If Hume was not right in asserting that a few intelligible definitions would put an end to the Free-Will controversy, his error lay in assuming a greater receptivity of mind than most people possess. For it may safely be asserted that once the legitimate meanings of the terms employed are acknowledged, and they are properly applied to the matter in dispute, it may be shown that the opponents of Determinism have been beating the air. The Determinism they attack is not the Determinism that is either professed or defended. The consequences they forecast follow only from a distorted, and often meaningless, use of the terms employed. Instead of the Determinist denying the moral and mental value of certain qualities of which the Indeterminist announces himself the champion, he admits their value, gives them a definite meaning, and proves that it is only by an assumption of the truth of the cardinal principle of Determinism that they have any reality. This has already been shown to be true in the case of Freedom, Choice, Deliberation, etc.; it remains to pursue the same method with such conceptions as praise and blame or punishment and reward, and responsibility. The charge is, again, that Determinism robs praise and blame and responsibility of all meaning, and reduces them to mere verbal expressions which some may mistake for the equivalents of reality, but which clearer thinkers will estimate at their true worth. What is the use of praising or blaming if each one does what heredity, constitution, and environment compels? Why punish a man for being what he is? Why hold him responsible for the expressions of a character provided for him, and for the influence of an environment which he had no part in forming? So the string of questions run on. None of them, it may safely be said, would ever be asked if all properly realized the precise meaning and application of the terms employed. For as with the previous terms examined, it is an acceptance of Indeterminism that would rob these words of all value. Rationally conceived they are not only consonant with Determinism, but each of them implies it. Of the four terms mentioned above--Praise, Blame, Punishment, and Responsibility, the cardinal and governing one is the last. It will be well, therefore, to endeavour to fix this with some degree of clearness.