must be interpreted by the end, and the process by the result to which
it tends.

1. The Christian doctrine is committed neither to the intuitional nor
the evolutionist theory, but rather may be said to reconcile both by
retaining that which is true in each. While it holds to the inherent
ability on the part of a being made in God's image to recognise at the
different stages of his growth and development God's will as it has
been progressively revealed, it avoids the necessity of conceiving man
as possessing from the very beginning a full-fledged organ of
infallible authority. The conscience participates in man's general
progress and enlightenment. Nor can the moral development of the
individual be held separate from the moral development of the race. As
there is a moral solidarity of mankind, so the individual conscience is
conditional by the social conscience. The individual does not start in
life with a full-grown moral apparatus any more than he starts with a
matured physical frame. The most distinctively spiritual attainments
of man have their antecedents in less human and more animal capacities.
As there is a continuity of human life, so individuals and peoples
inherit the moral assets of previous generations, and incorporate in
their experience all past attainments. Conscience is involved in man's
moral history. It suffers in his sin and alienation from God, becoming
clouded in its insight and feeble in its testimony, but it shares also
in his {77} spiritual advancement, growing more sensitive and decisive
in its judgments.

(1) Conscience, as the New Testament teaches, can be _perverted_ and
debased. It is always open to a free agent to disobey his conscience
and reject its authority. On the intuitional theory, which regards the
conscience as a separable and independent faculty, it would be
difficult to vindicate the terrible consequences of such conduct. It
is because the conscience is the man himself as related to the
consciousness of the divine will that the effects are so injurious.
Conscience may be (_a_) _Stained_, defiled, and polluted in its very
texture (1 Cor. viii. 7); (_b_) _Branded_ or seared (1 Tim. iv. 2),
rendered insensible to all feeling for good; (_c_) _Perverted_, in
which the very light within becomes darkness. In this last stage the
man calls evil good and good evil--the very springs of his nature are
poisoned and the avenues of his soul are closed.

'This is death, and th