the nature and circumstances of the case: while the Greek, on the contrary, declares that it was a certain man and woman, and is therefore so far definite: The man and woman are considered as definite by the writer on account of their being the man, and the woman, who in those circumstances said what is there related. In like manner, i de pamioar in Matth. xxvi. 67. is definite, and means certain persons who are rendered particular and definite by the action performed at the time :-they were the men who sinote, the smiters. So again in John xix. 29. Οι δε πλησανίες προσηνεγκαν means certain persons, who were definite by the very act: they were the men who brought, the bringers. In Mark viii. 24. Gaw THS AND WAYS βλεπω τες ανθρωπος as dedea means the men who were imperfectly distinguished; and so in Ephes. iv. 11. και αυτος εδωκε τις μεν, αποτολές της δε, #gonias &c. though rendered in the common version (and, as more agreeable to the English idiom, well rendered) "some, apostles; some, prophets," &c.* means definite, certain per .... sons *The word some, like the indefinite article a, leaves it to the nature of the case to determine whether any some or a certain some be intended. "If I had but some I should be satisfied," that is, any some. "Ig gave him some," that is, a certain some. It seems to have been originally the same word as the substantive sum, converted into an adjective by the hurry and inaccuracy of familiar conversation. "I saw some people" is nothing more than "I saw a sum o' people,” in which the article a and the preposition of have been lost in the rapidity of talking. "There were some twenty or thirty" is, in like manner, "there were sum" (i. e. in sum, in round numbers) twenty or thirty." In the Saxon, the word some is spelt both with an o and with an u. Its immediate progenitor may have been the Latin word summa; and its more remote ancestors, the Greek words as apa, together. When some is used with a substantive in the singular number, denoting an individual person or thing, it seems to bear rather a different meaning, arising from a different application of its Greek original. In this situation, it cannot signify a quantity of any thing, nor a number of things taken together, but must mean a thing taken, or existing, together with the time, place, action, or other circumstance then mentioned or under consideration; something coexistent, something that in point of time, place, action, &c. is the same (es aμx) with or coincides with the thing in question. "Some man will say how are the dead raised?" i. e. the same man who says it will say, &c. Him.... the pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff, Deeming some island," (Par. Lost. i. 204.) i. e. of such skiff, whatever it may be, the same skiff that happens to be so situated; and an island such or the same as he deems it to be. In this way, the word is used in many of its compounds, sometime, somewhat, somewhere, &c. and occasionally perhaps in the plural. Thus sons who were made definite by the appointment:-they were the persons appointed. That this is the true explanation appears from 1 Cor. xii. 28. where we read as μ 110... TEW708 αποτολές δεύτερον προφηλας, &c. The only difference between the two passages is that the former has an ellipsis of the relative (s), and the latter an ellipsis of the antecedent (78): but the comparison of the two shews clearly why the article is used in the former, and that the relation which the persons bear to the appointment is the circumstance that particularizes them and makes them definite *. Sometimes the relation, as we said, may be nothing more than the reciprocal connection of two nouns with each other; each of which, though indefinite in itself, makes the other definite, and is made definite in its turn, merely in consequence of their being mutually related, and thus limiting and particularizing each other. Thus in Matth. vi. 34. agxelov TrЯμrça xaxx auns, "the day" is that on which the evil happens, and "the evil" is the evil which happens on that day. In most of these phrases, there seems to be an ellipsis of the pronoun aulos, Thus it appears that the words some, sum, and same, are origi nally only one word, varied in its orthography, to express a variety in its application or meaning. This has been the fruitful source not only of many of those words, but also of many of those letters, which in different languages resemble each other; and the remark is not a mere matter of curiosity, but will be found very useful in the interpretation of words and languages; more especially when those languages are scanty, or when time has left but little of them remaining, — as the Hebrew, for instance: but then much care must be taken not to give too great a loose to the imagination, which, if not checked by the actual use of language, by the context, and by other restraining cir cumstances, will be very apt to run wild in a field which admits so much scope for fancy. - We take this occasion of observing that, in the phrase "all the men," which we noticed in Rev. Vol. Ixii. p. 391. note, we rather think there is an omission of the preposition of, similar to that which we have mentioned in the beginning of this note; and that all is there a substantive. "All the men" is a corruption of "all o' the men." * The use of the article noticed in this paragraph bears a great resemblance to the use of the personal pronoun in those verbs which are improperly called impersonal verbs. They say" means "the sayers say;" and "it rains," "it snows," mean, not as is sometimes said, "the rain rains," but the cause of rain, whatever it be, rains: for in the days of philosophical ignorance a specific cause was assigned for each separate effect, a raining cause for the rain, and a snowing cause for the snow, &c.; and in the days of religious ignorance the people deified many of those causes, to which much of their polytheism owed its origin. REV. FEE. 1812. N which to come, which is expressed in the latter part of this: but it is not necessary to express it. Thus we have in Acts xvii. 30. T Xe Tayvas, which does not mean "times of ignorance" in general, nor any times of any ignorance past, present, or - but certain times of a certain ignorance, the times of the ignorance which prevailed in those days. A similar phrase occurs in 1 Cor. x. 13. ποιήσει συν τω πειρασμῳ και την εκβασιν, and in many other places both of the sacred and the profane writers. We must here suspend this long investigation, which we propose to terminate in our next number: where we shall fulfil our promise to consider the possessive relation, or the power which the article is supposed to have of expressing the possessive pronoun. [To be continued.] ART. VI. Mr. Bentham's Theory of Punishments and Rewards, edited in French by M. Dumont. [Article continued from the Rev. for January, p. 71-80.] OUR UR observations on the first volume of this interesting work have carried us much farther than we at first expected, and it still offers a number of topics which must not pass unnoticed. We shall advert to some of them in the present article, without following the order in which they are arranged by the writer. Under the head of Misplaced Punishments, which forms the text of a very ingenious chapter, it is painful to find that so many of the examples are furnished by provisions and enactments which make parts of the laws of England. In this class of punishments, the author places the proceedings which are adopted in cases of suicide in this country. The offender is punished as much as he can be; he is buried with ignominy, and his remains are treated with contumely: but what is this, compared with the punishment which the same proceedings indirectly inflict on his wife, and children, and creditors? The family has lost its protection and support, and this is the moment of which the law lays hold to overwhelm it with misery.'