What is CONSCIENCE

The moral sense; the faculty of judging the moral qualities of actions, or of discriminating between right and wrong; particularly applied to one’s perception and judgment of the moral qualities of his own conduct, but in a wider sense, de CONSCIENCE 248 CONSENSUS TOLLIT ERROREM noting a similar application of the standards of morality to the acts of others. In law, especially the moral rule which retinites probity, justice, and honest dealing between man and man, as when we say that a bargain is “against conscience” or ” unconscionable ,” or that the price paid for property at a forced sale was so inadequate as to “shock the conscience.” This is also the meaning of the term as applied to the jurisdiction and principles of decision of courts of chancery, as in saving that such a court is a “court of conscience,” that it proceeds “according to conscience,” or that it has cognizance of “matters of conscience.” See 3 Bl. Comm. 47-56: People v. Stewart, 7 Cal. 143; Miller v. Miller, 187 Pa. 572, 41 Atl. 277