and cloth. Originally part of Poland, half the
population are Poles; except the Jews, most of the people are Catholics.
The capital is POSEN (70), on the Warthe, by rail 185 m. E. of
Berlin. It is a pleasant town, with a cathedral, museum, and library,
manufactures of manure and agricultural implements, breweries and
distilleries. It is now a fortress of the first rank. Gnesen and Bromberg
are the other chief towns.

POSIDONIUS, an eminent Stoic philosopher, born in Syria; established
himself in Rhodes, where he rose to eminence; was visited by Cicero and
Pompey, both of whom became his pupils; maintained that pain was no evil;
"in vain, O Pain," he exclaimed one day under the pangs of it, "in vain
thou subjectest me to torture; it is not in thee to extort from me the
reproach that thou art an evil" (135-34 B.C.).

POSITIVISM, the philosophy so called of AUGUSTE COMTE (q. v.),
the aim of which is to propound a new arrangement of the sciences
and a new theory of the evolution of science; the sciences he classes
under the categories of abstract and concrete, and his law of evolution
is that every department of knowledge passes in the history of it through
three successive stages, and only in the last of which it is entitled to
the name of science--the Theological stage, in which everything is
referred to the intervention of the gods; the Metaphysical, in which
everything is referred to an abstract idea; and the Positive, which,
discarding at once theology and philosophy, contents itself with the
study of phenomena and their sequence, and regards that as science
proper. Thus is positivism essentially definable, in Dr. Stirling's
words, as "a method which replaces all outlying agencies, whether
Theological deities or Metaphysical entities, by Positive laws; which
laws, and in their phenomenal relativity, as alone what can be known,
ought alone to constitute what is sought to be known." See Dr. Stirling's
"SCHWEGLER."

POSSE COMITATUS, a Latin expression, signifies the whole coercive
power of a county called out in the case of a riot, and embraces all
males over 15 except peers, ecclesiastics, and infirm persons. These may
be summoned by the sheriff to assist in maintaining the public peace,
enforcing a writ, or capturing a felon; but usually the constabulary is
sufficient for these duties.

POST RESTANTE, department of a post-office where letters lie till
they are called for.

POTEMKIN, Russian officer, bor