1. _Conscience is not a distinct faculty of the mind._ Conscience (_conscientia_ = joint or double knowledge) is the knowledge of self in relation to a known law of right and wrong. Conscience and consciousness may therefore be regarded as, in some respects, identical. The terms in their etymology and their general import are synonymous. There is, however, a technical distinction to be made. Consciousness expresses self-knowledge in general. Conscience expresses self-knowledge relative to responsibility. Consciousness is the recognition by the thinking subject of its own states and affections. Conscience is the knowledge of an act or an affection as having some moral quality--as being right or wrong. 2. _Conscience is, like consciousness, a complex phenomenon_, the result of the simultaneous action of the primary powers of the mind. The simplest fact of consciousness is a synthesis of sensation and reason in a primitive psychological judgment. Sensation alone is not knowledge, and it becomes consciousness only as it is illuminated and informed by the reason. And so a mere state of the sensibility--a mere feeling of approbation or disapprobation--does not constitute conscience until it is informed by the reason. Conscience is the unity of feeling and reason in a judgment which has respect to voluntary action. 3. _Conscience is the common field in which is revealed the result of the operation of all our faculties in their especial relation to moral law._ As consciousness is the common field in which the results of the operation of all our faculties come to light, so conscience is that department of the same field in which is revealed the action of the mind in relation to the unchangeable principles of order and right which dwell in the bosom of the Infinite. Conscience is pre-eminently the Godward side of our mental being, which reflects the moral character of God, and brings us into relationship with Him. It is that which carries us _per saltum_ to the immediate recognition of a God, the Lawgiver and the Judge who is over man, and which holds him in mysterious but indissoluble bonds of obligation. Conscience is therefore, (1.) The _reason_ intuitively apprehending universal moral ideas and laws. It furnishes _the idea of the good_. It affirms that the good is universally _obligatory_. It asserts that the good has _desert_, worthiness, and dignity. And it demands for the good an appropriate recognition and a just reward. (2.) The _understanding_ apprehending the relations in which we stand to God, to our fellow-beings, and to self as a moral personality endowed with reason and freedom. (3.) The _judgment_ comparing the acts of a voluntary agent existing in certain relations with the immutable ideas and laws of the reason, and affirming this is _right_ and worthy of praise and reward, or that is _wrong_ and deserving of blame and punishment.