in a general sense, the virtue of treating all other men according to reason and justice, or as we would be gladly treated ourselves when we understand aright what is our due. See JUSTICE.

in jurisprudence, is defined a correction or qualification of the law, generally made in that part wherein it failleth or is too severe. It likewise signifies the extension of the words of the law to cases unexpressed, yet having the same reason; so that where one thing is enacted by statute, all other things are enacted that are of the same degree. For example, the statute of Glanvile gives action of waste against him that holds lands for life or years; and by the equity thereof, a man shall have action of waste against a tenant that holds but for one year, or one half-year, which is without the words of the act, but within the meaning of it; and the words that enact the one, by equity enact the other. So that equity is of two kinds. The one abridges and takes from the letter of the law; the other enlarges and adds to it; and statutes may be construed according to equity, especially where they give remedy for wrong, or are for expedition of justice. Equity seems to be the interposing law of reason, exercised by the lord chancellor in extraordinary matters to do equal justice; and by supplying the defects of the law, gives remedy in all cases. See Chancery.

Mythology, sometimes confounded with Justice, a goddess among the Greeks and Romans, represented with a sword in one hand and a balance in the other.

Equivalent, is understood of something that is equal in value, force, or effect, to another.

Equivalence is of various kinds; in propositions, in terms, and in things.

Equivalent Propositions. See Equipollence.

Equivalent Terms, are where several words that differ in sound have yet one and the same signification; as everybody was there, and nobody was absent, nihil non, and omne.

Equivalent Things, are either moral, physical, or stational. Moral, as when we say that the commanding or advising a murder is a guilt equivalent to that of the murderer. Physical, as when a man who has the strength of two men is said to be equivalent to two men. Stational, whereby a less weight becomes of equal force with a greater, by having its distance from the centre increased.

Equivocal Terms or Words, among logicians, are those which have a doubtful or double meaning.

According to Mr Locke, the doubtfulness or uncertainty of words has its cause more in the ideas themselves, than in any incapacity of the words to signify them; and might be avoided, would people always use the same term to denote the same idea or collection of ideas: but, adds he, it is hard to find a discourse on any subject where this is the case; a practice which can only be imputed to folly or great dishonesty; since a man, in making up his accounts, might with as much fairness use the numerical characters sometimes for one sometimes for another collection of units.