the technical use of the word nerve has now become popular, and has expelled the old acceptation, which made it synonymous with muscle or sinew. (3)

§ 7 Another circumstance which often draws a technical term of politics from its strict sense, is its close connexion with some of the strongest feelings of aversion or affection which animate the human breast. Sir James Mackintosh speaks of the ethical philosopher as impeded by this obstacle to sound reasoning. 'In those most difficult inquiries, for which the utmost coolness is not more than sufficient, he is often forced to use terms commonly connected with warm feeling, with high praise, with severe reproach; which excite the passions of his readers, when he most needs their calm attention, and the undisturbed exercise of their impartial judgment. There is scarcely a neutral term left in ethics; so quickly are such expressions enlisted on the side of praise or blame, by the address of contending passions.' (35) Many of the terms used in politics, for instance, such terms as monarchy, republic, democracy, church, are in like manner connected with party feeling, patriotism, and religious sentiment, and serve as torches to kindle a whole train of emotions ready laid in every bosom. This description, however, only applies to a few political terms, though these may be important; and there is this difference between politics and ethics, that whereas the ethical feelings vary little from nation to nation, the technical terms of politics excite different emotions in different countries, and in some countries a term may be heard with indifference, which in others is a watchword of parties, and a provocative of angry controversy.

§ 8 The distinction which Dr. Whewell makes between terminology and nomenclature, that is, between a set of descriptive phrases, and a system of names for classes, applies principally to the physical sciences; and among the physical sciences, to

(34) We still retain a vestige of this meaning in the word nervous, as applied to style. A nervous woman means a woman whose nerves are easily excited; but a nervous style means a powerful and vigorous style.

(35) Ib. p. 6.

VOL. I.

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those which concern natural history and chemistry. (*) The business of nomenclature in physics, is to invent names for a series of natural objects or classes; as in human anatomy and physiology, in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, in mineralogy, and in chemical science. All the physical sciences require a nomenclature to a greater or less extent. In politics, however, there are no natural objects, like the bones, arteries, veins, and muscles of the human body, and no natural classes, like botanical species, to be named: the ideas and relations to be named are artificial; that is to say, they are the result of human arrangement, conditioned by natural laws. Political terms, therefore, rather resemble a technological than a scientific vocabulary: they resemble the names of the parts of a watch, of a steam-engine, of a ship, of a house, or of a fortress, rather than the names of the human bones, or of species in natural history.

For practical politics, however, an artificial vocabulary is requisite, which is framed less systematically indeed, but not less arbitrarily, than the nomenclature of a science. The legal terms of each country form a technical system, which has been built up by successive generations of lawyers; most of its words have no popular currency, and, when they have, the technical meaning, established by professional usage, is recognised by the public as the canon of interpretation, not less than the meaning of a technical term, as fixed by men of science, is recognised in the physical sciences. Such terms as guardian and ward, debtor and creditor, principal and agent, vendor and vendee, lessor and lessee, obligor and obligee, bailor and bailee, feoffor and feoffee, trustee and cestuique trust, the drawer, indorser and acceptor of a bill of exchange, the maker and payee of a promissory note, a bankrupt, an insolvent, the executor of a will, the administrator of the effects of a deceased person, plaintiff and defendant, and many others in the English law, are instances of

(36) See Aph. 2, concerning the language of science. In Aph. 88, concerning ideas, he says: Terminology must be conventional, precise, constant; copious in words, and minute in distinctions, according to the needs of the science.'

technical terms invented by lawyers, and bearing an analogy to the nomenclature of a science. Terms descriptive of degrees of consanguinity and affinity, and of different sorts of estates, as estate in fee, estate-tail, estate for lives, &c.; also terms of pleading, descriptive of forms of action, and the various steps and proceedings in a suit, or in an indictment; names of writs, as writ of habeas corpus, mandamus, fieri facias, &c., with other legal terms, belong to the same class. Each system of law possesses its own set of legal terms, but these terms are not necessarily peculiar to any one nation, inasmuch as several nations may, to a certain extent, use the same system of jurisprudence. Thus most of the continental nations, together with Scotland, agree in using a legal nomenclature founded on that of the Roman law; while most of the United States, together with the English dependencies colonized from England, use the terms of the English common law. For example, the fundamental distinction of property, which the systems derived from the Roman law designate by immoveable and moveable, the English common law calls real and personal; (*) and this difference of phraseology pervades all the countries in question. In deciding upon questions which involve a foreign domicile, and transactions in a foreign country, the courts of justice of one nation recognise the legal phraseology of another. (38)

