The etymology of the word “conscience” tells us that it is a special form of “knowledge” or “consciousness”:
The peculiarity of “conscience” is that it is a knowledge of, or certainty about, the emotional value of the ideas we have concerning the motives of our actions. According to this definition, conscience is a complex phenomenon consisting on the one hand in an elementary act of the will, or in an impulse to act for which no conscious reason can be given, and on the other hand in a judgment grounded on rational feeling
CW10 ¶ 825This judgment is a value judgment, and it differs from an intellectual judgment in that, besides having an objective, general, and impartial character, it reveals the subjective point of reference. A value judgment always implicates the subject, presupposing that something is good or beautiful for me
CW10 ¶ 825CONSCIENCE IS MADE UP
OF TWO LAYERS
If, on the other hand, I say that it is good or beautiful for certain other people, this is not necessarily a value judgment but may just as well be an intellectual statement of fact. Conscience, therefore, is made up of two layers, the lower one comprising a particular psychic event, while the upper one is a kind of superstructure representing the positive or negative judgment of the subject
CW10 ¶ 825For example, a business man I knew was made what looked like a perfectly serious and honourable offer which, it turned out much later, would have involved him in a disastrous fraud had he accepted it. The following night after he received this offer, which as I say seemed to him quite acceptable, he dreamt that his hands and forearms were covered with black dirt. He could see no connection with the events of the previous day, because he was unable to admit to himself that the offer had touched him on the vulnerable spot: his expectation of a good business deal. I warned him about this, and he was careful enough to take certain precautions which did in fact save him from more serious harm
CW10 ¶ 826BUSINESS MAN INVOLVED IN
A `DIRTY BUSINESS'
Had he examined the situation right at the beginning he would undoubtedly have had a bad conscience, for he would have understood that it was a “dirty business” which his morality would not have allowed him to touch. He would, as we say, have made his hands dirty. The dream represented this locution in pictorial form
In this instance the classical characteristic of conscience, the conscientia peccati (“consciousness of sin”), is missing. Accordingly the specific feeling-tone of a bad conscience is missing too
CW10 ¶ 827Instead, the symbolical image of black hands appeared in a dream, calling his attention to some dirty work. In order to become conscious of his moral reaction, i.e., to feel his conscience, he had to tell the dream to me. This was an act of conscience on his part, in so far as dreams always made him feel rather uncertain. He had got this feeling of uncertainty in the course of an analysis, which showed him that dreams often contribute a great deal to self-knowledge. Without this experience he would probably have overlooked the dream
From this we learn one important fact: the moral evaluation of an action, which expresses itself in the specific feeling-tone of the accompanying ideas, is not always dependent on consciousness but may function without it. Freud put forward the hypothesis that in these cases there is a repression exerted by a psychic factor, the so-called superego
CW10 ¶ 828But if the conscious mind is to accomplish the voluntary act of repression, we must presuppose that there is some recognition of the moral obnoxiousness of the content to be repressed, for without this motive the corresponding impulse of the will cannot be released
But it was just this knowledge which the business man lacked, to such an extent that he not only felt no moral reaction but put only a limited trust in my warning. The reason for this was that he in no way recognized the dubious nature of the offer and therefore lacked any motive for repression. Hence the hypothesis of conscious repression cannot apply in this case
What happened was in reality an unconscious act which accomplished itself as though it were conscious and intentionalas though, in other words, it were an act of conscience. It is as if the subject recognized the immorality of the offer and this recognition had released the appropriate emotional reaction
But the entire process took place subliminally, and the only trace it left behind was the dream, which, as a moral reaction, remained unconscious
“Conscience,” in the sense in which we defined it above, as a “knowledge” of the ego, a conscientia, simply does not exist in this case
If conscience is a kind of knowledge, then it is not the empirical subject who is the knower, but rather an unconscious personality who, to all appearances, behaves like a conscious subject. It knows the dubious nature of the offer, it recognizes the acquisitive greed of the ego, which does not shrink even from illegality, and it causes the appropriate judgment to be pronounced
UNCONSCIOUS PERSONALITY BEHAVES
LIKE A CONSCIOUS SUBJECT
This means that the ego has been replaced by an unconscious personality who performs the necessary act of conscience
FREUDIAN SUPEREGO
It was these and similar experiences which led Freud to endow the superego with special significance. The Freudian superego is not, however, a natural and inherited part of the psyche's structure; it is rather the consciously acquired stock of traditional customs, the “moral code” as incorporated, for instance, in the Ten Commandments
CW10 ¶ 830The superego is a patriarchal legacy which, as such, is a conscious acquisition and an equally conscious possession. If it appears to be an almost unconscious factor in Freud's writings, this is due to his practical experience, which taught him that, in a surprising number of cases, the act of conscience takes place unconsciously, as in our example
Freud and his school rejected the hypothesis of inherited, instinctive modes of behaviour, termed by us archetypes, as mystical and unscientific, and accordingly explained unconscious acts of conscience as repressions caused by the superego
