Take, for example, the Constitution of the United States. By
adopting one or another sense of the single word "free," the
whole instrument is changed. Yet the word free is capable of some
ten or twenty different senses. So that, by changing the sense of
that single word, some ten or twenty different constitutions could
be made out of the same written instrument. But there are, we will
suppose, a thousand other words in the constitution, each of which
is capable of from two to ten different senses. So that, by
changing the sense of only a single word at a time, several
thousands of different constitutions would be made. But this is
not all. Variations could also be made by changing the senses of
two or more words at a time, and these variations could be run
through all the changes and combinations of senses that these
thousand words are capable of. We see, then, that it is no more
than a literal truth, that out of that single instrument, as it
now stands, without altering the location of a single word, might
be formed, by construction and interpretation, more different
constitutions than figures can well estimate.
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