In the French, there exists for the designation of the act one name, viz. punition—acte de punition; and for the designation of the evil, the result or produce of that act, another name, viz. peine.

But though exempt from the ambiguity by which, as above, the English language is deteriorated, the French labours under another. By the word peine, the result is indeed secured against being confounded with the act that caused it. But, on the other hand, the use of this word is not confined to the case in which the object designated by it is the result of an act emanating from the will of a sentient being; it is at least as frequently employed to designate the object itself, without regard to the cause by which it has been produced.

Besides being too broad in one direction, the import of it is too narrow in another. It is synonymous to, and not more than coextensive with, douleur: it fails of including that modification of evil which is of the purely negative cast, consisting of the absence, certain or more or less probable, of this or that modification of pleasure.