2. The alleged conflict of duties, which occasion- ally arises, reducing conscience to perplexity and silence. This certainly would be a fatal objection, not to the supremacy of conscience only, but to morality as a whole. If there arise circumstances, not due to any human crime or error, in which duty confronts duty in absolute contradiction, so that merely to act is to transgress, not only is conscience proved incompetent, but the moral sphere is shown not to include the whole of life, and righteousness by being demonstrated to be impossible is made unnecessary. The question can be met only by analyses of cases. Those cases must, of course, be excluded which are not, properly speaking, cases of conscience. One case only needs to be stated to be dismissed, that in which a verdict of conscience, in itself clear and distinct, is opposed by strong passion or self-interest which clamorously demands to be obeyed. Here, plainly, there is no question of the competence of conscience, or its claim to be obeyed. Another case is that in which the clear testimony of conscience is con- fronted by some instinct of the soul, itself true and noble. Here also there is, strictly speaking, no perplexity of conscience, and it is admitted that there is no wavering in its demand to ba obeye<l. Hesitation arises from the strong appeal of feeling. Sir Walter Scott has presented such a situation in the classic instance of Jeanie Dean»
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tempti'ii to tell IV falsehood in order to .save her sister's life. Here the <>lili;.'ation of truth is con- fronted l>y sisterly alViition. Tlie action of Jeanie Deans uniinestionalily represents the true Bolution. Conscience is oheyed, while love goes forth in nohlest sjurilice on hehalf of the heloved. The dilliculty of such cases is not speculative, but practical, and is to be met, not by intellectual discus>i(>n on the occasi<m when the dilliculty arises, for which, indeed, there would be no time, Imt by the life habit of obedience, begetting an insight into the nature of the highest f;ood for others, even our best beloved, as well as for ourselves, which will be available in the sudden emergency as an intuitive judgment.
Ceases which do affect conscience and seem to perjilex it, are those in which there is a ' coiillict Detween diil'erent formuhe for expressing the ideal of good in human conduct, or between dilVerent institutions for furthering its realization, which have alike obtained authority over men's minds without being intrinsically entitled to more than a nartial and relative obe<iience,' or an ' incompati- bility of some such formula or institution, on the one side, with some moral impulse of the individual on the other, which is really an impulse towards the attainment of human perfection, but cannot adjust itself to recognized rules and established institutions' {Prolegomena, p. :U'2). In such eases ' the requirements of conscience seem to be in conflict with each other. However disposed to do what his conscience enjoins, the man finds it difficult to decide what its injunction is' (ibid. p. ."iSl). Such cases may, indeed, become peculiarlj' complicated, and exceedingly painful. But they do not really constitute a conflict of duties. Ilight seems to be divided against itself, when in reality it is only rising through contest of opposite one- aided views to a fuller conception, or through the break-np of a system to a higher realization than could be contained within its limits. There is no such thing really as a conflict of duties. 'A man's duty under any particular set of circumstances is always one, though the conditions of the case may be so complicated and obs< me as to make it difficult to decide what the duty really is ' {ibid. p. 355). Here, in like manner, the ability and claim of conscience are not involved. It is true that there is no extant formula which will serve by its mere
? notation to settle the case. Conscience is not so ormal and unnatural a faculty as such a view would im|ily. Yet it is not incompetent, becau.so it moves slowly and grows in knowledge and power through the discipline of life and the practice of obedience. With characteristic caution IJutler states the matter, ' Let any plain, honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself. Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong ? Is it good, or is it evil ? I do not in the least doubt but that this question would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue by almost any fair man in almost any circumstances ' (Sermon III). A recent essayist, to the question, How am I to know what is right ? makes answer, ' By the ate8rj(rii of the ippSfifiot ' (Bradley's Ethical Sttidie.i, p. 177). ' If any man willeth to do his will, he snail know of the teaching,' or system, or in- stitution, or formula, 'whether it be of Uod'(.Jn7"). iii. The Education of Con.scienck.— We thus see that objections, which might be valid against a doctrine which made conscience an infallible oracle, are not valid against the view which regards con- science as man's consciousness of the will of (lod. It is now to be regarded, not as an inexplicable part of man, but as man himself in relation to the revelation of right. It is the apprehension of God as Kightcousness, just as faith is the apprehension of God as Grace ; and Luther, as Dorner points out.