However, whether we use the term “ego” in the sense of the idea “I” meaning the whole personality of the speaker, or in the sense of the present centre of consciousness, it designates in either case a definite reality, the origin and action of which are natural facts and as plain as any other psychological phenomena. Neither the ego-idea nor the centre of consciousness are transcendental. The former is as little mystical as are the ideas dog, horse, man, etc.; the latter no less miraculous than any other feeling or display of sentiency. VIII. THE EGO-CENTRIC VIEW ABANDONED. The contrast between the old and the new psychology appears strongest in their conceptions of the ego. The former believes that the ego is “the thing in itself” of man’s soul and takes it to be the centre of all psychical phenomena, while the latter looks upon the ego-idea as one idea among many other co-ordinated ideas and considers the centre of consciousness as the strongest feeling at a given time, which as such naturally predominates over and eclipses the other feelings of the organism. The new psychology brings about a change of standpoint similar to that effected by the Copernican system in astronomy. In astronomy the geo-centric, and in psychology the ego-centric standpoint had to be abandoned. And all things seem to be upset to those who are still accustomed to the old conception. To them the physical and moral world-conceptions appear to become impossible. If the new view were correct, so they imagine, the entire universe would break to pieces. All our modes of speech are formed in accord with the old view. We speak of sunset and sunrise, and so in our daily conversation the little pronoun “I” plays a part which makes it seem as if the ego-idea were the centre of all soul-life and as if this “I” were the active agent in all acts of willing and doing. The advantage of the Copernican system lies in this, that we can think of the motions of the sun and the planets in a systematic and unitary conception without being either involved in contradictions or obliged to invent mysterious qualities in the stars for explaining the velocities, directions, or other phenomena of the celestial bodies. The most important advantage however is the practical applicability of the new theory. The old theory of the soul necessarily leads to mysticism. Fictitious facts of a transcendent character must be invented in addition to the facts observed, in order to explain the latter. The new theory after abandoning the ego-centric standpoint of the thing in itself of a soul shows the facts of psychic life in an harmonious and unitary conception. All facts agree among themselves and we are not in need of supplementing them with mysterious inventions. It must be emphasised, at the same time, that the new conception throws a new light upon ethics; it shows the error and perversity of all egotism, for it would be a mistake to act as if the ego were really the centre of soul-life.