act, an act of the mind, and lasts only while it is being produced. This is, strictly speaking, the case. Yet conscience is spoken of as a permanent thing, and this not without reason. For these judgments are formed by an enduring faculty; they belong to a special department of the understanding. Then, there is a continuous series of them; they are, besides, remembered, recorded, and reproduced on the recurrence of similar circumstances. Still, in rigorous philosophical and theological language, conscience means a judgment, a dictate, a passing act of the mind. This, however, does not detract in the least from its authority or influence or efficiency; for if it were conceived as something permanent, its whole force would be in its operation, its actual exercise. It is a practical judgment, practical in the last degree. It does not regard general rules, categories of cases, abstract questions. It views each action as clothed with all circumstances of time, place, and the rest. It is each one's own and nobody else's. My conscience is confined to myself. It is concerned about my own actions alone, it regulates my actions alone. I may have duties with regard to others and with regard to their duties, but my conscience exclusively governs my duties, taking in, of course, those duties of mine about others and their duties. My conscience tells me, on each given occasion, that I may do this, or that I may not do that, or that I am bound to do one thing or abstain from another, always in the present circumstances. My conscience does not pronounce on what is generally allowed, or forbidden, or required, because that is not its business, but on what is allowed, or forbidden, or required in my regard at this time.

This conscience, this judgment, is either correct or incorrect, either in conformity with the truth or not-in theological language right or erroneous. My conscience may tell me that I am justified in doing what in reality is prohibited and in itself wrong. In this my con

science errs. The error is perhaps one which I have at present no means of correcting; I am not in a position to find out the mistake. If so my conscience is said to be invincibly erroneous; not because there is nowhere in this world a good reason to confute and overcome it, but because there is no good reason at this moment within my reach, because I have no doubt or suspicion which, being properly attended to, would lead to the correction of my judgment. An invincibly erroneous conscience holds to all intents and purposes the place of a right conscience. It affects the person and his conduct precisely in the same way, and if any conscience can he safely followed, so far as moral rectitude is concerned, it can. We shall see a little more about this presently. In the meanwhile, I merely state that an invincibly erroneous conscience holds the place of a right conscience, and some would simply call it a right conscience. Where the error admits of correction, not only in itself—which is very little to the purpose-but on the part of the person, when he has the practical opportunity and power of understanding the real condition of things and substituting a true dictate for the false one, the case is altogether different. It would be a great mistake to imagine that one is justified in doing whatever he in some kind of way

thinks is proper. There are nndoubtedly those who do what they well know to be wrong, and here there is no delusion. But men often too take for granted or persuade themselves that they may act in a way they are not warranted to act. They may say with truth "I think this is lawful," and yet they have no business to think so. Their conscience is vincibly-culpably--erroneous No one is ever justified in acting against his conscience, neither is a man always justified in following it, but may be bound to correct it. Where the conscience is right or invincibly erroneous—and therefore for practical purposes right it is a safe guide; not, if it be vincibly erroneous.

All that I have been saying is true and certain, and held in substance by all Catholic Theologians. But why is it so? Let us look to the reason of the thing. Every moral agent must have a rule to go by in everything he does: he must have an immediate rule, a proximate rule, a rule that comes quite down to himself and his action. No number of distant, remote rules will do. They may be sound and good in themselves, but they are of no use unless insomuch as they are applied. Now this application can only be made by the understanding of the man concerned. It is by each one's understanding that his will is to be directed, and conscience is the dictate of the understanding as to what it is just now right or wrong for the man's will to choose. If he had no knowledge he would not be responsible, and he is not responsible beyond the limits of his knowledge. Whatever is outside of that is to him as if it were not. is responsible to the extent of his practical knowledge of duty, and this practical knowledge of duty comes to him from his conscience. This is why conscience cannot be lawfully gainsayed. This is why a right conscience must be followed; and the same is true of an invincibly erroneous conscience, because, like that which is every way right, it is the last resource he has. Not so with a vincibly erroneous conscience, because there is yet another conscience-a right one-which tells him he must reform the mistaken one.

