Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 173—“The one distinctive function of conscience is that of authoritative self-judgments in the conscious presence of a supreme Personality to whom we as persons feel ourselves accountable. It is this twofold personal element in every judgment of conscience, _viz._, the conscious self-judgment in the presence of the all-judging Deity, which has led such writers as Bain and Spencer and Stephen to attempt the explanation of the origin and authority of conscience as the product of parental training and social environment.... Conscience is not prudential nor advisory nor executive, but solely judicial. Conscience is the moral reason, pronouncing upon moral actions. Consciousness furnishes law; conscience pronounces judgments; it says: Thou shalt, Thou shalt not. Every man must obey his conscience; if it is not enlightened, that is his look-out. The callousing of conscience in this life is already a penal infliction.” S. S. Times, Apl. 5, 1902:185—“Doing as well as we know how is not enough, unless we know just what is right and then do that. God never tells us merely to do our best, or according to our knowledge. It is our duty to know what is right, and then to do it. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. We have responsibility for knowing preliminary to doing.”
C. Conscience distinguished from other mental processes.—The nature and office of conscience will be still more clearly perceived if we distinguish it from other processes and operations with which it is too often confounded. The term conscience has been used by various writers to designate either one or all of the following: 1. _Moral intuition_—the intuitive perception of the difference between right and wrong, as opposite moral categories. 2. _Accepted law_—the application of the intuitive idea to general classes of actions, and the declaration that these classes of actions are right or wrong, apart from our individual relation to them. This accepted law is the complex product of (_a_) the intuitive idea, (_b_) the logical intelligence, (_c_) experiences of utility, (_d_) influences of society and education, and (e) positive divine revelation. 3. _Judgment_—applying this accepted law to individual and concrete cases in our own experience, and pronouncing our own acts or states either past, present, or prospective, to be right or wrong. 4. _Command_—authoritative declaration of obligation to do the right, or forbear the wrong, together with an impulse of the sensibility away from the one, and toward the other. 5. _Remorse_ or _approval_—moral sentiments either of approbation or disapprobation, in view of past acts or states, regarded as wrong or right. 6. _Fear_ or _hope_—instinctive disposition of disobedience to expect punishment, and of obedience to expect reward.