'sea-shouldering whale'! You remember old Kit Smart-- 'Strong against tide, the enormous whale Emerges as he goes.' "Mind you _emerge!_ Never heed the tide: there's plenty of room for it as well as for you!" LVI OF CONSCIENCE Lestrange was being genially bantered by Rose one day at dinner on what Rose called "problems of life and being," or "springs of action," or even "higher ground." Lestrange was oppressively earnest, but he was always good-natured. "Ultimately?" he had said, "why, ultimately, of course, you must obey your conscience." "No, no!" said Father Payne, "that won't do, Lestrange! Who are _you_, after all? I mean that the 'you' you speak of has something to say about it, to decide whether to disobey or to obey. And then, too, the same 'you' seems to have decided that conscience is to be obeyed. The thing that you describe as 'yourself' is much more ultimate than conscience, because if it is not convinced that conscience is to be obeyed, it will not obey. I mean that there is something which criticises even the conscience. It can't be reason, because your conscience over-rides your reason, and it can't be instinct, generally speaking, because conscience often over-rides instinct." "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."