Parliamentary language likewise has its technical terms, which acquire a fixed meaning in the same manner as legal terms, and are used with a precision recognised by a constant usage. Such, in the language of the English parliament, are the words bill, act, motion, resolution, readings of a bill, clauses, preamble, and title of a bill, committee, amendment, address to the Crown, conference, message, petition, vote, division, tellers, proxy;(39) many of which terms are similarly used in the countries whose institutions are derived from England. The

(37) The corresponding terms in the Athenian law were ovoía pave pà Kaì ápavýs, visible and invisible property.'-Harpocrat. in v.

(38) See Story's Conflict of Laws.

(39) See May's Law of Parliament.

Roman senate had likewise many similar terms to denote its legislative procedure, which are enumerated in treatises on Roman antiquities.(40)

International law, as it concerns no one country in particular, employs a phraseology nearly common to all nations; and where the several languages use native technical terms, their equiva lence to the corresponding terms in other languages is settled. Thus, the words designating treaty, convention, armistice, war, peace, siege, blockade, suspension of hostilities, truce, safe conduct, passport, spy, credential letters, ambassador, minister plenipotentiary, consul, factory, harbour, high seas, flag, pirate, privateer, run through all civilized languages, and their mutual interpretation is probably recognised in all diplomatic intercourse. This, again, is a sort of technical nomenclature; and the standard of interpretation, in case of dispute, is borrowed from authoritative writers on the law of nations, not from popular usage.

In the military and naval services, and in the business of administrative departments, where there are different degrees of official rank, and a great variety of duties to be performed, a necessity arises for a technical nomenclature similar to that used for describing the parts of a ship or machine. Not only in the army and navy, but in the revenue departments, as the Customs, Excise, and Post-office, in the administration of justice, the police, and other branches of the public service, an artificial phraseology for the description of a connected series of officers and powers is needed; and it is varied or enlarged from time to time as convenience may dictate. A similar necessity exists in the learned professions, as in that of law, and, to some extent, in that of medicine. The names of degrees in universities likewise belong to the same category.

Terms of finance, viz., those connected with the receipt and disbursement of the public revenue, with the public funds and securities, with coined and paper money, and with other pecu

(40) Compare Schoemann, de Comitiis Atheniensium, for the corresponding phrases at Athens.

niary transactions of a government, are likewise sometimes invented deliberately, in order to facilitate the operations of business; and they acquire a precise signification fixed by official usage.

In conducting the statistical operations of a government, questions of nomenclature frequently arise. It is necessary to form classifications, which bear some resemblance to the labours of the scientific naturalist. Thus, in taking the census of a nation, it may be requisite to classify the population according to their occupations, employments, trades, and other social relations; and in framing classes of this kind, there may be much opportunity for judgment and discretion, inasmuch as the classes thus arbitrarily formed and named are intended to furnish materials for reasoning.

$ § 9 We have already remarked, in this chapter, (") that although the names of titles of offices may pass unchanged through several languages, or may be expressed in different languages by peculiar terms, but with a recognised equivalence, yet they do not form classes, like names descriptive of a certain aggregate of political powers. Thus, as we have already shown, the class of kings furnishes no materials for a general proposition, because kings at different times and places have exercised very different powers. A similar remark applies to such titles of honour as duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron,(^2) to orders of knighthood, to titles of military and naval rank, as marshal, colonel, admiral. The names of ecclesiastical dignities and offices, as being derived from a common source, run through the languages of all Christendom; as bishop, dean, canon, priest,

(41) Above, § 4.

(42) Raumer (Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. v. p. 57) says, that although the title of the graf remained unaltered, the nature of his office, and its rights and duties, were different at different times. With regard to the pfalzgraf, or count palatine, he remarks, that the office was not only different at different times, but it was not the same at different places at the same time (ib. p. 64).

The variations in the powers and honours of the titles of duke, count, baron, &c., are traced at length by Selden, ib. part ii. ch. i. On the original application of the titles of duke and count to military commanders under Constantine, and the great subsequent change in their meaning, see Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, c. 17, vol. ii. p. 29.