Wherever responsible circumstances or people have been looked for, it was the _instinct of revenge_ that sought them. This instinct of revenge obtained such an ascendancy over man in the course of centuries that the whole of metaphysics, psychology, ideas of society, and, above all, morality, are tainted with it. Man has nourished this idea of responsibility to such an extent that he has introduced the bacillus of vengeance into everything. By means of it he has made God Himself ill, and killed innocence in the universe, by tracing every condition of things to acts of will, to intentions, to responsible agents. The whole teaching of will, this most fatal fraud that has ever existed in psychology hitherto, was invented essentially for the purpose of punishment. It was the social utility of punishment that lent this concept its dignity, its power, and its truth. The originator of that psychology, that we shall call volitional psychology, must be sought in those classes which had the right of punishment in their hands; above all, therefore, among the priests who stood on the very pinnacle of ancient social systems: these people wanted to create for themselves the right to wreak revenge--they wanted to supply God with the privilege of vengeance. For this purpose; man was declared "free": to this end every action had to be regarded as voluntary, and the origin of every deed had to be considered as lying in consciousness. But by such propositions as these ancient psychology is refuted.