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 epithets, and suspending judgment till we know that the use of the epithet is justified, the trifling superficial sign becomes for us practically the whole meaning of the word. We feel that we must have a judgment of some sort at once: only simple signs are suited to our impatience. It was with reference to this state of things that Hegel formulated his paradox that the true abstract thinker is the plain man who laughs at philosophy as what he calls abstract and unpractical. He holds decided opinions for or against this or the other abstraction, _freedom_, _tyranny_, _revolution_, _reform_, _socialism_, but what these words mean and within what limits the things signified are desirable or undesirable, he is in too great a hurry to pause and consider.