And remember that the primitive religion is a tribal religion. The gods felt toward a man just as his neighbors did. A public opinion of this sort is irresistible, and a man's conscience and estimate of himself and his actions must conform to it. But you may say a man may grant that this opinion is in a sense irresistible, and find himself very miserable and unhappy under its condemnation. But he would not feel remorse; this is a very different feeling. Possibly it may be. I am not so sure. But what I am interested in maintaining is that the condemnation of one's fellow-men puts more vividly before one's eyes, and emphasizes, the condemnation of one's own self. It may often be a necessary step in self-conviction. And what is most important, even in our own case, the condemnation of our fellows often brings with it self-condemnation. Try the experiment, as you will some day, of following a course of action which you feel fairly confident is right, but which all your neighbors think is foolish and wrong. See if you do not feel twinges within you which you must examine very closely to distinguish from twinges of conscience. If you do not, I see but one explanation--you are conscious that God is with you, and content with this majority. But in the case of primitive man God was always on the side of one's tribe. Now this does not explain the origin of man's conception of right; it presupposes such a conception in some dim form. I do not now know why right is right or beauty beautiful. I only know they are so. Where or when either of these perceptions dawned I do not know. But, given some such dim perception, I believe that primitive human society gave it its iron grip on every fibre of man's nature. Before the animal could safely be allowed to govern itself intelligently it had to serve a long apprenticeship to reflex action and instinct. And man's moral nature had to undergo a similar apprenticeship to tribal regulation and tribal conscience. Only slowly was instinct modified and replaced by intelligent action. And how this old tribal conscience persists. Often for good, although there it were better replaced by an individual conscience working for right. But how slowly you and I learn that there is a higher responsibility than to party or class. How often my vote and action are controlled, not by my own conscience, but by the opinion of my fellows, or the feeling that, if my party suffers defeat, God's work will suffer at the hands of my opponents. And what is all this but the survival in a very degenerate form of the old tribal conscience of primitive man? And he knew, and could know, nothing better: I can and do.