To sum up: Instinct and desire are lacking in proper adjustment to
the needs of life. Society seeks to control them by the pressure of
law and custom. These powerful forces, however, are external, and,
savoring more or less of tyranny, tend at times to awaken a rebellious
spirit in the hotheaded. So a perpetual antinomy would exist between
internal impulse and external constraint, were it not that that external
constraint is reflected within the individual mind by a secondary and
overlying set of inhibitions and promptings which we call variously
the "moral sense," the "sense of duty," or "conscience." We often do
not know or remember consciously at the moment of decision what the
law ordains or the wisdom of the race teaches. But we have an inward
monitor. We often hang back from a recognized duty. But we feel an
inward push. When the wrong impulse is pungent and enticing, and
the right one insipid and tame, when we would forget if we could the
perils of sin, conscience surges up in us and saves us from ourselves.
It is a mechanism of extreme value, which nature has evolved in us
for imposing on our weak and vacillating wills action that makes for
a truer good than we should otherwise choose. No wonder, then, if
we reverence this saving power within us, and crown it with a halo
as the divine spark in the midst of our grosser nature. The more we
revere it, the brighter the glamour it has for us, the stronger it grows
and the more it helps us.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75