In view of the fact that dreams lead astray as much as they exhort, it seems doubtful whether what appears to be a judgment of conscience should be evaluated as suchin other words, whether we should attribute to the unconscious a function which appears moral to us
CW10 ¶ 835Obviously we can understand dreams in a moral sense without at the same time assuming that the unconscious, too, connects them with any moral tendency. It seems, rather, that it pronounces moral judgments with the same objectivity with which it produces immoral fantasies
THE `RIGHT' KIND OR
`WRONG' KIND OF CONSCIENCE
This paradox, or inner contradictoriness of conscience, has long been known to investigators of this question: besides the “right” kind of conscience there is a “wrong” one, which exaggerates, perverts, and twists evil into good and good into evil just as our own scruples do; and it does so with the same compulsiveness and with the same emotional consequences as the “right” kind of conscience
Were it not for this paradox the question of conscience would present no problem; we could then rely wholly on its decisions so far as morality is concerned. But since there is great and justified uncertainty in this regard, it needs unusual courage orwhat amounts to the same thingunshakable faith for a person simply to follow the dictates of his own conscience
CONSCIENCE AS THE `VOICE OF GOD'
John says: “Try the spirits whether they are of God” (I John 4 : 1), an admonition we could profitably apply to ourselves. Since olden times conscience has been understood by many people less as a psychic function than as a divine intervention; indeed, its dictates were regarded as vox Dei, the voice of God
CW10 ¶ 839This view shows what value and significance were, and still are, attached to the phenomenon of conscience. The psychologist cannot disregard such an evaluation, for it too is a well-authenticated phenomenon that must be taken into account if we want to treat the idea of conscience psychologically
The question of “truth,” which is usually raised here in a quite non-objective way, as to whether it has been proved that God himself speaks to us with the voice of conscience, has nothing to do with the psychological problem
The vox Dei is an assertion and an opinion, like the assertion that there is such a thing as conscience at all. All psychological facts which cannot be verified with the help of scientific apparatus and exact methods of measurement are assertions and opinions, and, as such, are psychic realities. It is a psychological truth that the opinion exists that the voice of conscience is the voice of God
Since, then, the phenomenon of conscience in itself does not coincide with the moral code, but is anterior to it, transcends its contents and, as already mentioned, can also be “false,” the view of conscience as the voice of God becomes an extremely delicate problem
CW10 ¶ 840MORAL CODE'S BUSINESS IS TO KNOW
WHAT'S GOOD AND WHAT'S EVIL
In practice it is very difficult to indicate the exact point at which the “right” conscience stops and the “false” one begins, and what the criterion is that divides one from the other. Presumably it is the moral code again, which makes it its business to know exactly what is good and what is evil
VOICE OF CONSCIENCE AS
THE `VOICE OF GOD'
But if the voice of conscience is the voice of God, this voice must possess an incomparably higher authority than traditional morality. Anyone, therefore, who allows conscience this status should, for better or worse, put his trust in divine guidance and follow his conscience rather than give heed to conventional morality
If the believer had absolute confidence in his definition of God as the Summum Bonum, it would be easy for him to obey the inner voice, for he could be sure of never being led astray. But since, in the Lord's Prayer, we still beseech God not to lead us into temptation, this undermines the very trust the believer should have if, in the darkness of a conflict of duty, he is to obey the voice of conscience without regard to the “world” and, very possibly, act against the precepts of the moral code by “obeying God rather than men” ( Acts 5 : 29 )
CONSCIENCE COMMANDS THE INDIVIDUAL
TO OBEY HIS INNER VOICE
Conscienceno matter on what it is basedcommands the individual to obey his inner voice even at the risk of going astray. We can refuse to obey this command by an appeal to the moral code and the moral views on which it is founded, though with an uncomfortable feeling of having been disloyal
CW10 ¶ 841ETHOS AS AN INNER VALUE
One may think what one likes about an ethos, yet an ethos is and remains an inner value, injury to which is no joke and can sometimes have very serious psychic consequences. These, admittedly, are known to relatively few people, for there are only a few who take objective account of psychic causality
WIDESPREAD AND NATURAL BELIEF
IN SUPERHUMAN BEINGS
Primitive man regards the autonomy of the psyche as demonism and magic. This, we consider, is only what one would expect in primitive society. On closer inspection one finds, however, that the civilized man of antiquity, such as Socrates, still had his daemon and that there was a widespread and natural belief in superhuman beings who, we would suppose today, were personifications of projected unconscious contents
CW10 ¶ 843This belief has not, in principle, disappeared, but still persists in numerous variants. For instance, in the assumption that conscience is the voice of God, or that it is a very important psychic factor (and one which manifests itself according to temperament, seeing that it usually accompanies the most differentiated function, as in the case of a “thinking” or a “feeling” morality). Again, where conscience seems to play no role, it appears indirectly in the form of compulsions or obsessions
MORAL REACTION AS OUTCOME OF
MAN'S AUTONOMOUS DYNAMISM
These manifestations all go to show that the moral reaction is the outcome of a man's autonomous dynamism, fittingly called:
Daemon
Genius
Guardian angel
Better self
Heart
Inner voice
The inner and higher man, etc.
