and which are sometimes
even contrary to our most fundamental inclinations and
instincts.

Even if society were unable to maintain these concessions and
sacrifices from us except by a material constraint, it might
awaken in us only the idea of a physical force to which we must
give way of necessity, instead of that of a moral power such as
religions adore. But as a matter of fact, the empire which it
holds over consciences is due much less to the physical
supremacy of which it has the privilege than to the moral
authority with which it is invested. If we yield to its orders,
it is not merely because it is strong enough to triumph over
our resistance; it is primarily because it is the object of a
venerable respect.

Now the ways of action to which society is strongly enough
attached to impose them upon its members, are, by that very
fact, marked with a distinctive sign provocative of respect.
Since they are elaborated in common, the vigour with which they
have been thought of by each particular mind is retained in all
the other minds, and reciprocally. The representations which
express them within each of us have an intensity which no
purely private states of consciousness could ever attain; for
they have the strength of the innumerable individual
representations which have served to form each of them. It is
society who speaks through the mouths of those who affirm them
in our presence; it is society whom we hear in hearing them;
and the voice of all has an accent which that of one alone
could never have. The very violence with which society reacts,
by way of blame or material suppression, against every
attempted dissidence, contributes to strengthening its empire
by manifesting the common conviction through this burst of
ardour. In a word, when something is the object of such a state
of opinion, the representation which each individual has of it
gains a power of action from its origins and the conditions in
which it was born, which even those feel who do not submit
themselves to it. It tends to repel the representations which
contradict it, and it keeps them at a distance; on the other
hand it commands those acts which will realize it, and it does
so, not by a material coercion or by the perspective of
something of this sor