and on, the island of Tenos he was worshipped as the physician,
probably in reference to the health-giving properties of the sea
air. By far the most famous of his festivals was that celebrated
every alternate year on the isthmus of Corinth, at which the
"Isthmian
"1
games were held. Here a colossal statue of him
was set up in bronze by the Greeks after their victory over the
Persians. The horse, the dolphin (the symbol of the calm sea)
and the pine-tree, with wreaths of which the Isthmian victors
were crowned, were sacred to him. Horses and black bulls,
boars and rams were offered to him, sometimes human beings.
His attributes are the trident and the dolphin (sometimes the
tunny fish.)

As represented in art Poseidon resembles Zeus, but possesses less of his majestic calm, his muscles are more emphasized, and his hair is thicker and somewhat dishevelled. He is generally naked; his in his hand, and is gazing in front of him, apparently out to sea; right leg rests on a rock or the prow of a ship; he carries a trident sometimes he is standing on the water, swinging his trident, or riding in his chariot over the waves, accompanied by his wife Amphitrite, the Nereids and other inhabitants of the sea. It is in keeping with his restless character that he is rarely found sitting. He sometimes wears a long robe, sometimes a light scarf. Scopas, in a famous ing Achilles to the islands of the blest. In modern Greece St Nicholas has taken the place of Poseidon as patron of sailors. But the Zacynthians have a special seagod, half man, half fish, who dwells under the sea, rides on dolphins or in a car drawn by dolphins, and wields a trident. By the Romans Poseidon was identified with Neptune (q.v.).

(1851), with references to authorities in conveniently arranged See E. Gerhard, Über Ursprung, Wesen und Geltung des Poseidon notes; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie (1894); O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie (1906), vol. ii.; and especially L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (1907), vol. iv., where special attention is drawn to the ethnological aspect of the cult of Poseidon.

fountains to spring from them. But, while he caused storms and shipwrecks, he could also send favouring winds; hence he was known as Soler, "the preserver." Another of his titles was Gaecochos, "the supporter of earth," the sea being supposed to support the earth and keep it firmly in its place. He was the god of navigation and his temples stood especially on headlands and isthmuses. Every occupation connected with the sea was under his protection, and seafaring people, especially the Ionians, regarded themselves as his descendants. As god of the sea he disputed with other deities for the possession of the land. Earthquakes were thought to be produced by Poseidon shaking the earth-hence his epithet of Enosichthon, “Earth-shaker "and hence he was worshipped even in inland places which had suffered from earthquakes. The seismic wave was also his work; the destruction of Helice in Achaea by such a wave (373 B.C.) was attributed to his wrath (Strabo viii. 384). The island of Delos was thought to have been raised by him, and about 198, when a new island appeared between Thera and Therasia, the Rhodians founded a temple of Poseidon on it (Strabo i. 57). Thessaly was said to have been a lake until he opened a way for the waters through the Vale of Tempe (Hero-group, represented him surrounded by the denizens of the sea, escortdotus vii. 129). Poseidon was also the god of springs, which he produced by striking the rock with his trident, as he did on the acropolis of Athens when disputing with Athena for the sovereignty of Athens (Herodotus viii. 55; Apollodorus iii. 14). As such he was called Nymphagetes, the leader of the nymphs of springs and fountains, a god of fresh water, probably his original character, and in this connexion was puráλmos (phytalmius), a god of vegetation, frequently associated with Demeter. In regard to the contest with Athena, it is probable that Poseidon is really Erechtheus, a local deity ousted by Athena and transformed into an agricultural hero. Dr Farnell, however, holds that Erechtheus and Poseidon were originally independent figures, and that both Erechtheus and Athena were prior to Poseidon, As he gave, so he could withhold, springs of water; thus the waterless neighbourhood of Argos was supposed to be the result of his anger. Black bulls, symbolical of the stormy sea, were sacrificed to him, and often thrown alive into rivers; in Ionia and Thessaly bull-fights took place in his honour; at a festival of his at Ephesus the cupbearers were called "bulls," and the god himself was surnamed "Bull Poseidon." The horse was especially associated with his worship; he was said to have produced the first horse by striking the ground in Thessaly with his trident (Virgil, Georgics, i. 12). At the fountain of Dine in Argolis horses bitted and bridled were sacrificed to him by being drowned (Pausanias viii. 7, 2), and similarly Sextus Pompeius sought to propitiate him by throwing horses into the sea (Dio Cassius xlviii. 48). He bore the surname of "Horse Neptune" (Ioσeidâ ñños), and was regarded as the tamer as well as the creator of the steed. In the deme of Colonus he was worshipped with Athena, the reputed inventor of the bridle. Various explanations of the title nos have been given: (1) that the horse represented the corn-spirit; (2) the resemblance of the crested waves to horses; (3) the impression of horses' hoofs near the god's sacred springs, and the shaking of the earth by them when galloping (see Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iv. 20). Poseidon plays a considerable part in Greek legend. In the Trojan War he takes the side of the Greeks, because he had been cheated of his reward by Laomedon, king of Troy, for whom he had built the walls of the city. The binding of his son Polyphemus by Odysseus brings upon the hero the wrath of Poseidon, from which he is only protected by the united influence of the rest of the gods. He is famous for his numerous amours, especially with the nymphs of springs and fountains; his offspring were mostly wild and cruel, like the sea-the Laestrygones, Polyphemus, Antaeus, Procrustes and the like. He was worshipped as a national god by the Ionians, who took his worship over with them from Peloponnesus to Asia Minor. His chief sanctuary was at Mycale, where the Panionia, the national festival of the Ionians, was held. Other seats of his worship were in Thessaly, Boeotia and Peloponnesus. At Taenarum in Laconia he had a famous cave-like temple, with an asylum,

