Conscientiousness

“ Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. ”

“ A person with large conscientiousness, and large Selfish Propensities, will consider an action just, which another, with the same amount of Conscientiousness, and smaller propensities, will consider unjust. This organ is essential to the formation of a truly philosophic mind, especially in moral investigations. ”

“ In the latest stages of man's development, conscious regard for law and custom, the fear of gods, the explicit recognition of duty and conscience, and the direct pursuit of ideals-all the reflective considerations that we may lump together under the word "conscientiousness"-play their ever increasing part and complicate the psychological situation. But even in modern civilized man the underlying animal forces count for far more. ”

“ You may be quite sure, that the greater a man’s degree of conscientiousness may be in matters intellectual, the more modest he will show himself on this point To know about five things, and with a subtle wave of the hand to refuse to know others. ”

“ The study of psychology has opened the mind to inspection as we open the back of a watch-case and see the wheels go round; and this study lays its crown of victorious explorations at the feet of ethics.... His view is that conscience is the sense of conflict between bodily and mental desires ... therefore not a guide; it is only a sense of lostness in the woods, that wants a guide. Good sense and good religion are the guides to be consulted. ”

“ Further, while thus the summit point in the rational intelligence, the conscience employs for its perceptions and judgments the data of all the other functions of the mind. Its discernments are made in the light of all the truth which in any way illuminates the understanding. This explains why and how the conscience is educable. It is dependent on all the other intellectual powers for a knowledge of the relations105 of life which develop duties and in view of which every duty is to be determined and judged. ”

“ Whence is intelligence but from the world's Soul, which is the soul of men? And towering above being, above life and reason, is conscience, the supreme guide, the light enlightening every man that cometh into this world. ”

“ What is the value of conscience?
It would seem, at first glance, as if the development of reason should make conscience unnecessary. When we are able to discern the consequences of our acts, formulate and weigh our motives and aims, what need of these vague pre-rational promptings and inhibitions? Why not train men to supplant a blind sense of duty by a conscious insight, a rational valuation of ends and means? Is not reason, as it has been recently called, "the ultimate conscience"? ”

“ The light of conscience will be clear and pure, or dim and clouded, according to the completeness of our moral environment, training, and insight. But clear or dim, high or low, sensitive or dull, the light of conscience is the only light we have to guide us in the path of virtue. In hours of leisure and study it is our privilege to inform and clarify this consciousness of the ideal. ”

“ My Ought is my own will more rationally expressed than, at the instant of a capricious activity, I as yet consciously recognize. The consciousness of the more rational purpose, — of a purpose looming up, as it were, in the distance, beyond my present impulses, and yet even now seen as their own culmination, like a mountain crowning the ascent from the foothills, — the consciousness, I say, of such a purpose, is what we mean in Ethics by the Ought. ”

“ The power to discriminate, choose and act, when normally exercised, implies judgment and understanding.
Hence, we have perception, rational choice, intelligent action and desired results, for which we recognize our personal responsibility. Hence arise our ability and necessity to review our actions, motives, aims and their results, and to pass judgment upon them in the Light of Conscience (Con-Science, to know the Self) to pass judgment upon ourselves as to motives, aims, results, and consequences. ”

“ The Mystic Sense has an inner ear. Through it conscience delivers its message by means of which we come to know and understand the meaning of ought and ought not. Ready response to conscience is to be coveted above all things, especially where conscience has been trained and illumined. A friend once wrote me, a few days before his death, that he had come to see that what pretended to be education [83] was no education at all unless it included the development of conscience. But mere knowledge of right and wrong, ought and ought not, does not impart goodness. ”

“ But if conscience can be perverted it may also be improved. The education is twofold, social and individual. Through society, says Green, personality is actualised. 'No individual can make a conscience for himself. ”

“ This does not mean that conscience over-rules the understanding, or that the will can violate nature; but that conscience reveals another world, deeper and more real than nature, which is the proper sphere for the exercise of the will. ”

“ The conscience, in its essential perceptions and judgments, as appears from the analysis already given, is part of the rational intelligence. It designates the power and function of the intelligent ego, or personal self, for discernment in the sphere of right and duty—for insight into the reality of ethical law and obligation which belong to good conduct among rational, self-directing beings. ”

“ I do think 'tis the conscience of a man which examines the man, and every part of him, both spiritual and carnal, as well regenerate as unregenerate, and itself and all. For hence it was called conscientia, as being that faculty by which a man becomes conscious to himself, and is made knowing together with himself of all that good and evil that lies working in his nature, and has been brought forth in his actions. ”

“ As I have defined education, you will see the great importance of educating the conscience. It is the leading moral faculty, and must have a great influence upon the moral character. For the conscience itself may be wrong. It is not itself the rule by which you are to determine what is right and wrong. The Word of God is the rule. The office of conscience is, to determine whether any thing you propose to do is agreeable to the rule, and to urge you, accordingly, to do it or not to do it. ”

“ Have you studied the conscience of a savage? Have you made a comparative analysis of conscience among varying peoples and at various periods of history? Have you ever observed the conscience of a very little child? The dictates of conscience are purely and simply a matter of education. Conscience itself is neither more nor less than one's satisfaction in himself. A clear conscience is the pleasurable sense of self-approval; guilty conscience, the disquieting sense of self-censure. ”

