LAXITY AND SCRUPLES.

IN every question of conscience there are two opposing factors:
Liberty, which is agreeable to our nature, which allows us to do as we
list; and Law which binds us unto the observance of what is unpleasant.
Liberty and law are mutually antagonistic. A concession in favor of one
is an infringement upon the claims of the other.

Conscience, in its normal state, gives to liberty and to law what to
each is legitimately due, no more, no less.

Truth lies between extremes. At the two opposite poles of conscientious
rectitude are laxity and scruples, one judging all things lawful, the
other all things forbidden. One inordinately favors liberty, the other
the law. And neither has sufficient grounds on which to form a sound
judgment.

They are counterfeit consciences, the one dishonest, the other
unreasonable. They do unlawful business; and because the verdict they
render is founded on nothing more solid than imaginations, they are in
nowise standards of morality, and should not be considered as such.

The first is sometimes known as a "rubber" conscience, on account of
its capacity for stretching itself to meet the exigencies of a like or
a dislike.

Laxity may be the effect of a simple illusion. Men often do wrong
unawares. They excuse themselves with the plea: "I did not know any
better." But we are not here examining the acts that can be traced back
to self-illusion; rather the state of persons who labor under the