POSEN, an eastern province of the kingdom of Prussia, in the German Empire, bounded N. by the Prussian province of West Prussia, E. by Russian Poland and S. and W. respectively by the Prussian provinces of Silesia and Brandenburg. Its area is 11,186 sq. m. and the population shows a density of 177.5 inhabitants to the square mile. Posen belongs to the north German plain, and consists of a low plateau intersected by the beds of the Netze, the Warthe and the Obra. These three rivers drain into the Oder, but part of the province falls within the basin of the Vistula, which forms the frontier for a short distance on the north-east. By means of the Bromberger canal the Netze is joined with the Brake and then through this river with the Vistula. The surface is dotted with small lakes and ponds, and there are many broad fens and marshes. The soil is light and sandy, but much of the land reclaimed in the boggy districts is very fertile. Upwards of 61% of the area is under tillage, 13% is occupied by pasture and meadows and 20% by forests, mostly fir. The principal crops are rye, the chief cereal grown, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, beets and hops. The vine is cultivated to some extent in the south-west corner, and tobacco is also grown. The marshy tracts often afford excellent pasture and support large numbers of cattle, sheep and goats. The mineral resources of the province are practically restricted to lignite and salt. Besides brewing and distilling, the chief products are machinery, sugar, cloth, tobacco and bricks. Trade in timber and agricultural produce is facilitated by the network of railways, navigable rivers and canals, but both industry and trade are somewhat cramped by the duties imposed at the Russian frontier. The population of the province in 1905 was 1,986,637, including 1,347,958 Roman Catholics, 605,312 Protestants and 30,433 Jews. The Roman Catholics are mainly Poles, of whom there are upwards of 1,000,000 in Posen, while the great bulk of the 900,000 Germans are Protestants. About 57% of the population was returned in 1905 as "rural," in spite of the large number of so-called " towns," only five of which, however, have more than 20,000 inhabitants-Posen, Bromberg, Hohensalza, Gnesen and Schneidemühl. The province of Posen was long the worst-educated part of the German dominions, but of recent years this blemish has been removed. Thus while in 1882-1883 the ratio of illiterate recruits amounted to 9.75%, in 1901 less than one quarter per cent of

treatise De mundo also borrowed from him.