He

Conscience is not a legislator nor a law. It is a judgment, not an arbitrary judgment, but a judgment according to law and according to evidence, as the decisions of judges and juries are supposed to be. And, in truth, forensic judgments afford a very good illustration of the office of conscience in every man. It is the business of the practical reason-the practical department of the understanding-to ponder the law, divine and human, which bears on each particular detail of conduct, to observe well the facts of the case, and apply the law to them; and the resulting determination as to what may, or ought, or ought not, to be done is precisely the conscience of which we have been speaking. The more important the matter is the greater care should be bestowed on the process -the deliberation premised to this judgment. The knowledge of the principles on which such judgments depend is permanent, more perfect in some than in others, according to their ability and education; but all are bound to keep themselves informed proportionally to their condition and circumstances, and, in particular instances of special moment, care ought to be taken to learn more, and counsel sought from those who are

qualified to give it. Conscience dictates that all this should be done. Conscience is ever a work pronouncing on our proposed acts or opinions, and, among the rest, telling us what we must do to have our conscience what it ought to be. To put the thing in correct but unusual terms, which I have already employed, one conscience prescribes how we are to form another.

Conscience is not a universal instinct which intuitively discerns right from wrong. There is no universal instinct of this kind. There are some things manifestly right and others manifestly wrong. There is also, in many particular instances, a rapid and almost imperceptible process of reasoning which brings home to a man the duty of doing or avoiding certain acts, and the result is a strong dictate of conscience. There is, besides, a moral sense which, especially when it is properly cultivated, helps us to discern good from evil, and this is closely connected, and more or less identified, with conscience. There is often, also, a rectitude of purpose, a love of virtue and hatred of vice that serves to guard against serious mistakes in moral matters, but this is for the most part the effect of grace and of a good use of it. The regular working of conscience is of a business-like character. It is a deliberate sentence pronounced in a cause sufficiently heard and weighed. The hearing and the weighing often take but a short time, and do not need more, because we are familiar with the principles and their application, and with the facts too. But in obscure or complicated questions of conduct, especially where the issue is momentous, we may not go so quickly. Even in easier instances it would be dangerous to rely on certain inclinations of the mind which may in reality come from prejudice, or passion, or self-love and self-seeking, or from false principles that have been unwarily adopted. We are familiar with the saying that the wish is father to the thought. It is equally true that the wish is not unfrequently father to the conscience.

Conscience, as I have said many times over, is a judgment. It is not a law, still less is it a legislator. It presupposes laws, it is bound to recognise whatever laws bind the man whose conscience it is; for, as has been stated, every man's conscience is his and no one else's. We are bound by laws of several kinds; by the Natural Law; by the revealed Law of God-which repeats much, and, in a certain sense, all of what already belonged to Natural Law, and adds other precepts -by the Laws of the Church and of the Pope, whose laws are laws of the Church; by the Laws of the State. The authority of the sources whence these laws emanate is established partly from reason, partly from revelation. The laws themselves are known by means of the promulgation suited to each class respectively, and by the intimation. which reaches each person, and gives full efficiency in his regard to the promulgation. For a law may be promulgated sufficiently to invest it with the character of a law, which it would not otherwise have, and may be unknown to me; in which case I am accidentally exempt from the obligation of obeying it, though I may be truly said to be subject to it, and, in many instances, the validity of certain acts of mine before God or man may be affected by it. The laws of all kinds to which I am subject and which are sufficiently known to me

go to form a rule of conduct for me. Besides laws, properly so called, there are commands or orders of legitimate superiors which, when made aware of them, I am bound to obey. These, too, contribute to make up my rule of conduct, though, in obeying them, I am really obeying the laws, Divine or human, that confer authority on the superiors by whom the orders are issued, and exact obedience on my part towards them. However, for greater distinctness of ideas and greater completeness of view, I will describe my rule of conduct as consisting of all the laws to which I am subject and which are known to me, and, besides, of all the orders or commands permanently or passingly given to me by legitimate superiors and also known to me. The operation of these laws and commands is often dependent or conditioned upon undertakings of my own, such as vows, promises, contracts, which, once existing, I am required to fulfil. I am speaking of a strictly obligatory rule of conduct, and therefore say nothing of mere counsels remaining such, and not made binding on me by any act of mine.

