432 MICHAEL E. STOCK 



even a weaker explanation insofar as it neglects to account 

 for the deeper motives of acceptance, namely the introjection 

 of parental images and the instinctual bases of these intro- 

 jections? Superficially there seems to be a resemblance, and 

 perhaps that is the reason why Freud so easily equated the 

 superego with what was traditionally termed the norms of 

 conscience, but there is also an obvious difference. In the tradi- 

 tional account, the role of intelligence is decisive, in Freud's 

 account, the role of intelligence is practically negligible. 



32 



(1) Intelligence in conscience and superego. 



In the formation of the superego, standards of conduct are 

 absorbed by the child without reference to their reasonableness; 

 they in no sense make an appeal to his intelligence and in no 

 sense constitute a guide and instructor of intelligence. They 

 are adopted by an automatic process of imitation-introjection, 

 for the sole purpose of resolving an instinctual conflict. They 

 are engulfed uncritically by an infantile mind incapable of 

 judgment, and in themselves are incapable of forming the power 

 of judgment. For St. Thomas, on the other hand, it is essen- 

 tially good and reasonable for the child to accept parental 

 judgments, and these judgments as expressed by the parents 

 are pedagogues for the infantile mind. Even at an early age 

 the child begins to find some sense in them and as he matures, 

 he ideally gains more and more insight, and precisely because 

 he was taught.^^ For St. Thomas, then, the norms of conscience 



'* It would in fact have been strange if this were otherwise, for Freud nowhere in 

 his psychology gave adequate weight to the factor of reason in human conduct. The 

 reasons for this might be historical and methodological, for Freud was continually 

 breaking new ground in psychology with his techniques of psychoanalysis, and even 

 in his long and productive career did not come to the end of the trails of discoveries 

 in the inferior parts of the human psyche, the areas of sense and instinct. If he 

 had lived longer, he might have eventually satisfied himself with what was found 

 in these levels and turned to the phenomena of intelligence and will; but this can 

 now be only hypothesis. The fact remains that the function of reason has not yet 

 been satisfactorily established in psychoanalysis. 



** This might seem, offhand, to be an unreasonably optimistic estimate of a child's 

 intelligence, but if we do not demand more than the bare essentials of intelligent 



