But there appears to some a preliminary question: that of the right of interpretation. About this there, however, can be no real question at all, even among those who support what we call the popular interpretation. How can they deny to others the right they claim for themselves, of adopting the interpretation that appears to them most in accordance with truth and fact? The third, the twelfth, the sixteenth, and all other centuries, had a right to interpret the document in the way which at the time seemed true. The nineteenth century has the same right. The men of other times interpreted it according to the combination of knowledge, and of ignorance, that was in them. We must do the same. Let us see, then, what is the difference between the popular, and the historical methods of interpretation. Proximately we shall find it very great; ultimately not much. But the point before us will not be fully understood until it be seen in a distinct concrete instance. The popular method goes on the assumption that the modes of thought, and the modes of expression of early ages, and of other races of men, must be accepted by us in the sense in which we must take anything addressed to ourselves by a contemporary author. This, the historical method tells us, is an impossibility. It has been rendered impossible by subsequent advances in knowledge, in the generalization of ideas, and in language through a larger use of general and abstract terms. The historical method says that archaic modes of thought, and modes of expression, must be translated into our modes of thought, and our modes of expression.