Philosophy, logic, metaphysics and psychology are cultivated sciences in Germany. It is even sometimes claimed--in Berlin and in certain regions of Harvard--that they were "made in Germany." Yet as applied sciences they have given a woefully sorry exhibition of themselves in the Fatherland during the war. They have, as a matter of fact, entirely disappeared. They have been supplanted by a new doctrine, for which the Germans themselves have an old and incomparable word--_Rechthaberei_. I learned that precious term from an American colleague in Berlin, a South Carolinian and profound student of German character named William C. Dreher. Dreher, who is an able journalist specializing in economics, has held forth to me on countless occasions about "Prussian _Rechthaberei_"--the unquenchable conviction of the average Teuton that he not only is "right" about everything, but that everybody else whom he permits to have a thought or a word on the same subject is essentially, inherently and incorrigibly "wrong." I can hardly credit the report that Dreher himself has fallen a victim to the insidious influence of _Rechthaberei_. It is something that presupposes omniscience and mental aristocracy on the part of the propounder of a given theory, and senility or utterly misguided stubbornness on the part of the opponent. Germany has wallowed in _Rechthaberei_ since August 1, 1914. It has sucked into the mire of intolerance everybody who has dared to cherish a contrary view. It has refused the right of independence of thought to every living soul, unless that thought is pro-German. It has swallowed whole anything the German Government and its muzzled press have said, and it has condemned as criminal falsehood anything published in enemy countries. It allows British, French and Russian newspapers, in a lordly way, to circulate freely in Germany, as of yore, thumping its chest and saying "We are not afraid of the truth"--but only after having drilled the country into believing that _nothing_ printed abroad about the war is or can be true! So the German who finds _The Daily Mail_ or the _New York Times_ on its accustomed file at his favorite café, just as he used to do in peace days, _knows in advance_ that he is to read "lies," and he digests them, leaving his patriotism unpolluted.