ABSTRACT
The conscience or super-ego is not present at birth. On the contrary its final form is the result of a slow and complicated growth which starts in infancy and is not completed until about the age of five or six. Neither the development of guilt, however, nor the expansion of one’s moral field is enough to provide us with what is meant by a conscience. Conscience, in fact, is not introduced into the “soul” at birth as a steering gear is fitted into a car. It is grown by the human mind in something the same way as hands are grown by the human body. Unfortunately it runs far more risks than any bodily organ of becoming stunted, warped or diseased during the long and complex process of its growth. The primary function of conscience is to inhibit primitive urges in order to avoid the dangers to which they are felt to give rise.
