128 



DR. GREGORY SMITH, ON PSYCHOLOGY. 



like the ass between two bundles of hay equally attractive, 

 which could not decide w^hich to attack and died of starvation. 

 The will must decide. When your w^atch goes wrong, it knows 

 not regret nor remorse ; but v:c know that the right thing has 

 not been done, and that the responsibility lies with us for not 

 doing it. 



My last words must be of a different kind If we grasp this 

 important truth, that our mental and emotional faculties are 

 not the Self, it is easier to imagine the life beyond this. The 

 rich man does not take his money there. Apply this thought 

 to persons more gifted than others mentally. If these w^ere 

 part of the personality and not the robe which wraps the person, 

 would not those who are not clever be grievously handicapped 

 as compared with others ? Again, we have to estimate our- 

 selves and others rightly. Can w^e do it fairly and reasonably 

 unless we bear in mind that the intention, that is the will, is 

 the main factor in the sum ? We must make allowance for 

 drawbacks and disadvantages. Circumstances which seem to 

 be part of us are yet not the Self, but only belong to it. The 

 choice which the Will makes, the decision between right and 

 wrong is what man is responsible for. " Judge ye what I say." 



Discussion. 



The Chairman said : We have all listened with very great 

 interest to this suggestive address. We have heard of progressive 

 psychology, but let us consider what progress really means. I 

 would warn those who are younger than I am against the temptation 

 to think that a new nomenclature is a new science, a mere restate- 

 ment is not real progress. 



The problem of psychology is an old one, and I really doubt if 

 there is much progress since Aristotle, Aquinas, and Locke dealt 

 with it. 



For myself no advance of materialism can rid me of the feeling 

 that came upon me in my father's garden that I, a small boy 65 

 years ago, was J, that I was not the garden and not anyone 

 else. 



A fuller knowledge of the physical machinery of thought may 

 dim our apprehension of the individual will behind the brain, but it 

 is still there. 



