The Epicure grants there is a God, but denies his providence.—Sydenham, The Athenian Babbler, 1627, p. 7.
Equal. The ethical sense of ‘equal,’ as fair, candid, just, has almost, if not altogether, departed from it. Compare ‘Unequal.’
O my most equal hearers, if these deeds
May pass with suffrance, what one citizen
But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame,
To him that dares traduce him?
Ben Jonson, The Fox, act iv. sc. 2.
Hear now, O house of Israel; is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?—Ezek. xviii. 25. (A. V.)
| Equivocal, | } |
| Equivocally, | |
| Equivocation. |
The calling two or more different things by one and the same name (æque vocare) is the source of almost all error in human discourse. He who wishes to throw dust in the eyes of an opponent, to hinder his arriving at the real facts of a case, will often have recourse to this artifice, and thus ‘to equivocate’ and ‘equivocation’ have attained their present secondary meaning, very different from their original, which was simply the calling of two or more different things by one and the same word.