PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY. 49 are much more actively, we may say painfully,' felt in the moral disciplines. Even Psychology, owing to its importance for these disciplines, has to endure a certain amount from them. This is sharply indicated in certain utterances in the opening speeches at the third international congress for Psychology (Munich, 1896, Aug. 4-7). The president, a. celebrated Psychologist of the experimental school, criticised the so-called theory of Parallelism, and thought it necessary to guard himself expressly against the suggestion that be desired to "depreciate it politically or morally". Who thus excuses himself accuses here not perhaps himself, but. others all the more. The royal Bavarian Minister of State for matters of Church and School replied to this speech, and concluded with the hope "that the psychological congresses would contribute to removing the great danger which might arise for the public life of civilised peoples from certain psychological theories," and even expressed his conviction, " that this congress would not shake, but would strengthen, the old belief in the responsibility of man for his actions ". 84. Think of a congress of astronomers to whom it should be confided not to shake, but to strengthen, the old revered doctrine of the cycloids and the traditional belief in the move- ment of the sun round the earth ; or of an astronomer who should conclude his criticism of the modern views of the comets by the 'assurance that he was not concerned to de- preciate these views politically or morally. And yet only three hundred years ago such speeches were quite possible, indeed if there had been astronomical congresses they would have been inevitable. The truth is that here, as everywhere, superstition reflects itself in a thought which is partly obscure, partly false. Obscure, for though that minister doubtless spoke from his heart to " thousands," yet of those thousands scarcely ten persons would connect any thought concept with the word " responsibility," and perhaps not one of them a practicable one. And of those who escaped those dangers all would regard the being responsible as a quality of man, which attached to him as rational being. This quality cannot be perceived, hence we must know it by intro- spection. We are referred to the consciousness of the free will. But this consciousness contains, as has often been shown, from the practical point of view, nothing but the facts of rational thought. If "responsible " is nothing more than another name for these normal facts, then neither the facts nor the name can be shaken by any Psychology. But those who think under the spell of language should be made to notice that we always speak of "making responsible," that here 4
