while the Greeks would only concede to him the title of rex, or king. (5*) The chief magistrates of the Carthaginians, called suffetes a name apparently corresponding to the Hebrew schophtim, or judges are described by the Roman writers as equivalent to their consuls, while Polybius denominates them kings.(53) In translating from one language into another, different writers may use different approximative terms as equivalents; while others may resort to periphrasis, or may use the original word untranslated. (54)

The difficulty of rendering titles of offices from one language into another by exactly corresponding terms, may be compared with the difficulty of translating the deities of polytheism from one national system into another. Thus, the Greek Cronus, Zeus, Here, Pallas, Hephæstus, may be considered as corresponding pretty exactly with the Latin Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Vulcan; and the deities were treated as equivalent, or identical, by the Greeks and Romans themselves. At the same time, there were certain deities in either religious system for which it was not possible to find exact equivalents in the other. (5) The correspondence of the Greek gods with Syrian and Egyptian deities is also to a great degree arbitrary and fluctuating;(56)

(52) Gibbon, c. 49.

(53) Suffetes, quod velut consulare imperium apud eos erat.'-Livy, xxx. 7. Ut enim Romæ consules, sic Carthagine quotannis annui bini reges creabantur.'-Nepos, Hannibal, 7. Called Baoneis in Polyb. iii. 33, § 3; vi. 51. The chiefs of the Visigoths were likewise at one time called judges.-Gibbon, c. 25.

(54) The import of the technical terms of a legal or political system must be understood before they can be safely rendered into another language. Thus, the French term droits de timbre' has sometimes been rendered duties on timber;' and in the following passage in Dumont's edition of Bentham's work on Legislation, there appears to be a confusion between lands held in mortmain and burial-grounds: Un jour les gens d'église alloient s'emparer de toute l'Angleterre en changeant les bienfonds en cimetières. La législature arrêta cette métamorphose.'-Traités de Legislation, tom. i. p. 314, ed. 1802.

(55) Dion. Hal. (ii. 50) speaks of certain Roman deities whose names it is difficult to express in the Greek language. In iii. 32, he says that the Sabine and Latin goddess Feronia was sometimes rendered into Greek as Anthephorus, sometimes as Philostephanus, sometimes as Persephone. Plutarch, Cam. 5, Seᾶς, ἣν Μητέρα Ματούταν καλοῦσι Ῥωμαῖοι.

(56) According to Herodotus, the Assyrians call Aphrodite (or Venus) Mylitta; the Arabians call her Alitta; and the Persians Mitra, (i. 131.) Astarte was variously identified by the Greeks and Romans with Venus,

nor are the grounds on which the equivalence of the German and Roman deities was established always very apparent.(57)

The technical terms of the physical sciences generally run through the languages of all civilized nations :(5) but each political community has many technical terms of government, or law, which are peculiar to itself, and constitute a part of its history. In cases like consul, dictator, princeps, prætorian prefect, scabinus, podestà, maire du palais, pope, doge, elector, chancellor, chief justice, the history of the term is the history of the office, and the history of the office is a history of an important institution. Titles such as these, being used to designate an institution peculiar to a single place, rather resemble proper names than common appellatives. They designate a series of officers, having certain powers and a certain position in common, but its sphere is so limited as to resemble a family perpetuating a hereditary name through successive generations.

Sometimes, indeed, an office is considered as characterized by certain important and peculiar functions attached to it; and its name is generalized so as to form a true appellative. In this way we may, with Lord Bacon and others, speak of the prætorian jurisdiction of the English Court of Chancery.(5) Appellatives of

Juno, and the moon. Lucian (De Syr. Deâ, c. 32) says that the great Syrian goddess corresponds with Juno; but she has something of Minerva, and Venus, and the moon, and Rhea, and Diana, and Nemesis, and the Fates. Herodotus identifies Osiris with Dionysus, and Isis with Demeter; likewise Orus with Apollo, and Bubastis with Artemis, (ii. 42, 59, 156: see Diod. i. 11, 12;) but all these parallelisms are fluctuating and unfixed. Diodorus (i. 25) says that 'generally there is much discrepancy respecting the Egyptian deities. Some call the same goddess Isis, others Demeter, others Thesmophorus, others the moon, others Here, while others give her all these appellations. Again, some consider Osiris as Sarapis, others as Dionysus, others as Pluto, others as Ammon, others as Zeus, and many identify him with Pan. Some say that Sarapis is the god whom the Greeks call Pluto.'

(57) In translating the Greek and Roman names of the days of the week, Tuisco was taken as the equivalent of Mars, Woden of Mercury, Thor of Jupiter, and Freya of Venus. Compare Grimm's Deutsche Mytho logie, p. 84-93, ed. 1. See also Tacit. Germ. (9 and 43), where, alluding to a German tribe, he says: Deos, interpretatione Romanâ, Castorem Pollucemque memorant.'

