author; and if he be not deserving an equal degree of gratitude and reward for the good of which it is the instrument, he is at least liable to all the blame and punishment to which its publication might have subjected the author. To the author, a translator is bound not to misrepresent or pervert his work, or to make him say what he does not intend to say; and to the public he is under a similar obligation. A translator stands in the same relation to the public, that an interpreter in a court of justice does to the court. If he knowingly interpret falsely, he is of course guilty of perjury, and morally responsible for all the consequences of his act; if ignorantly, though not chargeable with the guilt of perjury, he is at least morally responsible for all the consequences.

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We have made the foregoing remarks, not so much for the purpose of establishing a rule by which to try the translator of Jouffroy, as for that of announcing our opinion, that there really is a moral rule on this subject, and of indicating what in our judgment are the duties of a translator. To judge by many modern specimens which we have seen, we should suppose, that the business of a translator was not to render the "sense and spirit" of his author, but to make a readable book in another language, on the same or some kindred topic; in short, to make a paraphrase rather than a translation; and this the literary operative has a perfect right to do, provided he do not deceive the public by imposing his work upon them as a translation. One, who undertakes a translation, thereby assumes, in the first place, that he has the ability to present the "sense and spirit" of his author in the language into which he proposes to render him; and, in the second place, he promises the author and the public, that he will do so. If he fails in his undertaking, for want of the requisite ability, he is nevertheless responsible to the author and to the public, in precisely the same degree and manner as if his failure had been owing to

carelessness or bad faith; and a critic, consequently, in pointing out examples of a perversion of the sense and spirit of the original, with a view to censure, is not bound to distinguish between those which are evidently the result of ignorance, and those which have their source in the translator's bad faith.

We shall, therefore, consider the rule on the subject of translation to be, that a translator is under an obligation to the public, as well as to the author of the book which he undertakes to translate, to preserve and bring out in his translation the sense and spirit of the original; and if he fail to do this, his offence against the public partakes in a greater or less degree of the crimen falsi, while that against the author amounts to something of the nature of libel or defamation.

If we try Mr. Channing's translation of Jouffroy by this rule, we shall find that he has not in all instances preserved the sense and spirit of his author; but that he has occasionally perverted both, in some instances through mere haste and want of care, and in one intentionally and designedly. In regard to sins of ignorance, we think they are due almost wholly to the translator's having underrated the difficulty of his task. In regard to intentional perversions, they are undoubtedly attributable to a desire on the part of the translator to improve upon his author, and to make a more readable book than he supposed a correct (or literal) translation would have been. As for any "moral discredit," there is certainly no ground for charging it upon Mr. Channing. We think he has done wrong; and we cannot help being vexed with him for taking, as we think, the unwarrantable liberties he has done with a favorite author; but we have no doubt, that he would be as unwilling as ourselves to do that author any intentional wrong.

The first fault, which it is proposed to notice, and which we alluded to in our former notice, is one undoubtedly in

tentional, and committed for the purpose of making a more English translation, than a strict version would have been, of the title of the work. Mr. Jouffroy calls his book an Introduction or Prolegomena to Natural Right, using the word right in the sense which we commonly give to the word law taken in its broadest signification; so that in English the title should be, an Introduction to Natural Law. Mr. Channing

In order

denominates his work an Introduction to Ethics. to justify himself in this title, Mr. Channing has, we believe in every instance, substituted ethics for right or law, where that substitution would not render his English unreadable, as well as where the sense would admit of it; but where the context would not admit of such a translation, without leading to absurdity, Mr. Channing has not scrupled to omit whole sentences and paragraphs of the original, which, for any thing we can see, are equally important to the development of the author's ideas, as any other part of his work. Here, then, we have, at once, as the result of the translator's attempt to improve upon his author, misstatement and concealment; that is, the author is made to say some things which he does not say (and which would not be true if he had said them,) and he is prevented from saying to his American readers some things which he deemed it of importance to say to his French audience.

We suppose the translator would justify this change in the title of the work upon one of two grounds :-either that the work, to which this is an introduction, is a treatise on Ethics, and not on Natural Right; or that Ethics and Natural Right are one and the same thing; in which case, that translation which is the most English is of course the best. In regard to the first ground, as the treatise itself is not yet published, it would be mere presumption in the translator to undertake to say, that it is a work on ethics rather than on natural law; and it would be equally presumptuous in him to undertake to give the work itself a name by infer

ence merely from the character of the introduction; since the author has a perfect right to introduce his work to his readers in any manner that he pleases. He may choose an ethical introduction to a legal treatise, or he may think proper to present his readers with a treatise on ethics, preceded by a legal introduction. The title of the two volumes before us does not depend so much upon their contents, as upon the contents of those which are to follow, to which these are the prolegomena; and, therefore, if those constitute a treatise on Natural Right or Law, these are an Introduction to Natural Law. If we had the latter now before us, we should hesitate long before we ventured to substitute a title different from that given by the author, merely because we deemed it a better one; but so long as the work itself remains behind, we think it would be wholly unjustifiable to change the title, merely because the introductory chapters would seem to admit of or even to require it. In regard to the second ground of justification, namely, that ethics and natural law are the same thing, and that ethics is the better and more English expression of the two, we say, that they are not the same thing, but the correlatives of each other, like the terms debt and credit, — debtor and creditor; ethics or morals being the science of duty, as law is the science of right. Both these have their foundation in, or rather depend upon, the doctrine of moral obligation; without which, as there would be no duty incumbent on any one, so there could be no right existing in any other: consequently, it would be perfectly proper, or rather not improper, to commence a treatise on either right or duty with a preliminary dissertation on the theory of obligation. If, therefore, Mr. Channing did not like the title of Prolegomena to Natural Right, he might have called Mr. Jouffroy's work a dissertation on moral obligation, which it really is; in which case, he should have accompanied the title by an explanation, that it was introductory to the author's course

of lectures on natural law. This would not have been a falsification of the author's title, but an explanation of it, and as such both justifiable and proper. We apprehend, that it is, after all, owing to Mr. Channing's having overlooked the distinction, to which we have just alluded, that he has made this change of the title. We are somewhat surprised, however, that when he had determined to change the title, he did not call the work an introduction to morals, instead of entitling it an introduction to ethics; since the former would not only be English, but would also correspond to the French use of language; whereas the latter is much less common in English, and is not French at all.'

We have already remarked, that this change of title made it necessary for the translator to pervert some and altogether to suppress other passages of his author. We proceed to give examples. In the following extract we have an instance of perversion of the author's language.

"When we consider the meaning of the epithet natural, in the term natural ethics, we shall be led to understand by it all rules of conduct resulting from the nature of things, in all relations whatever to which reason can attain. Hence a very general acceptation of the word, which includes in natural ethics natural religion, personal morality, our duties to things, and all social rights and duties of every kind. But, on the other hand, if we particularly

1 We find the following definition of the term ethics in a modern French work of authority:

"Ethics is the synonyme of morals, from which it differs only in derivation; the former being derived from the Greek, while the etymology of the latter is Latin. The meaning of the two is exactly the same: both of them being used to designate that part of philosophy, which treats of the human activity, - of the law to which it is subject, and of the means by which it is brought to accomplish this law. The word ethic has become antiquated. In the schools, the word ethice, borrowed from the Latin authors, was employed; and hence the word ethic survived for some time in the language of philosophy; but it never had any currency in the ordinary language, and now it is entirely banished even from that of philosophy."