nature in every act is conscientiousness.
Conscience is our consciousness of the ideal in conduct and character.
Conscience is the knowledge of our duty, coupled as that knowledge
always is with the feeling that we ought to do it.+--Knowledge of any
kind calls up some feeling appropriate to the fact known. Knowledge that
a given act would realize my ideal calls up the feeling of
dissatisfaction with myself until that act is performed; because that
is the feeling appropriate to the recognition of an unrealized yet
attainable ideal. Conscience is not a mysterious faculty of our nature.
It is simply thought and feeling, recognizing and responding to the fact
of duty, and reaching out toward virtue and excellence.

The objective worth of the deliverances and dictates of the conscience
of the individual, depends on the degree of moral enlightenment and
sensitiveness he has attained. The conscience of an educated Christian
has a worth and authority which the conscience of the benighted savage
has not. Since conscience is the recognition of the ideal of conduct and
character, every new appreciation of duty and virtue gives to conscience
added strength and clearness.

+The absolute authority of conscience.+--Relatively to the individual
himself, at the time of acting, his own individual conscience is the
final and absolute authority. The man who does what his conscience tells
him, does the best that he can do. For he realizes the highest ideal
that is present to his mind. A wiser man than he might do better than
this man, acting according to his conscience, is able to do. But this
man, with the limited knowledge and imperfect ideal which he actually
has, can do no more than obey his conscience which bids him realize the
highest ideal that he knows. The act of the conscientious man may be
right or wrong, judged by objective, social standards. Judged by
subjective standards, seen from within, every conscientious act is,
relatively to the individual himself, a right act. We should spare no
pains to enlighten our conscience, and make it the reflection of the
most exalted ideals which society has reached. Having done this,
conscience becomes to us the authoritative judge for us of what we
shall, and what we shall not do. 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 con