In him the culpability, together with the divinity, of
humanity arrived at the consciousness of itself. Many are wont to be
amused when they read how, because of the most trifling faults, faults
at which a man of the world would merely smile, the greatest saints
counted themselves the greatest sinners. But the intensity of the fault
is not measured by the external act, but by the consciousness of it, and
an act for which the conscience of one man suffers acutely makes
scarcely any impression on the conscience of another. And in a saint,
conscience may be developed so fully and to such a degree of
sensitiveness that the slightest sin may cause him more remorse than his
crime causes the greatest criminal. And sin rests upon our consciousness
of it, it is in him who judges and in so far as he judges. When a man
commits a vicious act believing in good faith that he is doing a
virtuous action, we cannot hold him morally guilty, while on the other
hand that man is guilty who commits an act which he believes to be
wrong, even though in itself the act is indifferent or perhaps
beneficent. The act passes away, the intention remains, and the evil of
the evil act is that it corrupts the intention, that in knowingly doing
wrong a man is predisposed to go on doing it, that it blurs the
conscience. And doing evil is not the same as being evil. Evil blurs the
conscience, and not only the moral conscience but the general, psychical
consciousness.
Pages:
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410