 In any event, originalists can differ on the role, in constitutional interpretation, of goals and purposes, often referred to as further intentions. An originalist might be prepared to allow some further intentions to override original concrete understandings in some cases, while another might reject the use of such intentions altogether. One reason for the latter’s reluctance—and for the focus by most contemporary originalists on ordinary public meaning, as opposed to original intentions—is likely to be that the historical evidence concerning the existence and content of such intentions tends to be highly unreliable or inaccessible to later interpreters. One of the essential functions of law is the guidance of behavior. Yet one cannot be guided by a law unless one understands it, knows what it means. And if its meaning depends on factors about which there is great dispute, or which are largely inaccessible, as is quite often the case when it comes to the intentions of long-dead authors, then one cannot be guided by the law. Hence, rule-of-law arguments can be used to justify precluding (significant) appeal to authors’ intentions (further or otherwise) in all but exceptional cases. A second reason for rejecting appeal to further intentions is the fact that there is an important difference between what a constitution actually says or means and what those who created it might have wanted or intended to achieve in creating it. Interpretation is an attempt to retrieve so as to conserve or enforce the former, not the latter.