Close beside these, beside the positive, “right” conscience, there stands the negative, “false” conscience referred to variously as:
Devil
Seducer
Tempter
Evil spirit, etc.
Everyone who examines his conscience is confronted with this fact, and he must admit that the good exceeds the bad only by a very little, if at all. It is therefore quite in order for St. Paul to admit to having his “messenger of Satan” ( II Corinthians 12 : 7 )
PSYCHOLOGISTS
CRITICIZE METAPHYSICS
The psychologist can criticize metaphysics as a human assertion, but he is not in a position to make such assertions himself. He can only establish that these assertions exist as a kind of exclamation, well knowing that neither one nor the other can be proved right and objectively valid, although he must acknowledge the legitimacy of subjective assertions as such
CW10 ¶ 845Assertions of this kind are manifestations of the psyche which belong to our human nature, and there is no psychic wholeness without them, even though one can grant them no more than subjective validity
Thus the vox Dei hypothesis is another subjective exclamation, whose purpose it is to underline the numinous character of the moral reaction
CONSCIENCE AS
A MANIFESTATION OF
Conscience is a manifestation of mana, of the “extraordinarily powerful,” a quality which is the especial peculiarity of archetypal ideas. For, in so far as the moral reaction is only apparently identical with the suggestive effect of the moral code, it falls within the sphere of the collective unconscious, exemplifying an archetypal pattern of behaviour reaching down into the animal psyche
Experience shows that the archetype, as a natural phenomenon, has a morally ambivalent character, or rather, it possesses no moral quality in itself but is amoral, like the Yahwistic God-image, and acquires moral qualities only through the act of cognition
YAHWEH BOTH JUST AND UNJUST, KINGLY
AND CRUEL, TRUTHFUL AND DECEITFUL
Thus Yahweh is both just and unjust, kindly and cruel, truthful and deceitful. This is eminently true of the archetype as well. That is why the primitive form of conscience is paradoxical: to burn a heretic is on the one hand a pious and meritorious actas John Hus himself ironically recognized when, bound to the stake, he espied an old woman hobbling towards him with a bundle of faggots, and exclaimed, “0 sancta simplicitas!”and on the other hand a brutal manifestation of ruthless and savage lust for revenge
Both forms of conscience the right and the false, stem from the same source, and both therefore have approximately the same power of conviction. This is also apparent in the symbolic designation of Christ as Lucifer (`“bringer of light”), lion, raven (or nycticorax: night-heron), serpent, son of God, etc., all of which he shares with Satan; in the idea that the good father-god of Christianity is so vindictive that it takes the cruel sacrifice of his son to reconcile him to humanity; in the belief that the Summum Bonum has a tendency to lead such an inferior and helpless creature as man into temptation, only to consign him to eternal damnation if he is not astute enough to spot the divine trap
CW10 ¶ 846REDUCING NOTION OF `VOICE OF GOD'
TO HYPOTHESIS OF THE ARCHETYPE
Faced with these insufferable paradoxes, which are an affront to our religious feelings, I would suggest reducing the notion of the vox Dei [voice of God] to the hypothesis of the archetype, for this at least is understandable and accessible to investigation. The archetype is a pattern of behaviour that has always existed, that is morally indifferent as a biological phenomenon, but possesses a powerful dynamism by means of which it can profoundly influence human behaviour
THE `PSYCHOID' ARCHETYPE
The reduction of the act of conscience to a collision with the archetype is, by and large, a tenable explanation. On the other hand we must admit that the psychoid archetype, that is, its irrepresentable and unconscious essence, is not just a postulate only, but possesses qualities of a parapsychological nature which I have grouped together under the term “synchronicity”
CW10 ¶ 849OBSERVE AN ARCHETYPAL SITUATION
I use this term to indicate the fact that, in cases of telepathy, precognition, and similar inexplicable phenomena, one can very frequently observe an archetypal situation. This may be connected with the collective nature of the archetype, for the collective unconscious, unlike the personal unconscious, is one and the same everywhere, in all individuals, just as all biological functions and all instincts are the same in members of the same species
Apart from the more subtle synchronicity, we can also observe in the instincts, for instance in the migratory instinct, a distinct synchronism. And since the parapsychological phenomena associated with the unconscious psyche show a peculiar tendency to relativize the categories of time and space, the collective unconscious must have a spaceless and timeless quality
Consequently, there is some probability that an archetypal situation will be accompanied by synchronistic phenomena, as in the case of death, in whose vicinity such phenomena are relatively frequent