and more
capable of good.

*Ignorance of the right*, however, *is innocent, only when inevitable*. At
the moment of action, indeed, what seems to me fitting is relatively
right, and were I to do otherwise, even though my act were absolutely
right, it would be relatively wrong. But if I have had and neglected the
means of knowing the right, I have violated the fitnesses of my own nature
by not employing my cognitive powers on subjects of vital importance to my
well-being. In this case, though what are called the sins of ignorance may
be mistakes and not sins, the ignorance itself has all the characteristics
that attach themselves to the term _sin_, and must be attended with
proportionally *harmful consequences to the offender*.

Chapter V.

MEANS AND SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE AS TO RIGHT AND WRONG.

Section I.

Conscience.

*Conscience is a means*, not a source, *of knowledge*. It is analogous to
sight and hearing. It is the power of perceiving fitness and unfitness.
Yet more, it is consciousness,--a sense of our own personal relation to the
fitting and the unfitting, of our power of actualizing them in intention,
will, and conduct. It is in this last particular that man differs from the
lower animals. They have an instinctive perception of fitness, and an
instinctive impulse to acts befitting their nature. But no brute says to
himself, "I am acting in accordance with the fitness of things;" while man
virtually says to himself, in every act, "I am doing what it is fit for me
to do," or, "I am doing what it is unfitting for me to do."

*Conscience is a judicial faculty.* Its decisions are based upon such
knowledge as the individual has, whether real or imagined, and from
whatever source derived. It judges according to such law and evidence as
are placed before it. Its verdict is always relatively right, a genuine
verdict (_verum dictum_), though, by the absolute standard of right, it
may be wrong, through defect of knowledge,--precisely as in a court of law
an infallibly wise and incorruptibly just judge may pronounce an utterly
erroneous or unjust decision, if he have before him a false statement of
facts, or if the law which he is compelled to administer be unrighteous.

We may *illustrate the function of conscience* by reference to a question
now agitated in our community,--the question as to the moral fitness of the
moderate use of