It is an ancient and well established rule of law for the interpretation of written instruments that when the meaning of the words used is not so clear as to leave no room for doubt and when there thus exists what is called in law an ambiguity, it is proper to consider the circumstances surrounding the execution of the instruments, so that, by placing ourselves as nearly as possible in the same situation in which the persons who executed the instrument were at the time of its execution, we may have a basis for forming a reasonable opinion as to which of two or more possible constructions is correct. That such an ambiguity exists in the Declaration is undeniable. Opinions concerning the meaning of its philosophic statements, and indeed of nearly all its statements, differ between extremes at one of which are arrayed those who, with Rufus Choate and John James Ingalls, regard its philosophic declarations as "glittering generalities," and at the other of which stand that great body of men and women, living and dead, who, with Abraham Lincoln, believe, and have believed, that these declarations are the foundation of the only true and final science of politics. Following this ancient rule of interpretation, therefore, let us consider the circumstances surrounding the Declaration of Independence. From the earliest times, the political philosophy of the people of America was directly connected with the religious and political philosophy of the Reformation. The essence of that philosophy was that man was essentially a spiritual being; that each man was the direct and immediate creature of a personal God, who was the First Cause; that each man as such a spiritual creature was in direct and immediate relationship with God, as his Creator; that between men, as spiritual creatures, there was no possibility of comparison by the human mind, the divine spark which is the soul being an essence incapable of measurement and containing possibilities of growth, and perhaps of deterioration, known only to God; that therefore all men, as essentially spiritual beings, were equal in the sight of all other men. Luther and Calvin narrowed this philosophy by assuming that this spiritual nature and this equality were properties only of professing Christians, but Fox, followed by Perm, enlarged and universalized it by treating the Christian doctrine as declaratory of a universal truth. Penn's doctrine of the universal "inner light," which was in every man from the beginning of the world and will be to the end, and which is Christ,--according to which doctrine every human being who has ever been, who is, or who is to be, is inevitably by virtue of his humanity, a spiritual being, the creature of God, and, as directly and immediately related spiritually to Him, the equal of every other man,--marked the completion of the Reformation.