[f. as prec. + -NESS.]
1. The quality of being conscientious; loyalty to conscience.
One of the faculties to which phrenologists have allotted a special organ or region of the brain, held to produce the sentiment of obligation, duty, justice, and injustice.
a. 1631. Donne, in Selections (1840), 204. Is fraud, and circumvention so sure a way, of attaining God’s blessings, as industry and conscientiousness is?
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 159. Any other Protestant that hath any profession of Conscientiousness.
1828. Coombe, Constit. Man, ii. § 4. Conscientiousness stands in the midway between self and other individuals.
1868. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, Add. 206. A steady conscientiousness which seeks to do its duty wherever it may be placed.
b. Const. of. Obs.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 179. Constancy of Faith, and conscienciousnesse of Duty.
1667. H. More, Div. Dial., III. xxvii. (1713), 246. What an early Conscienciousness [I had] of approving my self to [God].
† 2. = CONSCIOUSNESS 2. Obs. rare.
1654. Gataker, Disc. Apol., 9. Who hazards the loss of being reputed a good man, that he might not loose the realitie, and conscientiousness of it.
