4346. CONCERNING CONSCIENCE. I conversed with a certain one who, in the life of the body, was devoid of conscience; wherefore he remained a long time in an obscure chamber, and said that he abode there in darkness which he preferred to light. Having broached the subject of conscience in my conversation with him, he said that he knew not what it was. He was then informed, so far as the grossness of thought which is of the love of self and of the world would permit, and as whatever is contrary to the love of self and of the world is contrary to thought, so he perceived conscience as something contrary to his thought, and that from the contrariety he was pained by it, as when one perceives anything to operate in a different way from what he had supposed. From this it may be known what conscience is, namely that it is something contrary to the [apprehended] good or true, be it what it may, by which one is impelled to think or act, and from whence arises pain, thus compelling the inference that it is charity or heavenly love, thus the Lord Himself, which ought to reign supreme apart from the love of self or of the world. Hence he perceived what conscience is; but what mercy is he was ignorant. It was said that there was sometimes mercy where mercy was not apparent, as for instance, when one aims at the common good by punishing the evil and reducing others to order, mercy is then exercised towards the community. So also in war, where the end is victory and thence the common good in the preservation of numbers, in which case there is no mercy towards those that fall because mercy has for its end the saving of many, and so in other things. But to despoil others for the sake of one's self, this is cruelty, because the end is selfish and contrary to the common good. By these considerations he was enlightened. - 1749, August 9. Charity and mercy, moreover, are to be turned from the neighbor to numbers, from numbers to the community, from the community to the Lord's kingdom, from the Lord's kingdom to the Lord himself, who is the all in all. Hence it may be known what is charity and what is mercy respectively. - 1748 August 9.