[18] Cf. Wm. James's _Pragmatism_ and _A Pluralistic World_.

[19] _Idem_, p. 201.

[20] Cf. Bosanquet, _The Principles of Individuality and Value_.

[21] Bergson, _Evol. Creat._, p. 174 f.

[22] Cf. E. Caird, _Kant_, vol. ii. pp. 530 and 535.

[23] _Evol. Creat._, p. 159.

[24] _Hib. Jour._, July 1911.

[25] Some sentences in the above are borrowed from the writer's _Ethics
of St. Paul_.

{68}

CHAPTER V

THE WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE

Passing from the physical and mental constituents of man, we turn to
the more distinctly moral elements; and in this chapter we shall
consider that aspect of the human consciousness to which mankind has
given the name of 'conscience.'

No subject has presented greater difficulties to the moralist, and
there are few which require more careful elucidation. From the
earliest period of reflection the question how we came to have moral
ideas has been a disputed one. At first it was thought that there
existed in man a distinct innate faculty or moral sense which was
capable of deciding categorically man's duty without reference to
history or condition. But in modern times the theory of evolution has
discredited the inviolable character of conscience, and sought rather
to determine its nature and significance in the light of its origin and
development. Only the barest outline of the subject can be attempted
here, since our object is simply to show that however we may account
for its presence, there is in man, as we know him, some power or
function which bears witness to divine truth and fits him to respond to
the revelation of Christ. It will be most convenient to consider the
subject under three heads: I. the history of the Conception; II. the
nature and origin of Conscience; and III. its present validity.

I. _History of the Conception_.--'The name conscience,' says a writer
on the subject, 'appears somewhat late in {69} the history of the
world: that for which it stands is as old as mankind.'[1]

1. Without pushing our inquiries back into the legendary lore of
savage life, in which we find evidence of the idea in the social
institutions and religious enactments of primitive races, it is among
the Greeks that the word, if not the idea of conscience, first meets
us. Perhaps the earliest trace of the notion is to be found in the
mythological conception of the Furies, whose business it was to avenge
crime--a conception which might be regarded as the reaction of man's