“ When intelligence deals with the relations of persons and moral actions, it is called conscience. Conscience is, indeed, simply consciousness dealing with moral life.
(2) But conscience also includes feeling. When conscience judges that such and such an action is wrong, we immediately feel that it is wrong. ”

“ Here conscience acts spontaneously and anticipates experience, acts in advance of history, and spontaneously projects an ideal which is derived from the moral instinct of our nature. This is the transcendent way of learning the moral law. ”

“ That is just the advantage of an instructed conscience backed by a trained intelligence; the judge is always sitting, the counsel always on the spot.
The Instructed Conscience nearly always right.--Here is, indeed, a high motive for the all-round training of the child's intelligence; he wants the highest culture you can give him, backed by carefully formed habits, in order that he may have a conscience always alert, supported by every power of the mind; and such a conscience is the very flower of a noble life. ”

“ The thing discerned by the conscience is generically different from the things discerned by the sense-perception or consciousness. Through our senses we know the whole world of objective existences, events and their relations; through consciousness the states, acts and experiences of the subjective personal self are given. But the conscience does not furnish us with a knowledge of any of the substances, events or relations which constitute the world about us or the world within us, but solely of the moral quality of conduct and sentiment, as duty is developed in these relations. ”

“ If you would have a good conscience, you must by all means have so much light, so much knowledge of the will of God, as may regulate you, and show you your way, may teach you how to do, and speak, and think, as in His presence. ”

“ As we have seen, conscience is simply the self regarded as passing moral judgments, and conscience has absolute authority because it is the rational self. The free and rational self is, in the fullest sense, the author of its actions and its judgments. ”

“ As soon as a person wakes up to conscience awareness, this consciousness tells him that he desires well-being; and as his conscience awareness is awakened in his separate being, it seems to him that his desire for well-being is meant for his separate being. ”

“ This growing social consciousness brings with it also a stronger consciousness of self, a clearer recognition of right and wrong and an awakening of conscience which now begins to take the place of rules made by others as a guide to action. ”

“ When this principle is understood and applied, it enlarges the intellect and enlightens the conscience. It transforms the narrow, self-centred or arrogant individual into the humble inquirer and sharer of the larger Diviner life. ”

“ Let me say, in concluding this chapter, that if the conscience is cultivated from day to day, it will, in time, acquire a degree of tenderness and accuracy to which most of the world are entire strangers. ”

“ Or, comment se représente-t-on cette conscience dont nous sommes tous si portés à admettre l’existence? Impossible de la définir, nous dit-on, mais nous en avons tous une intuition immédiate: tout d’abord la conscience a conscience d’elle-même. Demandez à la première personne que vous rencontrerez, homme ou femme, psychologue ou ignorant, et elle vous répondra qu’elle se sent penser, jouir, souffrir, vouloir, tout comme elle se sent respirer. ”

“ I have often realized that I kept bad manifestations in check, though the frequent outbreaks of such traits as want of truth, stratagem, attempts at secret influence in the school, proofs of want of delicacy of taste and of conscience, made me feel that all I could do in the short period while my influence lasted, was to hold up my testimony to good principles, and make an adherence to truth, and sincere and conscientious action in every particular of life,—the central points round which all other things must revolve. ”

“ We said that conscience is the voice of Man within us, commanding us to work for Man. We do not know this immediately by our own experience; we only know that something within us commands us to work for Man. ”

“ He took up the written sheet on which he had begun a dissertation as to what conscience is, as exerting a choice between good and evil. He had written: “Understanding governs what we purpose; consciousness governs what our understanding resolves upon. Hence, if our understanding choose the good, consciousness is satisfied.” ”

“ Both the intellectual and emotional action of the soul are, therefore, included in what is named the conscience—the perceptive action, here as everywhere else, being primary and conditional for the emotional. If there were no ethical distinction perceived, none would be felt. The conscience, taken in its totality, thus includes both sides of the human psychology, the intellect and the sensibility, and it addresses its behests of duty to the will in its own peculiar way of moral law for conduct. ”

“ The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. ”

“ Now conscience is the sum total of the experiences in past lives which have borne sweet and bitter fruit, according as they were in accord or disaccord with surrounding natural law. This sum total of physical experiences, which result in increased or diminished life, we call instinct, and it is life-preserving. ”

“ In other words, we understand the mind of God and attain to the illumination of the conscience, through sympathetic response to the will so far as we have seen it. And each new response, in its turn, carries us to a deeper and clearer understanding of the will. That is to say, our conscience, by habitual response to God's will, so far as it knows it, is so illumined as to be able to make trustworthy judgments on new material submitted to it. ”

“ He makes conscience of what he says and does, and, though he may be under some mistakes, yet, according to the best of his knowledge, he abstains from that which is evil and cleaves to that which is good. [3.] He is universally conscientious; and those that are not so are not at all truly conscientious; is so in all manner of conversation: "I have lived in all good conscience; have had my whole conversation under the direction and dominion of conscience." ”