To which we may add that such communication may be made not only by words, but by signs or gestures, like those used to the dumb; it makes no difference, whether those signs or gestures have any natural connection with the thing they are intended to signify, or whether such a connection is only assigned to them by custom. Equivalent to such signs or gestures is handwriting, which may be considered, as a dumb language, deriving its force not merely from the words used, and the particular form of the letters, but from the real intention of the writer, to be gathered from thence:--to be gathered either from the resemblance between the characters and the intentions, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, or from pure fancy, as among the Chinese. Here likewise another distinction is necessary to be applied in the same manner, as was done before, in order to remove all ambiguity in using the term of THE LAW OF NATIONS. For it was there said, that the laws established by independent and separate states, whether or no those laws implied any mutual obligations, were denominated the LAW OF NATIONS.[59] So that words, gestures, and signs, made use of to convey a meaning, imply an obligation, in all the persons concerned, to receive and employ them in their common acceptation. But the employment of OTHER MEANS, coming under NONE OF THOSE DESCRIPTIONS, cannot be construed into a violation of any social contract, although some may be deceived thereby. It is the REAL NATURE of the actions that is here spoken of, and not the ACCIDENTAL circumstances attending them: such actions for instance, as occasion no mischief; or if they do so, there is no guilt, where there is no treacherous design.