WHAT IS CONSCIENCE? by Luther Lee, D. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1888

WHAT IS CONSCIENCE?

By Luther Lee, D. D.

THERE are but few subjects upon which more widely different views have been expressed than the subject of conscience, and yet among all that has been written, it is rare to find a clear statement of what conscience is in the light of mental science. One principal source of complexity among orthodox writers has been a confounding of conscience with the judgment, which places conscience in the mental department of the intelligence, where it does not belong. This might be shown by quotations from many and some of our best writers, but brief quotations from two distinguished authors will be sufficient. Dr. Francis Wayland says: "Conscience is that faculty of the mind by which we distinguish between right and wrong in our actions, whether they have respect to our fellow-men or to God. And as we form the same judgment respecting the actions of other men as we do respecting our own, we say that conscience is the faculty by which we distinguish between right and wrong in our moral actions."

This not only confounds conscience with the judgment but makes judgment the conscience. It cannot be denied that the judgment decides all questions of right and wrong in moral actions; but Dr. Wayland says conscience is the faculty that does this work of judging in regard to right and wrong; therefore the judgment must be the conscience, and must belong to the intellectual department of the mind. His language makes this same conscience the judge of the right and the wrong of other men's actions, which makes conscience objective in its action. It not only places conscience in the department of the intelligence, but assigns to it the word of reason, which cannot be sound philosophy.

Dr. Alexander says: "The exercise of the moral faculty, or conscience, is not simply an intellectual act; it is complex, including a judgment and an emotion, or a feeling of a peculiar kind. All judgments of the mind, whatever be the subject of them, appertain to the understanding. This comprehensive faculty includes all intellectual acts. So far, therefore, as conscience is a judgment respecting any moral subject, so far it is an exercise of the understanding. But more is included under the name of conscience than a mere intellectual act or judgment, and as this judgment is attended with a peculiar feeling called moral, and easily distinguished from all other emotions, and as emotion or feeling can with no propriety be referred to reason, therefore conscience is, so far as this is concerned, different from the understanding."

This makes conscience complex indeed, as Dr. Alexander says it is. It makes conscience consist of two distinct mental phenomena, given by two very distinct mental departments, the intelligence and the sensibility. It makes conscience consist of two things, a judgment and an emotion, both of which Dr. Alexander assumes to express by the one name, conscience. The judgment and the emotion must each be a part of conscience, for neither is conscience without the other, and both together constitute conscience in Dr. Alexander's view. The smallest criticism that can be offered is to say that it is very mixed philosophy.

The phenomena given by distinct mental departments are as distinct as the departments by which they are given, and cannot blend so as to become one thing and be expressed by one name. The name "conscience" cannot express both a judgment and an emotion, which are distinct things. The judgment or the emotion cannot belong to conscience; conscience must be the one or the other, or neither. One is a judgment, and the other is a feeling. The judgment cannot feel, and the feeling cannot judge, nor can judgment and feeling blend into a third element to be called conscience. Can an explanation be given and conscience be defined? An attempt can be made.

All philosophers agree that mental phenomena indicate three and only three general departments of mental faculties, which are the sources of our three classes of phenomena—the intelligence, the sensibility, and the will. The intelligence does all the thinking, knowing, reasoning, and judging; and the sensibility does all the feeling, including all emotions of all classes; and the will does all the willing. To one of these mental departments conscience must belong; it cannot belong to two or all of them. All agree that a feeling of remorse and a feeling of approbation are fundamental elements of conscience. Even Dr. Alexander affirms this, and therefore conscience must belong to the mental department of sensibility, which does all the feeling for the soul. The intelligence cannot

feel. Upon this statement of facts I rest my definition, as follows: Conscience is that moral susceptibility of the soul which causes us to feel the pain of remorse when we do what our judgment tells us is morally wrong, and which causes us to feel the pleasure of approbation when we do what our judgment tells us is morally right.

To give conscience a place in the intellectual department of the mind, because it acts in response to the decisions of the judgment, as Dr. Wayland and Dr. Alexander have done, is as absurd as to refer any other emotion to the intelligence, for every emotion and every passion is aroused by intellectual perceptions or conceptions.

The action of the judgment relative to the sensibility is objective; it acts not upon itself, but upon the sensibility. The action of the sensibility in response to judgment is subjective, acting in and upon itself as the ego of the soul; and there do we find the conscience.

I will close with a brief statement of two important facts: 1. Conscience is not, and cannot be, a rule of action. It is not a rule or law or command in any proper sense. It is only a feeling of pain or pleasure of a peculiar kind. It is not a judge, but only feels under the judgments pronounced by the intelligence. This is its nature and design, and all it has to do, or can do, is to feel. The conscience cannot anticipate the judgments of the intelligence, and go behind them to influence the action of the will, but can only respond to the judgments with a feeling of pain or pleasure as they come. The action of the conscience is a sequence of the judgment, and cannot be a rule of action. 2. Conscience is capable of being so trained under the action of the intelligence and will as to be made better or worse. It is well understood that the practice of wrong-doing hardens the heart, as the common expression is; the conscience becomes less sensitive, and the wrong-doer feels less compunction the longer he lives in the practice of sin, and the deeper he descends into the deeper depths of crime. Paul speaks of a class of abandoned sinners in his day whose conscience was "seared with a hot iron"—a figurative expression to denote extreme hardness or a loss of moral feeling. Hardened sinners are sometimes aroused under a powerful awakening influence; but there is great danger that they will not awake until it will be too late, and the danger increases every day they live in sin. It may be supposed that conscience is never destroyed, but only stupefied, by which its action is suppressed, and that every conscience will be roused in the end, under the terrors of actual perdition, if not before.

But conscience can be improved. Let the will resolve to do right, and let it hold the intelligence to honest, earnest search for a knowledge of truth, right, and duty; and let it enforce every judgment in regard to the requirements of moral right and duty, and conscience will be all right, and become very sensitive. Those who pursue this course will find themselves in possession of the conscience for which Mr. Charles Wesley prayed in the following lines:—

"Oh! that my tender soul might fly The first abhorred approach of ill, Quick as the apple of an eye, The slightest touch of sin to feel." —Luther Lee, D. D., in Christian Advocate.