In man’s development, his aggression instinct is turned back against his own ego. It is taken over by the super-ego in the form of a conscience, which uses aggressive measures against the desire to satisfy itself against others. Civilization obtains mastery over the individual’s desire for aggression by weakening it, disarming it, and setting up an agency within him to watch over it.

Guilt comes even when we haven’t acted out our aggression. It also comes just because we had the impulse. But this presupposes that we already recognize some action as ‘bad’ even just to think about it, which tells us there is an external influence at work. This motive is the fear of the loss of love, because he is dependent on others.

If the threat of punishment is purely external, people will do whatever they want as long as the authority remains unaware. But when the authority is internalized through the super-ego, there is no escaping the authority. Then a second stage kicks in that has the most saintly understanding themselves as the most sinful.

The sense of guilt then has two origins: external authority and the internal super-ego. The effect of our renouncing our aggressive instinct is that the super-ego takes it up in the same measure and turns it against that instinct.

Freud then believes we can see the part played by love in the origin of consciousness and the fatal inevitability of the sense of guilt.