But conscience tells some men that it is right to do these things, and tells other men it is wrong to do the same things.
Conscience is not the same thing to one man that it is to another man. It praises Brown and blames Jones for doing the same thing. It tells different tales to different men.
An when we want to know which is the true tale we have to use our reason.
As to changeable conscience. We all know very well that conscience does not keep to one rule of right and wrong even with one man; but that it changes its rule whenever the man changes his belief through teaching or experience.
I need not give many examples of these changes. Every reader can supply them for himself. When I was a boy my conscience pained me severely if I stayed away from Sunday school or neglected to say my prayers. But it does not chide me now for not going to church, nor for not reading the Bible, nor for not praying. Why has conscience thus changed its tone with me? Simply because I have changed my opinions.
But those things could not have been wrong then if they are right now. Conscience has changed. Conscience changes as the mind changes. It tells one tale in our youth, and another in our prime, and perhaps yet another in our decay.
And if we want to know which tale is the true tale we must use our reason.
And now we find that conscience is different in different nations, in different cities, in different classes, in different persons, in different ages, in different circumstances, in different moods.
And, when we come to think about it, we find that conscience never tells us anything we do not know. It is a voice which always tells us what we do know: what we believe. It does not teach us what acts are right and what acts are wrong. It reminds of what we have been taught about right or wrong.
It is not a divine voice, for it often leads us wrong. It is not a divine voice, for it is no wiser and no better than ourselves.