(58) As to exceptions to this proposition, see Whewell, ib. p xcvii-ix. (59) See De Augm. Scient. 1. viii. aph. 32-46. Speech on taking his place in chancery, vol. vii. p. 244; Blackstone, Com. vol. iii. p. 50.

classes so formed may be compared with names generalized from real models of which more will be said in a future chapter.(6) § 11 The preceding remarks show that there is a technical vocabulary in politics, which is formed by the adoption, partly of popular words, and partly of terms used in various departments of practice. The latter class of terms, when engrafted into the language of politics, have all the properties of a technical vocabulary; they acquire a fixed meaning, independent of popular control; they require a special study, like the terms of any other art, in order to master their meaning, and to use them in discussion with ease, promptitude, and accuracy; they are obscure to the uninitiated, but facilitate, abridge, and guide the process of reasoning for those who are familiar with their use; and they sometimes even admit of being divided, like the terms of a physical science, into a terminology and a nomenclature.

Those political terms which represent the higher class of abstractions, such as right, law, monarchy, republic, sovereign, church, money, &c., and which do not, like legal, parliamentary, financial, military and naval, or commercial terms, belong to a peculiar department of practice, are those which are subject to most ambiguity, and partake least of the characteristics of technical terms. Whether these ideas be represented by popular words pressed into the scientific service, or by terms specially invented for the purpose, they are equally subject to this defect. Even, however, in the physical sciences a similar defect of language may be observed. Thus, the subordinate terms of mechanics-those which describe mechanical contrivances and their parts-have precise and fixed significations; but such terms as force, momentum, and velocity, continue to exercise the ingenuity of the mechanical metaphysician, not less than the highest abstractions of politics.

(60) Below, ch. xxi. § 8.

108

$ 1

CHAPTER V.

UPON THE METHODS OF OBSERVATION IN

IT

POLITICS.

T has been already shown, (') that the subject-matter of politics is the nature and acts of a government, and the acts and relations of men as determined by, or affecting, the government. There is, indeed, no subject of human knowledge which may not come incidentally into consideration, either in political speculation, or in the legislative and executive business of government; (2) but the proper subjects of political science and practice are human acts and relations, and the juristical relations of men to external things. Now all these lie open to our observation; they are all manifested in actions, words, signs, or other phenomena, which occur within the range of our senses. No part of the subject-matter of politics is, like the operation of the vital functions, or the processes of thought, withdrawn from our powers of external observation. The facts of politics, indeed, like those of ethics, and of all other sciences involving human action, are subject to that obscurity which covers all exertions of the human will; but the means of interpreting volition do not properly belong to politics.

We will now proceed to examine in what manner these powers are brought to bear upon the field of politics; and for this purpose we will first inquire how their exercise differs from observation in physics.

$ 2 On looking at the methods of observation employed in the physical sciences, (3) we perceive that in this department

(1) Above, ch. ii. § 9.

(2) Compare Mill's Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Pol. Economy, p. 130-3.

(3) According to M. Comte (Cours de Philosophic Positive, tom. ii. p. 19), there are three modes of observation. 1, Observation properly so

of knowledge, there are two sorts of observation, assisted and unassisted. Unassisted observation is the observation of the mere senses, unprovided with any artificial contrivance for increasing their powers, or guiding their perceptions. Such is the common case of observation: it includes all the results of

our ordinary sensations. It is in this manner, for example, that the leading facts of natural history and botany are determined. Assisted observation is observation aided by some artificial contrivance; such as the telescope, for increasing the power of sight at a distance; or the microscope, for increasing it in the examination of minute objects near the eye.(*) The various instruments, which the profound ingenuity of modern science has devised for the measurement of linear distance, angles, time, weight, the pressure of the atmosphere, force, temperature, &c., likewise furnish far more exact results than our unaided sensations could afford, and give to physical observation a precision and compass which may, in a certain sense, be truly denominated superhuman.(5)

Now, in politics there are no artificial contrivances for increasing or guiding our powers of observation. All observation is unassisted. The substratum of this science is derived exclusively from the information of our unaided senses. But

called, or the direct examination of the phenomenon as it presents itself naturally. 2, Experiment, or the contemplation of the phenomenon, as modified more or less by artificial circumstances, introduced intentionally by ourselves, with a view to its more complete investigation. 3, Comparison, or the successive consideration of a series of analogous cases, in which the phenomenon becomes gradually more and more simple. The third head (as to which see tom. iii. p. 343) seems not so much a species of observation, as a mode of arranging observations, with a view to a proper investigation of the phenomena. Upon the manner in which it is applied in natural history, see Cuvier, Règne Animal, tom. i. p. 6. It depends on (what is called by Dr. Carpenter) the law of progressive development; see his Principles of General and Comp. Physiology, § 200. According to Humboldt (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 212), there are three stages of the investigation of nature-passive observation, active observation, and experiment.

(4) On artificial aids to the senses, see Bacon, Nov. Org. ii. 39.

(5) See Playfair's Dissertation, Encyc. Brit. vol. i. p. 467; Whewell's Phil. of Ind. Sciences, b. xiii. c. 2; Herschel's Treatise on Astronomy, c. 2. Compare Herschel's section on meteorology, in the Admiralty Manual of Scientific Enquiry.