We have now analyzed the fundamental moral notions--the good, duty and freedom; we have considered their objective realization, and seen that they are outwardly expressed in social relations, the more typical and abiding of which we call institutions; that abstract duties are realized in the laws created and imposed by such institutions, and that abstract freedom is realized in the rights possessed by members in them. We have now to consider the concrete moral life of an individual born into this existing ethical world and finding himself confronted with institutions in which he must execute his part, and in which he obtains his satisfaction and free activity. We have to consider how these institutions appeal to the individual, awakening in him a distinct _moral_ consciousness, or the consciousness of active relations to persons, in antithesis to the theoretical consciousness of relations which exist in contemplation; how the individual behaves towards these institutions, realizing them by assuming his proper position in them, or attempting to thwart them by living in isolation from them; and how a moral character is thus called into being. More shortly, we have to deal (I) with the practical consciousness, or the formation and growth of ideals of conduct; (II) with the moral struggle, or the process of realizing ideals, and (III) with moral character, or the virtues. CHAPTER I.--THE FORMATION AND GROWTH OF IDEALS. LVIII. Analysis of Conscience. The practical consciousness, or the recognition of ends and relations of action, is what is usually termed _conscience_. The analysis of conscience shows that it involves three elements, which may be distinguished in theory, although they have no separate existence in the actual fact of conscience itself. These three elements are (1) the knowledge of certain specific forms of conduct, (2) the recognition of the authority or obligatoriness of the forms, and (3) the emotional factors which cluster about this recognition. That is to say, we often speak (1) of conscience telling or informing us of duties; we speak of an enlightened or unenlightened conscience; of savage, or mediæval, or modern conscience. Here we are evidently thinking of the kind and range of particular acts considered right or wrong. But we also speak (2) of the authority and majesty of conscience; of the commands of conscience, etc. Here we are thinking of the consciousness of _obligation in general_. The savage and the civilized man may vary greatly in their estimate of what particular acts are right or wrong, and yet agree in the recognition that such acts as are right are absolutely obligatory. Finally we speak of an approving or disapproving, or remorseful conscience, of a tender or a hardened conscience, of the pangs, the pricks of conscience, etc. Here (3) we are evidently dealing with the responsiveness of the disposition to moral distinctions, either in particular acts, or in the recognition of moral law in general.