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Horst Steinke
140
287
For quick reference, they are in each case three kinds of:
natures, customs,
natural law, governments, languages, characters, jurisprudence, authority, reason, judgments,
sects of time.
288
The relatively modest size of Book IV (as segment
C’
) allows highlight-
ing of a few relevant expressions in each section:
I. § 918: «The third was human nature […], recognizing for laws con-
science, reason, and duty».
II. § 921: «The third was dutiful, taught to everyone by his own sense of
civil duty».
III. §§ 922-924: «The first law was divine […]. The second was heroic law
[…]. The third is the human law […]».
IV. §§ 925-927: «Three kinds of governments (divine/aristocratic/
human)».
V. § 929: «The first of these [languages] […], from which there survived in
Roman civil law the
actus legitimi
[…]».
VI. § 936: «In views of this sovereignty over languages and letters, the free
peoples must also be masters of their laws, for they impose on the laws the
senses in which they constrain the powerful […]».
VII. §§ 937-940: «Three kinds of jurisprudence (divine/heroic/human)».
VIII. §§ 944-946: «Three kinds of authority [legitimization] (by property
ownership/guardianship/credit or reputation for wisdom)».
IX. §§ 947-951: «Three kinds of reason [governance] (divine [theocra-
cy]/aristocratic/free popular states or monarchies».
X. §§ 955, 965, 974: «Three kinds of judgments [legal system/law en-
forcement] (family fathers [patriarchal]/law of the heroic gentes/human, i.e.
governed by the facts, equal utility of causes».
XI. §§ 976-979: «Three sects of times (under divine governments/the
punctilious [honor bound]/civil); these sects are the proper sects of Roman
jurisprudence». The Marsh translation uses the expression «schools of
thought», while Hösle/Jermann employ the term «Epochen des Zeitgeistes
(epochs of
Zeitgeist
)». De la Villa renders it as «Tres períodos de tiempo», stat-
ing in a footnote: «Estas
sètte,
como aclara después Vico, son las
costumbres
, us-
anzas o características; a lo que también se alude, a veces, como la mentalidad
de una época, el “espíritu del tiempo”, o período (These
sètte
, as Vico later
makes clear, are the
customs
, habits or characteristics; there are also allusions to
it, at times, as the mentality of an era, the “spirit of the times”, or period)»
(
Ciencia nueva
, cit., p. 643, footnote 64). The Pons translation reads: «Trois
sectes des temps», and in the Glossary explains: «On a rapproché la notion
vichienne de «secte des temps» de celle d’“esprit général d’une nation”, chez
Montesquieu, ou d’“esprit du temps” (
Zeitgeist
) et de “vision du monde” (
Welt-