en there is no inducement to the contrary,
to act in accordance with the fitness of things, as it is to act in
accordance with what we see and hear. It is the tendency so to act, that
alone renders human society possible, in the absence of high moral
principle. In order to live, a man must so act with reference to outward
nature; still more must he so act, in order to possess human fellowship,
physical comfort, transient enjoyment, of however low a type; and the most
depraved wretch that walks the earth purchases his continued being and
whatever pleasure he derives from it by a thousand acts in accordance with
the fitness of things to one in which he violates that fitness.

*Conscience*, like all the perceptive faculties, *is educated by use*. The
watchmaker's or the botanist's eye acquires an almost microscopic keenness
of vision. The blind man's hearing is so trained as to supply, in great
part, the lack of sight. The epicure's taste can discriminate flavors
whose differences are imperceptible to an ordinary palate. In like manner,
the conscience that is constantly and carefully exercised in judging of
the fit and the unfitting, the right and the wrong, becomes prompt, keen,
searching, sensitive, comprehensive, microscopic. On the other hand,
conscience, like the senses, if seldom called into exercise, becomes
sluggish, inert, incapable of minute discrimination, or of vigilance over
the ordinary conduct of life. Yet it is never extinct, and is never
perverted. When roused to action, even in the most obdurate, it resumes
its judicial severity, and records its verdict in remorseful agony.

Conscience is commonly said to be educated by *the increase of knowledge*
as to the relations of beings and objects, as to the moral laws of the
universe, and as to religious verities. This, however, is not true.
Knowledge does not necessarily quicken the activity of conscience, or
enhance its discriminating power. Conscience often is intense and vivid in
the most ignorant, inactive and torpid in persons whose cognitive powers
have had the most generous culture. Knowledge, indeed, brings the
decisions of conscience into closer and more constant conformity with the
absolute right, but it does not render its decisions more certainly in
accordance with the relative right, that is, with what the individual,
from his point of view, ought to will and do. It has the same effect upon
conscience that accurate testimony has upon the clear-minded