The fact is that not merely the historic conception, but the feelings going along with it still dominate among us. Most of us, Nietzsche notes, still follow social standards rather than our own.[1] A cold look, a wry mouth, from those among whom we are educated, is still feared by the strongest; and what is it really that we fear? Isolation.[2] k We get on with a bad conscience better than with a bad reputation.[3] Indeed, conscience itself was originally of social shaping—one condemned in himself what others condemned;[4] and it is still largely so. Professor Dewey even says, "All men require social standards in their conduct: the consent of their kind. No man ever lived with the exclusive approval of his own conscience."[5] If it is urged that men have stood alone with God approving, this would not be an exception, for God is the socius in this case, and the question may be raised how far the social needs of those who felt obliged to stand alone have tended to create, or at least sustain, the faith in this invisible society.l