became the seat of a Christian bishopric about the middle of the I made use of writings of Posidonius in De natura deorum, bk. ii., and 10th century. The original settlement was on the right bank De divinatione, bk. i., and the author of the pseudo-Aristotelian of the Warthe, but the new town, establisaed on the opposite See Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, iii. 1, 570-584 (in Eng. trans., bank by German settlers about 1250, soon became the more Eclecticism, 56-70); C. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, important part of the double city. Posen became a great dépôt i. 245-296; J. Bake, Posidonii Rhodii reliquiae (Leiden, 1810), for the trade between Germany and western Europe on the one a valuable monograph; R. Scheppig, De Posidonio rerum gentium hand and Poland and Russia on the other. Many foreign Ciceros philosophischen Schriften, i. 191 seq., ii. 257 seq., 325 seq.. terrarum scriptore (Berlin, 1869); R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu merchants made the city their residence, and these included a 477-535, 756-789, iii. 342-378 (Leipzig, 1877); Thiaucourt, Essai sur colony of Scots, who exported produce to Edinburgh. The les traités philosophiques de Cicéron (Paris, 1885); Schmekel, Die city attained the climax of its prosperity in the 16th century, Theophanes von Mytilene und Posidonius von Apamea (1882). (See Philosophie der mittlern Stoa (1892); Arnold, Untersuchungen über when its population, according to one estimate, reached 80,000. also STOICS.) The intolerance shown to the Protestants, the troubles of the Thirty Years' War, the plague and other causes, soon conspired to change this state of affairs, and in the 18th century the population sank to 12,000. New life was infused into the city after its annexation by Prussia at the second partition of Poland in 1793, and since this date its growth has been rapid.

See Lukaszewicz, Historisch-statistisches Bild der Stadt Posen 958-1793 (Ger. trans., Posen, 1881); Ohlenschläger, Kurzgefasste Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt Posen (Posen, 1886); Warschauer, Stadtbuch von Posen (Posen, 1892); and Führer durch Posen (Posen, 1895).

POSIDIPPUS (3rd cent. B.C.), Greek dramatist, of Cassandrea in Macedonia, the last and one of the most distinguished of the writers of the new comedy. He began to write for the stage in 289 B.C., and, according to Suïdas, wrote 40 plays, of which 17 titles and some fragments have been preserved. He appears to have gone somewhat out of the beaten track in his choice of subjects, and it is evident that cooks held an important position in his list of characters. His comedics were frequently imitated by the Romans (Aulus Gellius ii. 23), and it is considered very probable that the Menaechmi (a comedy of errors) of Plautus is an adaptation either from the "Ouoto, or from some unknown comedy of Posidippus, called Aidupo, or perhaps Mévaιxuoi. His statue in the Vatican is considered a masterpiece of ancient

art.

Fragments in A. Meineke, Poetarum comicorum graecorum fragmenta (1855).

which could be carried from place to place without being taken POSITIVE (or Portable) ORGAN, a medieval chamber organ to pieces, and when played was placed on a table or stool and required a blower for the bellows, as well as a performer. It was larger and more cumbersome than the portative (q.v.), with which it has often been confounded. The positive had usually but one kind of pipe, the open diapason of 2 ft. tone, and in the 16th century the best types had three registers by means of which each note could be sounded with its fifth and octave, or each by itself, or again in combinations of twos. The positive differed from the regal in having flue pipes, whereas the latter had beating reeds in tiny pipes, one or two inches long, concealed behind the keyboard. During the early middle ages most of the pneumatic organs belonged to this type.

