Written biography, fiction which truly represents
life, and individual memory are full of conscience have sundered those
who truly loved and wrought irremediable pain and loss. Lately the
newspapers told us of the heroic suicide of General Nogi and his wife,
who felt it their duty not to survive their emperor. To a Catholic
Christian this imperious dictate of the Japanese conscience would be
a deadly sin. And so it goes. There is no need to multiply instances
of what can be observed on every hand. Conscience reflects the traditions
and influences amid which a man grows up.
But if the deliverances of different men's consciences conflict, how
shall we know which to trust? If any particular command of the inner
voice may be morally wrong, how can we trust it at all? There are
obviously morbid and perverted consciences; but if conscience itself
is the ultimate authority, and is not to be justified and criticized
by some deeper test, what right have we to call any of its manifestations
morbid or perverted? Is it not a species of egotism to hold one's own
moral discernment as superior to another's; and if so, do we not need
some criterion by which to judge between them? Surely the diversity
of its judgments makes conscience an impossible foundation for morality;
we should have as many codes as consciences and fall into a hopeless
confusion. If conscience everywhere agreed in its dictates, could we
base morality upon it? Even, however, if conscience led us all in the
same direction, would that prove its authority? Perhaps we should all
be following a will o' the wisp, and foolishly sacrificing our desires
to an idol of the tribe, a universal superstition.
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