be conceived as one and the same person with the judge is an absurd
conception of a judicial court; for then the complainant would
always lose his case. Therefore, in all duties the conscience of the
man must regard another than himself as the judge of his actions, if
it is to avoid self-contradiction. Now this other may be an actual
or a merely ideal person which reason frames to itself. Such an
idealized person (the authorized judge of conscience) must be one
who knows the heart; for the tribunal is set up in the inward part
of man; at the same time he must also be all-obliging, that is, must
be or be conceived as a person in respect of whom all duties are to be
regarded as his commands; since conscience is the inward judge of
all free actions. Now, since such a moral being must at the same
time possess all power (in heaven and earth), since otherwise he could
not give his commands their proper effect (which the office of judge
necessarily requires), and since such a moral being possessing power
over all is called GOD, hence conscience must be conceived as the
subjective principle of a responsibility for one's deeds before God;
nay, this latter concept is contained (though it be only obscurely) in
every moral self-consciousness.


THE END