XVIII.

PUBLIC.-PRIVATE.-POLITICAL.-CIVIL.MUNICIPAL.

PUBLIC, as opposed to private, is that which has no immediate relation to any specified person or persons, but may directly concern any member or members of the community, without distinction. Thus the acts of a magistrate, or a member of a legislative assembly, done by them in those capacities, are called public; the acts done by the same persons towards their family or friends, or in their dealings with strangers for their own peculiar purposes, are called private. So a theatre, or a place of amusement, is said to be public, not because it is actually visited by every member of the community, but because it is open to all indifferently; and any person may, if he desires, enter it. The same remark applies to public houses, public inns, public meetings, &c. The publication of a book is the exposing of it to sale in such a manner that it may be procured by any person who desires to purchase it: it would be equally published, if not a single copy was sold. In the language of our law, public

appear to be distinguished from private acts of parliament, on the ground that the one class directly affects the whole community, the other some definite person or persons.

Political signifies that which relates to a state, or a society of persons comprising several families, and united for the purpose of government. Hence man is called a political animal, as having a tendency to form a communion more extensive than a family; that is, an union of parents and children, together with their slaves or servants. Social has a wider signification than political; for man would be a social animal, if he merely lived in families: but, in order to be a political animal, he must form collections of families, or states.* In like manner, political science is that science which treats of the government of sovereign communities: political questions are those questions which relate to this matter: a politician is a person who occupies himself about such questions, &c. Hence, political economy is that science which is concerned about the economy of a state, which examines the same subject matter in respect of a political

* See Locke on Government, b. 2. § 77. To the "public relations of magistrates and people," Blackstone opposes "the private economical (i. e. family) relations" of master and servant, husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, 1 Com. 422. On the distinction between families and states, see Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. 1. p. 264. Eng. tran.

community, which domestic economy examines in respect of a family. Originally, the words economy and economical were employed exclusively (according to their etymology) to signify the management of a family; and, in this sense, they are constantly used by Xenophon, whose Economics have no connexion with political, and are confined alone to private management. The same remark applies to the first book of the Economics attributed to Aristotle; and it is one of the many marks by which we are enabled to discover that the second book of those Economics is the work of a later writer than the first for in this treatise the word economy has reached its modern acceptation, and is applied to national, as well as domestic finance. The Economics of Cicero, though written at a more recent period, retained the ancient use of the word, and were confined within the original limits of the science, as being chiefly derived from those of Xenophon.* The analogy by which the word economy has been

* Oikovoμía was rightly explained by Cicero to mean not the management of a house, but of a man's entire property : "non gubernationem villæ, sed dispensationem universæ domus." (Vol. 4. part 2. p. 472. ed. Orelli): olкos, in the language of the Athenians, being different from oixía, and signifying not house, but estate and effects generally. Cicero's treatise contained three books; the first, on the domestic duties of the mother; the second, on the duties of the father abroad; the third, on agriculture (ibid. p. 476).

transferred from the affairs of a family to those of a state, to signify the regulation of its income and expenditure, and the general arrangement of public finance, seems perfectly unobjectionable: nor can I perceive why the term Political Economy should not be considered as an appropriate and convenient name for this important department of political science. The term Catallactics, which has been proposed as a substitute for it, even if its derivation were correct, would not be sufficiently comprehensive, if we understand an exchange to bear its common meaning of a voluntary or unconstrained dealing between two parties. For although the payment of taxes may be ultimately resolved into an exchange, yet taxes are levied from a man without his consent, and by virtue of the sovereign authority. The science of exchanges would not, therefore, properly include the doctrine of taxation, which has always been correctly considered as belonging to the province of Political Economy.

Much importance has been attached by many political writers to the distribution of rights and wrongs into certain classes, determined by their public or private character. Thus Blackstone

* Whately's Lectures on Political Economy, p. 6.

The word каTαλλαкTIкòç never has any reference to exchanges, but means reconciling or forgiving. In Aristot. Rhet. b. 1. ch. 9. § 31, it has the sense of practicable.

says, that " wrongs are divisible into, first, private wrongs, which, being an infringement merely of particular rights, concern individuals only, and are called civil injuries; and secondly, public wrongs, which, being a breach of general and public rights, affect the whole community, and are called crimes and misdemeanours."* This division is correct, though the reasons here given for it are untenable. A crime is called a public wrong, and a civil injury is called a private wrong, not because one respects the community, the other an individual; but because one offence is prosecuted by a public magistrate, and the offending party is punished for the benefit of the community; the other is prosecuted by the party wronged, and the offending party is compelled to make him compensation for the harm which he has sustained. The same act may be a crime in one country and a civil wrong in another, although its effects on individuals or the whole community are necessarily identical. Thus, according to the Mosaic law, adultery was punished by the death of both offenders, and was a crime: in England it is only a civil injury, for which the husband has a remedy against the adulterer by suing him for a pecuniary compensation, and against the adulteress by suing her for a divorce. If adultery was made a crime in this

* 1 Com. 122.