evil God cannot hold us responsible. Suppose again that we err, and
that the evil we think we do is really good. In this instance, first,
the law of morality is violated,--a certain, though erroneous
conscience: this is sinful. Secondly, a bad motive vitiates an act even
if the deed in itself be good. Consequently, we incur guilt and God's
wrath by the commission of such a deed, which is materially good, but
formally bad.

One may wonder and say: "how can guilt attach to doing good?" Guilt
attaches to formal evil, that is, evil that is shown to us by our
conscience and committed by us as such. The wrong comes, not from the
object of our doing which is good, but from the intention which is bad.
It is true that nothing is good that is not thoroughly good, that a
thing is bad only when there is something lacking in its goodness, that
evil is a defect of goodness; but formal evil alone can be imputed to
us and material cannot. The one is a conscious, the other an
unconscious, defect. Here an erroneous conscience is obeyed; there the
same conscience is disregarded. And that kind of a conscience is the
rule of morality; to go against it is to sin.

There are times when we have no certitude. The conscience may have
nothing to say concerning the honesty of a cause to which we are about
to commit ourselves. This state of uncertainty and perplexity is called
doubt. To doubt is to suspend judgment; a dubious conscience is one
that does not function.

In doubt the question may be: "To do; is it right or wrong? May I
perform this act, or must I abstain therefrom?" In this case, we
inquire whether it be lawful or unlawful to go on, but we are sure that
it is lawful not to act. There is but one course to pursue. We must not