"I am confused," said Lestrange. "I mean by conscience the thing which says 'You ought!' That is what seems to me to prove the existence of God, that there is a sense of a moral law which one does not invent, and which is sometimes very inconveniently aggressive."
"Yes, that is all right," said Father Payne, "but how is it when there are two 'oughts,' as there often are? A man ought to work—and he ought not to overwork—something else has to be called in to decide where one 'ought' begins and the other ends. There is a perpetual balancing of moral claims. Your conscience tells you to do two things which are mutually exclusive—both are right in the abstract. What are you to do then?"
"I suppose that reason comes in there," said Lestrange.
"Then reason is the ultimate guide?" said Father Payne.
"Oh, Father, you are darkening counsel," said Lestrange.
"No, no," said Father Payne, "I am just trying to face facts."
"Well, then," said Lestrange, "what is the ultimate thing?"
"The ultimate thing," said Father Payne, "is of course the thing you call yourself—but the ultimate instinct is probably a sense of proportion—a sense of beauty, if you like!"
"But how does that work out in practice?" said Vincent. "It seems to me to be a mere argument about names and titles. You are using conscience as the sense of right and wrong, and, as you say, they often seem to have conflicting claims. Lestrange used it in the further sense of the thing which ultimately decides your course. It is right to be philanthropic, it is right to be artistic—they may conflict; but something ultimately tells you what you can do, which is really more important than what you ought to do."
"That is right," said Father Payne, "I think the test is simply this—that whenever you feel yourself paralysed, and your natural growth arrested by your obedience to any one claim—instinct, reason, conscience, whatever it is—the ultimate power cuts the knot, and tells you unfailingly where your real life lies. That is the real failure, when owing to some habit, some dread, some shrinking, you do not follow your real life. That, it seems to me, is where the old unflinching doctrines of sin and repentance have done harm. The old self-mortifying saints, who thought so badly of human nature, and who tore themselves to pieces, resisting wholesome impulses—celibate saints who ought to have been married, morbidly introspective saints who needed hard secular work, those were the people who did not dare to trust the sense of proportion, and were suspicious of the call of life. Look at St. Augustine in the wonderful passage about light, 'sliding by me in unnumbered guises'—he can only end by praying to be delivered from the temptation to enjoy the sight of dawn and sunset, as setting his affections too much upon the things of earth. I mistrust the fear of life—I mistrust all fear—at least I think it will take care of itself, and must not be cultivated. I think the call of God is the call of joy—and I believe that the superstitious dread of joy is one of the most potent agencies of the devil."