fects of the
popular conception and its tendencies to change and confusion, are
of the greatest practical importance. Take such words as _Monarchy_,
_tyranny_, _civil freedom_, _freedom of contract_, _landlord_,
_gentleman_, _prig_, _culture_, _education_, _temperance_,
_generosity_. Not merely should we find it difficult to give an
analytic definition of such words: we might be unable to do so, and
yet flatter ourselves that we had a clear understanding of their
meaning. But let two men begin to discuss any proposition in which any
such word is involved, and it will often be found that they take the
word in different senses. If the relation expressed is complex, they
have different sides or lines of it in their minds; if the meaning
is an obscure quality, they are guided in their application of it by
different outward signs.

Monarchy, in its original meaning, is applied to a form of government
in which the will of one man is supreme, to make laws or break them,
to appoint or dismiss officers of state and justice, to determine
peace or war, without control of statute or custom. But supreme power
is never thus uncontrolled in reality; and the word has been extended
to cover governments in which the power of the titular head is
controlled in many different modes and degrees. The existence of a
head, with the title of King or Emperor, is the simplest and most
salient fact: and wherever this exists, the popular concept of a
monarchy is realised. The President of the United States has more real
power than the Sovereign of Great Britain; but the one government
is called a Republic and the other a Monarchy. People discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of monarchy without first deciding
whether they take the word in its etymological sense of unlimited
power, or its popular sense of titular kingship, or its logical sense
of power definitely limited in certain ways. And often in debate,
monarchy is really a singular term for the government of Great
Britain.

_Culture_, _religious_, _generous_, are names for inward states or
qualities: with most individuals some simple outward sign directs
the application of the word--it may be manner, or bearing, or routine
observances, or even nothing more significant than the cut of the
clothes or of the hair. Small things undoubtedly are significant, and
we must judge by small things when we have nothing else to go by: but
instead of trying to get definite conceptions for our moral epit