-To the sophistry which is commonly used in defence of this barbarous usage, Mr. B. replies: The wretched and indigent, then, who, after having calculated as Cato did, came to the same determination with him, are those alone who are judged according to the full rigour of the law. The sole remedy for these unnatural enactments is perjury;-perjury is the panacea. This must be the case while the law sets humanity and religion at variance.' Mr. Mr. Bentham remarks that the doctrine of Reprisals, as laid down by writers on public law, is liable to the same objections; although he grants that in some cases they are indispensable. Humanity,' he says, 'requires us as much as possible to limit them, to give them the greatest publicity, and to let them be preceded by declarations which shall announce them.' On this occasion, as well as many others, we have perceived that, however vigorous and intrepid are the author's thoughts, his decisions are always restrained by sober judgment: though eminently an original thinker, he is never a visionary; and if sometimes the boldness of his onset awakens our fears, we always find his conclusions to stand the test of reason and experience. Of every part of the nice disquisitions which constitute this singular chapter, such is our decided opinion. The so much disputed point of the Corruption of Blood is examined by the author in the same chapter, in his usual manner; and though he decides in favour of truth and reason, he candidly meets the difficulties which in particular cases surround the practical question, and admits that they may be such as to require qualifications of the abstract doctrine. 'State-crimes,' says Mr. Bentham, may arise from different causes; from want, from resentment, and from ambition: but in many instances they proceed from the purest motives. People do not or will not see that the character of rebel or of loyalist depends on the accidents of war; that individuals the most wise, and of the most innocent intentions, differ in opinion on the title of pretenders to the crown, or on Constitutional questions; and that party-spirit alone considers rebel and miscreant as synonymous terms. In unfortunate times, duties and rights become problematical; and the Hydes and Falklands, the Seldens and the Hamdens, threw themselves on contrary sides. Who can read the secrets of the heart? Some embrace a good cause from sordid considerations; and others adopt the bad from the best designs. When the rebellion of the chief is founded on conscientious motives, it is probable that his children and dependents are animated with the same dispositions. The rebellion may, in such a case, be a familycrime. Now, as to the case of secret treasons. If, for example, a chief sells himself to the enemy, if he commits one of those crimes which are always accompanied by bad faith, which arise out of sordid motives, and which are condemned by the universal voice of mankind, we can have no reason for regarding such an offence as a family-crime. His wife, children, and friends, are probably strangers to his intrigues ; which are, in all likelihood, as much concealed from them as from the rest of mankind. His dereliction, therefore, is no more a family⚫rime than murder or robbery. It is a personal crime; and whatever those who are innocent are made to suffer is pure loss. With regard to Deodands, the barbarism and cruelty of which are universally felt, Mr. Bentham says that the Athe N 2 nians nians banished from their territory the stone which, in falling, had killed a man: but we do not find that they confiscated the house of which it made a part.' In the chapter in which the author treats of Collective Punishments, he clearly points out the defects of the proceedings adopted in Parliament against the borough of Shoreham, when considered as a punishment. The visitations experienced by that place, by Cricklade formerly, and by Aylesbury more lately, were wholly unjust when regarded as isolated punish ments. Nothing in the present volume is more labored, nor of greater practical importance, than the discussion of the incapacity of giving evidence, which is decreed for so many offences by the law of England. We must, however, very reluctantly, pass on to other matters. While submitting the punishment of Death to the tests before laid down, and to which we have so frequently alluded, Mr. Bentham says that, as it respects taking away the power of injuring, it is complete; that, as it respects the crime of murder, it is analogous and popular; and that in all cases it is exemplary. Here he shews the absurdity of the extent to which Beccaria carries an observation, which we have before quoted; and which, when properly qualified, we deem to be just and highly important.-Mr. B.'s strictures on the punishment of death are among the most valuable in the volume; and their superiority will be very apparent, on comparing them even with the admirable remarks on the same subject by the author to whom we have been just referring. (Dei Delitti, &c. sect. 16.) In the course of the discussion, Mr. Bentham throws out an observation, the weight and application of which none will dispute. Such,' he says, is the situation of the greater number of malefactors, that their being is only a composition of many species of miseries; their life is a constant fever occasioned by the fear of the laws, and their ever-growing wants; and their existence, thus deprived of all that can give it value, would not be worth preserving, but for a few clandestine pleasures which they can purchase only by crimes.' Hence he Concludes that these unhappy creatures form a very different estimate of the value of life, from that of persons whose existence is more tranquil; and he supposes that legislators, in their reasonings on the subject, have not been aware of this fact. We agree with him in thinking that the punishment of death is, in every case except murder, unpopular; and that it will become the more so, as the public mind grows more informed, and manners are ameliorated. The word unpopular, as in all similar instances in this volume, is here used in a good sense, and |
