So important is this pressure in his mental
life, though not understood or recognized for what it is, that conscience
is denned by many moralists as the pressure of the judgment of the
tribe in the mental life of its members, or in similar terms. Paulsen
calls it "the existence of custom in the consciousness of the
individual." This is to neglect unjustly the other sources of the sense
of duty; but certainly the pulls and pushes arising from these two
sources, which we may call the inner aspect of individual moral
experience and of loyalty to the community-morals, reinforcing one
another as they generally do, produce a very powerful form of conscience.
(3) A number of primitive emotions join forces with them. Sympathy
is generally on their side, and the instinctive glow of patriotism
or pride in the tribe's success. The shrinking from disapproval, the
craving for esteem, the very early emotions of shame and vanity, help
to pull away from the self-indulgent or selfish impulse. The
spontaneous admiration of others for their virtues and anger at them
for their sins is applied involuntarily by a man to himself; contempt
for his own weakness and joy in his superiority according to the
generally accepted code are powerful deterrents. The consciousness
of the resentment that others will feel if he does evil, the instinctive
application to himself of a trace of the resentment he would feel
toward him or toward these fellow tribesmen of is-such complex states
of mind complicate his mental processes and help check his primary
instincts.
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