Daily Inspiration Quote by Benjamin Whichcote

Whichcote’s line slices at a comforting modern idea: that “following your conscience” is automatically virtuous. He treats conscience as raw moral sensation - urgent, sincere, even noble - but dangerously incomplete unless it’s tempered by judgment. The target isn’t immorality so much as unexamined certainty: the kind that feels like ethical purity while quietly operating on fear, habit, or social pressure.

The word “superstition” is the tell. In a 17th-century English context roiled by civil war, sectarian conflict, and competing claims of divine mandate, superstition isn’t just silly folklore; it’s piety without discernment, belief without reasons. Whichcote, a leading Cambridge Platonist, is arguing against the idea that inner conviction alone is a reliable instrument of truth. Conscience can be trained badly. It can be “informed” by fanaticism, partisan doctrine, or the moral fashion of your circle. Judgment - reasoned reflection, moral deliberation, a willingness to test one’s impulses - is what keeps conscience from becoming a private oracle.

The subtext is a warning about moral self-flattery. People often outsource judgment to the feeling of rightness: if it feels sacred, it must be correct. Whichcote calls that out as spiritually dressed-up credulity. He’s also defending a humane, rational religion in an era when “conscience” was frequently invoked to justify coercion, persecution, or rebellion. The sentence is compact, almost surgical: it doesn’t dismiss conscience; it demands that conscience grow up.