(4) To these ingredients we must early add the more or less conscious
fear of the penalties of the tribal law, of the vengeance of chiefs
or powerful members of the tribe, of the tribal gods and their jealous
priests. These fears may be but dimly felt and not clearly
discriminated; but however subconscious they may be in a given case
of moral conflict, they play a large part. The peace of mind that
accompanies a sense of conformity to the will of rulers or of gods,
contrasted with the anxiety that follows infraction, gives a greatly
increased weight to that growing pressure of counter instincts which
comes so largely to override a man's animal nature. Most of the sources
of conscience thus date far back beyond the dawn of history. But they
can be pretty safely inferred from the earliest records, from a study
of existing savage races, and from the study of childhood. The definite
conception of "conscience" is very late, scarcely appearing until very
modern times. And the fact that conscience itself, even in its
rudimentary forms, was much later in growth than the underlying animal
instincts which it developed to control and guide, is shown by its
late development in the child-not, normally, until the beginning
of the third year. The early life of the individual parallels the
evolution of the race; and the later-developed faculties in the child
are those which arose in the later stages of human progress.
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