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.
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