426 MICHAEL E. STOCK 



act, measuring concrete conduct against some pre-established 

 norm; hence it presupposes the existence of some kind of moral 

 knowledge acting as the rule of its judgment. Then, in a 

 secondary and derived sense the word ' conscience ' is used to 

 designate this normative knowledge itself; for example, in the 

 expressions: a strict conscience, a delicate conscience. Con- 

 science may be taken therefore either as the act of judging 

 the morality of some concrete action, or as the norms (more 

 or less abstract) according to which this judgment is formed." 

 Freud also uses this distinction. Sometimes he speaks of 

 conscience as an act of consciousness bearing on the qualities 

 of obligation attaching to certain forms of conduct, or on the 

 sense of satisfaction or guilt attaching to them, " It would 

 not surprise us if we were to find a special institution in 

 the mind which performs the task of seeing that narcissistic 

 gratification is secured from the ego-ideal and that, with this 

 end in view, it constantly watches the real ego and measures 

 it by that ideal. If such an institution does exist, it cannot 

 possibly be something which we have not yet discovered; we 

 only need to recognize it, and we may say that what we call 

 our conscience (Freud's italics) has the required characteristics 

 ... a power of this kind, watching, discovering and criticizing 

 all our intentions, does really exist; indeed, it exists with every 

 one of us in normal life." '^ At other times however, Freud 

 speaks more broadly, and conscience is the superego itself, i.e. 

 the norm by which conduct is judged. " We have ascribed to 

 the super-ego the function of the conscience and have recog- 

 nized the consciousness of guilt as an expression of a tension 

 between ego and super-ego. The ego reacts with feelings of 

 anxiety (pangs of conscience) to the perception that it has 

 failed to perform the behest of its ideal, the super-ego." -^ 



^^ Cf. D. Priimmer, 0. P., Manuale Theologiae Moralis, pp. 195-199, where certain 

 other acceptations of the word " conscience " are also given. 



^* Freud, " On Narcissism: An Introduction," Coll. Papers, vol. 4, pp. 52-53. 

 See also: The Ego and the Id, p. 73. 



*® Freud, " The Economic Problem in Masochism," Coll. Papers, vol. 2, p. 263. 

 See also: The Ego and the Id, p. 49, 