A well-known instance of an early positive or portable organ of the 4th century occurs on the obelisk erected to the memory of Theodosius the Great, on his death in A.D. 395. Among the illumisenting interesting varieties of the portable organ of the middle ages; nated manuscripts of the British Museum miniatures abound represuch as Add. MS. 29902 (fol. 6) and Add. MS. 27695b (fol. 13), Cotton MS. Tiberius A VII. fol. 104d., all of the 14th century, Add. MS. 28962, Add. MS. 17280, both of the 15th century, These little organs were to be found at every kind of function, civil and religious; they were used in the dwellings and chapels of the rich; at banquets and court functions; in choirs and music schools; and in the small orchestras of Peri and Monteverdi at the dawn of the musical drama or opera. (K. S.) POSITIVISM (derived from ponere, whence positus, that POSIDIPPUS is also the name of a writer of epigrams (c. 270 B.C.), which is laid down, certain), a philosophical term, applied someof which about 30 are preserved in the Greek Anthology. See W. Christ, Griechische Litteraturgeschichte (1898). POSIDONIUS (c. 130-50 B.C.), nicknamed .".the Athlete," Stoic philosopher, the most learned man of his time (so Strabo τῶν καθ ̓ ἡμᾶς φιλοσόφων πολυμαθέστατος, Galenἐπιστημονικώτατος) | and perhaps of all the school. A native of Apamea in Syria and a pupil of Panaetius, he spent after his teacher's death many years in travel and scientific researches in Spain (particularly at Gades), Africa, Italy, Gaul, Liguria, Sicily and on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. When he settled as a teacher at Rhodes (hence his surname "the Rhodian ") his fame attracted numerous scholars; next to Panaetius he did most, by writings and personal intercourse, to spread Stoicism in the Roman world, and he became well known to many leading men, such as Marius, Rutilius Rufus, Pompey and Cicero. The last-named studied under him (78-77 B.C.), and speaks as his admirer and friend. He visited Rome, e.g. on an embassy in 86 B.C., but probably did not settle there as a teacher.

His works, now lost, were written in an attractive style and proved a mine of information to later writers. The titles and subjects of more than twenty of them are known. In common with other Stoics of the middle period, he displayed eclectic tendencies, following the older Stoics, Panaetius, Plato and Aristotle. His admiration for Plato led him to write a commentary on the Timacus; in another way it is shown by important modifications which he made in psychological doctrine. Unquestionably more of a polymath than a philosopher, he appears uncritical and superficial. But at the time his spirit of inquiry provoked Strabo's criticism as something alien to the school (τὸ αἰτιολογικόν καὶ τὸ ἀριστοτέλιζον, ὅπερ ἐκκλίνουσιν οἱ repo). In natural science, geography, natural history, mathematics and astronomy he took a genuine interest. He sought to determine the distance and magnitude of the sun, to calculate the diameter of the earth and the influence of the moon on the tides. His history of the period from 146 to 88 B.C., in fifty-two books, must have been a valuable storehouse of facts. Cicero, who submitted to his criticism the memoirs which he had written in Greek of his consulship,

what loosely to any system which confines itself to the data of experience and declines to recognize a priori or metaphysical speculations. In this sense the term may be applied to empirical philosophers in general. Thus Hume is a positivist in the sense that he specifically restricts philosophy to the sphere of observation, and regards the causal relation as being nothing more than what we have been accustomed to expect. Similarly Mill, Spencer and physical scientists generally view the universe from the positivist standpoint. In its commonest acceptation, however, positivism is both narrower and wider than this. The term is specifically used of the philosophy of Auguste Comte, who applied the term to his system according to which knowledge is based exclusively on the methods and discoveries of the physical or "positive" sciences. According to Comte human thought passes through three stages-theological, metaphysical and positive. The final stage, positivism, is the understanding of the universe not as composed of a multitude of individuals each with volition, but as an ordered organism governed by necessary laws (see further COMTE). The outcome of this positivism is the substitution for revealed religion of a religion of humanity-according to Huxley "Catholicism minus Christianity "-in which God is replaced by Humanity. This religion was to have its special priesthood, ritual and organiza

tion.

