self-judgment, or repulsion of heart as to others, produced by it when an act is contemplated it condemns. The second, I apprehend, is properly conscience.