be glad that it is ascertainable at all, at the expense of
whatever effort.

An Almighty God has implanted within every human heart the knowledge
that His will exists and is important; that is, He has endowed every man
with a conscience which is the certainty of the difference between right
and wrong, and the conviction that we are responsible for our conduct to
some power outside ourselves; that we are not at liberty to conduct life
on any lines we will. Having so much certainty, it surely becomes us to
set about ascertaining the nature of the power and the details of the
will. The very nature of conscience, as a sense of obligation, rather
than a source of information, should create a desire for a knowledge of
what God's will is in detail, that is, what is the content of the notion
of right and wrong.

And while it is true that such content can only be ascertained by work,
it is not true that the work is a specially difficult one. The
Revelation of God's mind made through Holy Scripture and through the
life of His Incarnate Son is an open book that any one can study; and to
any objection that such study has led chiefly to difference of opinion
and darkness rather than light, the answer is that such disaster follows
for the most part only when the guidance of the Catholic Church is
repudiated; when, that is, we pursue a course in this study which we
should not pursue in relation to any other. If we were studying geology
we should not regard it as the best course to scorn all that preceding
students have done, and betake our unprepared selves to field work! But
that is the "Bible and the Bible only" theory of spiritual knowledge. If
we want to know the meaning of the Biblical teaching, we must make use
of the helps which the experience of the Church has richly provided.