THE SOCIAL ASPECT OF CONSCIENCE

The mind is the theatre of conflict for an infinite number of impulses, variously originating, among which it is ever striving to produce some sort of unification or harmony. To violate conscience is to act under the control of an incomplete and fragmentary state of mind; and so to become less a person, to begin to disintegrate and go to pieces. The natural way to solve a moral question, when immediate action is not required, is to let it lie in the mind, turning it over from time to time as attention is directed to it. As the mind hardens and matures there is a growing in aptitude to take in novel and powerful personal impressions, and a corresponding ascendancy of habit and system. The ascendancy of personal authority is usually greater in proportion as the mind is of a simple, visually imaginative, rather than reflective turn.