578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



matical and ordinary sense of the words must be modified, so as to 

 avoid that absurdity or inconsistency, but no further. 



4. In construing any part of a writing, regard should be had to 

 the entire instrument. Other portions may throw much light upon 

 the one under special investigation or consideration, and greatly modify 

 the meaning which it would bear as an independent clause. Every part 

 of a writing should be brought into action in order to collect from 

 the whole one uniform and consistent purpose, if that is possible. 

 Accordingly, if one construction will give reasonable effect to every 

 part of an instrument, while another would require the rejection of 

 a part, the former will be preferred. 



These rules will probably prove sufficient for our present purposes. 

 In order, however, to make it plain to you, perhaps, it may be well 

 for me to give a concrete instance of their application by the courts. 

 I shall select the giving of charges or instructions to juries. In 

 passing upon a single instruction or charge it should be considered 

 in connection with all the other instructions and charges bearing on 

 the same subject, and if, when thus considered, the law appears to 

 have been fairly and impartially presented to the jury, an assignment 

 of error predicated upon the giving of such instruction or charge must 

 fail, unless, under all the peculiar circumstances of the case, the 

 appellate court is of the opinion that such instruction or charge was 

 calculated to confuse, mislead or prejudice the jury. In determining 

 the correctness of charges and instructions, they should be considered 

 as a whole, and, if as a whole they are free from error, an assignment 

 predicated on isolated paragraphs or portions, which, standing alone, 

 might be misleading, must fail. Again, where an instruction, as far 

 as it goes, states a correct proposition of law, but is defective because 

 it fails to qualify or explain the proposition it lays down in con- 

 sonance with the facts of the case, such defect is cured if subsequent 

 instructions are given containing the required qualifications or ex- 

 ceptions. It is not required that a single instruction should contain 

 all the law relating to the particular subject treated therein. 



I believe that these are all the legal propositions to which I wish 

 to call your attention. I might add that the object of judicial inter- 

 pretation of instruments is not to discover the intention of the maker 

 or writer by the use of any and every legitimate means, but rather to 

 take the instrument itself and determine such intention from the words 

 used therein. 



It would really seem that the rules of grammar and the laws of 

 language would be all that we should need in order to determine what 

 Professor James meant in the quoted passages, but even if we should 

 apply these legal rules in all their strictness I do not believe that we 

 should be left in any state of doubt or uncertainty. But we are not 



