SAGES AND SINNERS
through the quaint winding streets, hut the whole popula¬
tion radiated welcome, so that even the advertisements in
the window bore courteous quotations from Kant. The
meetings were held in the historic halls of the mediaeval
university, and the President of the Congress was the
venerable philosopher of Heidelberg, the leader of the
Idealists, Professor Windelband. Eminent philosophers
had come from different countries, conspicuous among them
the French thinker and President of the Fondation Thiers,
Professor Emil Boutroux, who afterwards visited America
and lectured at Harvard. American philosophy was repre¬
sented by Josiah Royce, who delivered one of the leading
addresses. Never did Münsterberg forget how, the first
day in Heidelberg, he met Royce wandering in blissful
solitude about the dreamy nooks and corners of the
castle, reviving memories of his happy student days in
those very haunts thirty years before. Münsterberg him¬
self presided over the psychological sections. Although
there were undoubtedly valuable scholarly contributions
—and the impetus generated by sharp conflicts of opinion
was of no small importance—yet on the whole, it was the
social contact, the harmonious congregation of philosophers
in holiday spirits, and the feeling that distinctions of age,
nationality, and custom dissolved in the warmth of the
common devotion to the ultimate problems that made such
a Congress really worth while. No more joyful fes¬
tivities could have been planned for the members of the
Congress and their families than the joint excursions into
the fragrant woods where rustic inns were opened hospit¬
ably to the jovial company of thinkers, or the evening sails
in large decorated river launches down the Neckar while
the night was made brilliant with fireworks and the
illumination of the aged castle.
At the end of the summer, Münsterberg visited Paris
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