The Basis of Morality, Annie Besant [romantic love story reading txt] 📗

e, and will do better next time. The trouble, the pain, we havebrought on ourselves by our ignorance, we note, as showing that we havedisregarded a law, and we profit by the additional knowledge in thefuture.

Thus understanding conscience, we shall not take it as a basis ofmorality, but as our best available individual light. We shall judgeour conscience, educate it, evolve it by mental effort, by carefulobservation. As we learn more, our conscience will develop; as we actup to the highest we can see, our vision will become ever clearer, andour ear more sensitive. As muscles develop by exercise, so consciencedevelops by activity, and as we use our lamp it burns the more brightly.But let it ever be remembered that it is a man's own experience thatmust guide him, and his own conscience that must decide. To overrule theconscience of another is to induce in him moral paralysis, and to seekto dominate the will of another is a crime.

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UTILITY