Positivism has, therefore, two distinct sides, the philosophical and the religious or mystical. Philosophical positivism has had distinguished representatives in France, Germany and England, and in the wider sense indicated above may be regarded as one of the two or three chief influences on modern philosophical development. Though the details of Comte's philosophic structure, e.g. the classi fication of the sciences, are without important significance, the positivistic tendency is prominent in all systems of thought which deny the supernatural and the metaphysical. Agnosticism, Phenomenal. ism, Rationalism, Materialism all manifest the positivist spirit, denying what may be succinctly described as the metempirical.

In France the Comtian tradition was maintained with important | the practor for their protection, or else, according to another reservations and the abandonment of the religious aspect by Littré (q..), Taine and others. In Germany many of the followers of Kant theory, had in older times been employed for the provisional have in greater or less degree maintained the view that all true maintenance of possessions pending the settlement of questions knowledge depends upon the observation of objective phenomena. of legal right " (Maine, Ancient Law, ch. viii.). Savigny regards The distinctly religious aspect has been comparatively unimportant, the protection of possession as an extension of the protection except in so far as modern social evolutionist ethics may be regarded of the person. The same view was taken by the English court as religious in character. In England, however, a number of prominent Positivists have carried out Comte's original ideal of a Church of exchequer in Rogers v. Spence, 13 M. & W. R. p. 581. of Humanity with ritual and organization. The chief building (in According to Hunter (Roman Law, pp. 206, 221), Savigny Chapel Street, Lamb's Conduit Street, London) is adorned with overlooked the needs of aliens. It was the needs of aliens, busts of the saints of humanity, and regular services are held. incapable of the full proprietary rights of Roman citizens, Positivist hymns are sung and addresses delivered. Among the leaders of this movement have been Frederic Harrison, Richard that led to the invention by the praetor of a means of giving Congreve, E. S. Beesly and J. H. Bridges (d. 1906). Services are them equitable rights in the land, and protecting them in also held weekly in Essex Hall, London, and there are a few other the enjoyment of these rights. Savigny attributes only two centres in the provinces, including a prosperous church in Liverpool. rights to possession in Roman law-acquisition of ownership POSSE COMITATUS (Lat. “ power of a county"), a summons by possession for a given time (usucapio, longi temporis possessio) to every male in the county, between the ages of fifteen and and protection of possession from disturbance (interdictum). twenty, to be ready and apparelled, at the command of the Others have included further rights-inter alia, the right to use sheriff and the cry of the county, to maintain peace and pursue force in defence of possession, and the right to have the burden felons. Ecclesiastical persons, peers and such as laboured under of proof, in a contest as to the title, thrown upon the adversary: any infirmity were not compellable to attend. Owing to the "In pari causa possessor potior haberi debet." The position establishment of county police, the sheriff does not now pursue of the possessor in Roman law was very strong. If a bona fide felons, but by the Sheriffs Act (1887, sec. 8, sub-sec. 2) the calling possessor, he could bring an action for furtum even against the out of the posse comitatus is expressly authorized if the sheriff owner, if a mala fide possessor of land, he was so far protected finds any resistance in the execution of a writ. In view of the that he could not be ejected by force. A mala fide possessor of sheriff's duty to raise, if necessary, the posse comitatus it is no movables could, however, acquire no rights.2 answer by him, for non-execution of a writ, to say that he was resisted.

See P. E. Mather, Sheriff Law.

