On the one hand, since the original effort of abstraction was in its completeness incommunicable, each generation of users of the word subtly changed its use.

On the other hand, the actions and institutions of mankind, from which the conception was abstracted, were as subtly changing.

Even although the manuscripts of the Roman lawyers survived, Roman law and Roman institutions had both ceased to be.

When the phrases of Justinian were used by a Merovingian king or a Spanish Inquisitor not only was the meaning of the words changed, but the facts to which the words could have applied in their old sense were gone.

Yet the emotional power of the bare words remained.