Manifestly these judgments of application belong to the general judging power of the mind. All knowing may be said to be judging, or at least tends to take the form of judgment. They are specific here, only with respect to the material they take account of. They are the acts of the judging faculty in the sphere of applying the ethical distinctions and obligations. As a basis for the judgments, not only must the ethical distinction exist in the mind, but the action or conduct to be judged must be seen or understood in all its essential relations and motives. As duties are developed by relations, the moral character of the contemplated conduct or deed cannot be determined apart from a correct knowledge of those relations. The judging capacity will err without the light of true and full information concerning the place and purposes of the action. And its insights and affirmations will vary in their approximation to entire correctness according to the degree in which all the elements entering into the particular conduct are understood and considered. ==Merit and Demerit Perceived.== (4) The action of the conscience includes also perception of merit and demerit in connection with conduct. The meaning of these terms needs to be carefully defined and limited. They express something more than the simple approval or disapproval already noted in connection with the discernment of the rightness or wrongness of an action. The terms stand for a step of discernment and judgment beyond these, and denote the ethical reality of good-desert or ill-desert for the moral agent who conforms to rightness, or offends against its claims. He who conforms deserves well; he that offends deserves ill. They, therefore, mark distinctly and definitely the point in the psychology of the conscience where the faculty discerns that those who do right ought to receive favor and those who do wrong ought to experience disfavor. They express a principle of just consequences. The principle is, that for right conduct good is due, for wrong done evil is due. The wrong-doer is guilty, _i. e._ justly subject to punitive action. His deed deserves it for him. On the other hand doing right is worthy of reward, or of the good that befits the good done. The conscience discerns and affirms this reality of good and evil-desert.