"Natural law, so far from being uncertain, when compared with statutory and constitutional law, is the only thing that gives any certainty at all to a very large portion of our statutory and constitutional law. The reason is this. The words in which statutes and constitutions are written are susceptible of so many different meanings,--meanings widely different from, often directly opposite to, each other, in their bearing upon men's rights,--that, unless there were some rule of interpretation for determining which of these various and opposite meanings are the true ones, there could be no certainty at all as to the meaning of the statutes and constitutions themselves. Judges could make almost anything they should please out of them. Hence the necessity of a rule of interpretation. _And this rule is, that the language of statutes and constitutions shall be construed, as nearly as possible, consistently with natural law._ The rule assumes, what is true, that natural law is a thing certain in itself; also that it is capable of being learned. It assumes, furthermore, that it actually is understood by the legislators and judges who make and interpret the written law. Of necessity, therefore, it assumes further, that they (the legislators and judges) are _incompetent_ to make and interpret the _written_ law, unless they previously understand the natural law applicable to the same subject. It also assumes that the _people_ must understand the natural law, before they can understand the written law. It is a principle perfectly familiar to lawyers, and one that must be perfectly obvious to every other man that will reflect a moment, that, as a general rule, _no one can know what the written law is, until he knows what it ought to be_; that men are liable to be constantly misled by the various and conflicting senses of the same words, unless they perceive the true legal sense in which the words _ought to be taken_. And this true legal sense is the sense that is most nearly consistent with natural law of any that the words can be made to bear, consistently with the laws of language, and appropriately to the subjects to which they are applied. Though the words _contain_ the law, the _words_ themselves are not the law. Were the words themselves the law, each single written law would be liable to embrace many different laws, to wit, as many different laws as there were different senses, and different combinations of senses, in which each and all the words were capable of being taken.