Here it might be said that _Tis_ figures as the earliest authentic example of a being whose existence has sometimes been doubted by British anthropologists, the Conservative working-man. But, if we would be just to _Tis_ in his larger Homeric aspects, we must allow that his sympathies are usually generous, and his utterances often edifying. As to the feeling with which _Tis_ was regarded, Homer has a word for it which is hard to translate: he calls it _aidos_. This _aidos_—the sense of reverence or shame—is always relative to a standard of public opinion, _i.e._ to the opinion formed by the collective sayings of _Tis_; as, on the other hand, the listening to an inner voice, the obedience to what we call a moral sense, is Homerically called _nemesis_. And just as _Tis_ is sometimes merely the voice of smug respectability, so _aidos_ is sometimes conventional in a low way. When Diomedes is going by night to spy out the Trojan camp, several heroes offer to go with him, but only _one_ can be chosen. Agamemnon tells him that he must not yield to _aidos_, and take the man of highest station rather than the man of highest merit: where _aidos_ appears as in direct conflict with _nemesis_. But more often these two principles are found acting in harmony,—recommending the same course of conduct from two different points of view. There is a signal example of this in the _Odyssey_, which is also noteworthy on another ground, viz., as the only episode in the Homeric poems which involves a direct and formal appeal from established right of might to the corrective agency of public opinion. The suitors of Penelope have intruded themselves into the house of her absent lord, and are wasting his substance by riotous living. Her son Telemachus convenes the men of Ithaca in public assembly, and calls on them to stop this cruel wrong. He appeals to _nemesis_, to _aidos_, and to fear of the gods. “Resent it in your own hearts; and have regard to others, neighboring folk who dwell around,—and tremble ye at the wrath of the gods.” The appeal fails. The public opinion exists, but it has not the power, or the courage, to act.