POSSESSION (Lat. possessio, possidere, to possess), in law, a term derived from Roman law. The Roman conception of possession has been generally adopted, but not the Roman deductions from the conception. The subject of possession has become more difficult owing to the various senses in which the term has been interpreted. Thus it has been said to be either a right or a fact conferring a right, or both together. The latter is the view of Savigny, the leading authority upon the subject (Recht des Besitzes, translated by Sir Erskine Perry, 1848). Further, there is a want of agreement among legal writers as to the amount of right or rights that it confers. All that can be said with safety is that possession stands in a position intermediate between simple detention and absolute ownership, and that it implies two elements, physical detention and mental intention to hold the thing possessed as one's own. These difficulties being borne in mind, the definition of W. A. Hunter may be accepted: "Possession is the occupation of anything with the intention of exercising the rights of ownership in respect of it" (Roman Law, p. 209). Possession is inchoate or incomplete ownership; it is on its way to become ownership. In the case of the public domain of Rome (ager publicus) the possession was really the important matter, the dominium being practically of no value. Possession in Roman law was either natural or civil. The former was mere occupation, the latter such occupation as ripened by prescription into ownership. Possession exclusive against the world (including the true owner) was called "adverse possession." A servitude, such as a right of way, could not be held in true possession, but was said to be in " quasi-possession." The quasi-possessor, however, had possessory remedies. In Roman law a broad distinction was drawn between possession and ownership (dominium).1 They were protected by different remedies-possession by interdict, ownership by action. This difference can only be explained by history. Here again, unfortunately, authorities differ. According to Savigny, a Roman citizen who had become a tenant of part of the ager publicus could not by any length of holding obtain more than a quasi-ownership, but one of which it would have been morally unjust to have deprived him. "The only legal remedies of which the tenants could avail themselves, if ejected or threatened with disturbance, were the possessory interdicts, summary processes of Roman law which were either expressly devised by The distinction is very important, as it affects the contract of sale. The contract was not to transfer ownership, as in English law, but only vacua possessio.

It has been already stated that there is both a physical and a mental element in the conception of possession. This does not necessarily mean that corporal contact is in all cases requisite, or that the intention to hold the thing possessed as one's own may not be abandoned for a time. The control may be potential as well as actual. An estate may be possessed without the possessor going upon the land at all, and the possession of goods may be given by delivering the key of the warehouse in which they are stored. In international law the possession of part as giving a title to the whole has been of great importance (see INTERNATIONAL LAW). Where goods are pledged or bailed for a specific purpose the intention of the pledgor or bailor to hold them as his own is suspended during the existence of the limited right of the pledgee or bailee, to whom a fragment of the possession has passed. In Roman law the pledgor had possessio ad usucapionem, the pledgee possessio ad interdicla. The possession of the pledgee or bailee has been called "derivative possession." Possession may be exercised through another (" animo nostro, corpore alieno "), as through a servant, who has not true possession. Possession so exercised has been called "representative possession." As soon as the representative determines to assume control on his own behalf or to submit to the control of another, the possession of the principal is gone. Possession may be transferred or lost. It is lost when either the corpus or the animus (to use the terms of Roman law) ceases to exist. It may be lost by the representatives in cases where the principal might have lost it.

In both Roman and English law the possessory tended to supersede the proprietary remedies from their greater convenience that is to say, the plaintiff based his claim or the defendant his right upon possession rather than property. The English possessory action may have been directly suggested by the interdict. Bracton (103b) identifies the assise of novel disseisin, the most common form of possessory action, with the interdict unde vi. In England ejectment had practically superseded other real actions before the latter were (with the exception of dower, writ of dower and quare impedit) expressly abolished by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833, s. 36. The action for the recovery of land, introduced by the Judicature Acts, is the modern representative of the action of ejectment.

thief can give a good title to stolen goods, though he has no title This does not agree with English law, where in certain cases a himself.

Much of the law of master and servant is based upon the Roman law of master and slave. The servant, like the slave, has not possession of his master's goods even though they are in his custody, unless, indeed, the circumstances are such that he ceases to be a servant and becomes a bailee.

The right of a party to recover possession is enforced by a writ | 14b) has been altered by the rule of descent introduced by the of possession.