Hence conscience depends on the experiences through which we have passed
in previous lives, and is necessarily an individual possession. It
differs where the past experience is different, as in the savage and the
civilised man, the dolt and the talented, the fool and the genius, the
criminal and the saint. The voice of God would speak alike in all; the
experience of the past speaks differently in each. Hence also the
consciences of men at a similar evolutionary level speak alike on broad
questions of right and wrong, good and evil. On these the "voice" is
clear. But there are many questions whereon past experience fails us,
and then conscience fails to speak. We are in doubt; two apparent duties
conflict; two ways seem equally right or equally wrong. "I do not know
what I _ought_ to do," says the perplexed moralist, hearing no
inner voice. In such cases, we must seek to form the best judgment we
can, and then act boldly. If unknowingly we disregard some hidden law we
shall suffer, and _that_ experience will be added to our sum total,
and in similar circumstances in the future, conscience, through the aid
of this added experience, will have found a voice.

Hence we may ever, having judged as best we can, act boldly, and learn
increased wisdom from the result.

Much moral cowardice, paralysing action, has resulted from the Christian
idea of "sin," as something that incurs the "wrath of God," and that
needs to be "forgiven," in order to escape an artificial--not a
natural--penalty. We gain knowledge by experience, and disregard of a
law, where it is not known, should cause us no distress, no remorse, no
"repentance," only a quiet mental note that we must in future remember
the law which we disregarded and make our conduct harmonise therewith.
Where conscience does not speak, how shall we act? The way is well known