as we
list; and Law which binds us unto the observance of what is unpleasant.
Liberty and law are mutually antagonistic. A concession in favor of one
is an infringement upon the claims of the other.

Conscience, in its normal state, gives to liberty and to law what to
each is legitimately due, no more, no less.

Truth lies between extremes. At the two opposite poles of conscientious
rectitude are laxity and scruples, one judging all things lawful, the
other all things forbidden. One inordinately favors liberty, the other
the law. And neither has sufficient grounds on which to form a sound
judgment.

They are counterfeit consciences, the one dishonest, the other
unreasonable. They do unlawful business; and because the verdict they
render is founded on nothing more solid than imaginations, they are in
nowise standards of morality, and should not be considered as such.

The first is sometimes known as a "rubber" conscience, on account of
its capacity for stretching itself to meet the exigencies of a like or
a dislike.

Laxity may be the effect of a simple illusion. Men often do wrong
unawares. They excuse themselves with the plea: "I did not know any
better." But we are not here examining the acts that can be traced back
to self-illusion; rather the state of persons who labor under the
disability of seeing wrong anywhere, and who walk through the
commandments of God and the Church with apparent unconcern. What must
we think of such people in face of the fact that they not only could,
but should know better! They are supposed to know their catechism. Are
there not Catholic books and publications of various sorts? What about
the Sunday instructions and sermons? These are the means and
opportunities, and they facilitate the fulfilment of what is in us a
bounden duty to nourish our souls before they die of spiritual hunger.

A delicate, effeminate life, spiritual sloth, and criminal neglect are
responsible for this kind of laxity.

This state of soul is also the inevitable consequence of long years
passed in sin and neglect of prayer. Habit blunts the keen edge of
perception. Evil is disquieting to a novice; but it does not look so
bad after you have done it a while and get used to it. Crimes thus
become ordinary sins, and ordinary sins peccadillos.

Then again there are people who, like the Pharisees of old, strain out
a gnat and swallow a camel. They educate themselves up to a strict
observance of all things insig