ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an exegesis of Sigmund Freud's use of the word "conscience". Very often his use of the word is synonymous with what he later termed superego. The chapter distinguishes Freud's use of the word from the one that became current at the time of the Enlightenment. Conscience is understood to be a free invitation within the personality to act in a way that will ennoble both the self and the other. Freud attributes guilt—pangs of conscience—to the idea that society has proscribed some behaviour that this proscription has been internalized in the superego, and that guilt arises if the ego disobeys this command. Conscience came to be used as that faculty in us which invites the individual psyche to do what is right. The conclusion seems to be that Freud sees conscience as the condemnation for a crime committed and as the internalization of external authority.
