The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1888-05-16
What is Conscience.

Editor Mirror:
There has been a great deal said about
conscience" of late in the columns of THE
MIRROR. and with what my friends call
my usual amount of egotism. would like
to have word ON the subject. Conscience
is far from being a safe moral guide. 1t is
almost wholly the result of education and
habits gained from surrounding conditions,
and therefore where it is right with one
people it is wrong with another. In the
histories of ancient Rome and Egypt. women
married their fathers, brothers. and even
their own sons. These cOnsanguineous
marriages were so common that we cannot
but believe that the participants were justi-
fed by their conscience; vet in this day and
in this country, such dOings would be looked
upon as horrible. The Persian practice of
polyandry was looked upon as great honor
to the women; but this state of things is
utterly abhorent to christian nations. In
the war of the rebellion the confederates
honestly believed that they were right and
the north believed the reverse; yet one side
or the other was certainly wrong. There
are men whose conscience juStifies dueling
while others call the practice murder. The
MOhammedan really believes he has right to
kill his enemy, while the Spartal,s could dis
cover no harm in lying. The Turk calls
the Christian all intidel dog, the Christian
talks of the heather Chinee. and the Jew
laughs at them all, thinking he alone is
right. From the beginning of the human
race every original thinker has been laughed
at. and from fifty to five hundred years
after they had passed away their ideas and
doctrines have hpap apoQnfp6 riuhf nd
the old ones discarded.
In truth, we are lead by customs and sur
rounding conditions. and every individuals
conscience is governed by those customs.
If not, why does the mother on the banks
of the Gauges cast her babe to the crocodile
to appease the wrath of her god? Surely
she believes it is right. We pity her in her
ignorance, and she in turn pities us. We
condemn the practice of pOlygamy: but
surely among all the MOrmOns in Utah,
some honestly believe it is right. Con-
science cannot be gagged correctly until all
nations and all religions have the same
world to-day for the tyrant rulers of Hellas
OF Rome; Henry the Eighth would not be
tolerated now; the Middle Ages will not
come again; the Spanish Inquisition is no
more; astrOlOgy is not believed in now.
neither is alchemy-yet al! these things and
times have been looked upon as right and
proper, and in certain sense astrology and
alchemy are looked upon as the foundation
OF astronomy and chemistry of to-day.
Who will say that five hundred years
hence the people of the Nineteenth century
and their ideas OF right will not be laughed
at and held up as an example of the igno-
rance of past ages. When the people of
that future day are taking aerial trips to the
moon at the rate of mile second, they
will tell their children of the people of the
Nineteenth century, who were not certain
as to whether the stars were inhabited or
not They will tell with scorn of our slow
rate of travelling on railroads. Man. after
looking back on the world for three thou
sand or one hundred years is ever the same,
thinking that he alone has the true knOwl-
edge Of what is right and what is wrong.
PHOENIX.