We have got here a pretty comprehensive rule, a voluminous code. Neither the whole of this rule nor any part of it is conscience. It is all a remote rule; conscience is the immediate or proximate rule. Conscience takes cognisance of those parts of the code that regard. any act to be done or omitted at this or that particular time. Among the elements of this huge aggregate, considered as they are in themselves, and, still more, if some of them be misapprehended, as continually occurs, there must be not unfrequently a real or apparent opposition. The opposition may again be really or apparently certain-in that wide or loose sense in which merely apparent certainty can be admitted-or else doubtful. There is another opposition, too, not between obligation and obligation, but between alleged obligation and our rights or interests. In all these cases of opposition, conscience has troublesome work to do, or rather, the judgment in which conscience consists is hard to pronounce. The guiding principles to be kept in view are simple, namely that regularly and ordinarily all laws are to be observed, all orders of superiors to be obeyed; that, in uncertainty about the legitimacy of commands unquestionably issued, there is a presumption in favour of authority; that hardships incidental to obedience must commonly be borne, and not made a pretext for declining to comply; for painful things are very often justly exacted. These are the guiding principles taught us by reason and religion.

But, as to obedience, there are exceptions, especially in the contingency of real or seeming collisions between authorities. The law of God, whether natural or revealed, must hold the first place, and, where sufficiently ascertained, carries all before it. The natural law rightly understood admits of no deviations. The same is true of revealed Law as to the cases it is intended to comprehend. The same may be said too of universal laws of the Church or Pope. But it may be doubtful how far Ecclesiastical or even Divine Law really goes. Other laws or orders may sometimes be in real opposition with those just referred to. Among the rest, a particular command of the Pope might be at variance with Natural or Divine Positive Law.

Well, then, in the common course, conscience exacts the fulfilment of each law and of each order proceeding from an otherwise competent authority. Whence a law or an order is seen to be opposed to what is prescribed by a higher power, or is seen to be in excess of the jurisdiction from which it professes to derive its force, conscience will refuse to recognise it. In cases where there seems to be such opposition or excess, conscience, first of all, dictates that the question should be well weighed; and, this process having been gone through, an ultimate conscience is arrived at as best it may, either absolutely determining the course which must be followed, or allowing an election between two courses, either of which, considering the obscurity of the question, may be followed.

I am not writing a treatise on conscience, but have been endeavouring to explain, in a superficial way, its nature and office, with a view to pointing out its relation to Papal precepts as distinguished from definitions and universal laws, and, at the same time, meeting Mr. Gladstone's comment on what he considers an unwarranted limitation of the Vatican Decree as regarding obedience to the Pope. I return now to the precise point at issue. Conscience is the appointed guide of every man's free actions, great and small. It is the immediate guide, subordinate to all precepts imposed by God or man, as much as the judges of our courts and their decisions are subordinate to the common and statute law which they apply. It is impossible for any man to do any good or bad action without obeying or discbeying conscience. An action not related one way or the other to conscience is not a moral action at all. Conscience rightly understood is not another name for self-will. Conscience is not an authority set up for a purpose, for the purpose of resisting commands of the Pope or of any other legitimate ruler. But as the most legitimate human ruler may, perchance, in some instances, prescribe what is wrong, or what he has no power to prescribe, and as, in such cases, he either ought not or need not be obeyed, and as the practical decision to that effect must, if made at all, be made by conscience, just as the opposite decision would have to be made in the common course, so it is conscience which withstands the unwarranted precept. There is certainly no Protestantism in this.

What did Protestantism do? It cast off the divinely constituted authority of the Church in Faith and Morals. It overturned the system which Christ had established for the religious government of men. It proclaimed the all-sufficiency of the Bible, interpreted according to each one's fancy; without heeding the inability of so many to read the written Word of God, of so many more to study it as it would have to be studied in order to make out a creed from it, of so many more again to understand it. Protestantism proclaimed an unbounded liberty of belief, and then condemned those who used that liberty. Every one was to explain the Scripture as he might feel himself disposed to explain it, while, by an inconsistency which, up to a certain point, was useful, doctrines were taught and insisted on, and people were not left to themselves. I say this was useful up to a certain point, because some sort of Christianity was maintained longer