For want of defining terms, and especially for want of a clear understanding, almost all laws, that should be as plain as arithmetic and geometry, are as obscure as logogriphs. The melancholy proof of this is that nearly all processes are founded on the sense of the laws, always differently understood by the pleaders, the advocates, and the judges. The whole public law of Europe had its origin in equivocal expressions, beginning with the Salique law. _She shall not inherit Salique land._ But what is _Salique land_? And shall not a girl inherit money, or a necklace, left to her, which may be worth more than the land? The citizens of Rome saluted Karl, son of the Austrasian Pepin le Bref, by the name of _imperator_. Did they understand thereby: _We confer on you all the prerogatives of Octavius, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius? We give you all the country which they possessed?_ However, they could not give it; for so far were they from being masters of it that they were scarcely masters of their own city. There never was a more equivocal expression; and such as it was then it still is. Did Leo III., the bishop of Rome who is said to have saluted Charlemagne emperor, comprehend the meaning of the words which he pronounced? The Germans assert that he understood by them that Charles should be his master. The Datary has asserted that he meant he should be master over Charlemagne. Have not things the most venerable, the most sacred, the most divine, been obscured by the ambiguities of language? Ask two Christians of what religion they are. Each will answer, _I am a Catholic_. You think they are both of the same communion; yet one is of the Greek, the other of the Latin church; and they are irreconcilable. If you seek to be further informed, you will find that by the word _Catholic_ each of them understands _universal_, in which case _universal_ signifies _a part_. The soul of St. Francis is in _heaven_--is in _paradise_. One of these words signifies _the air_; the other means _a garden_. The word _spirit_ is used alike to express _extract_, _thought_, _distilled liquor_, _apparition_. Ambiguity has been so necessary a vice in all languages, formed by what is called _chance_ and by custom, that the author of all clearness and truth Himself condescended to speak after the manner of His people; whence is it that _Elohim_ signifies in some places _judges_, at other times _gods_, and at others _angels_. _"Tu es Petrus, et super hunc petrum ædificabo ecclesiam meam,"_ would be equivocal in a profane tongue, and on profane subject; but these words receive a divine sense from the mouth which utters them, and the subject to which they are applied.