Abhandlung über die allgemeine Zusammenkunft der Freymaurer, bei den Gesundbrunnen in Wilhelmsbad

of man, which were soon followed by acts of cruelty undertaken in heaps.

It was necessary to suppress these abominable robberies, to fix the boundaries of possessions, to secure the enjoyment of them, and to keep the bold man within bounds through force and threat. It was necessary to put a bit and a bridle on him, just as one tames a wild horse. While the steadfast man established the penal law, the venerable old man called the people, who had gone astray through passion, back to the feelings which the hand of the Creator had engraved in their hearts. To give this meritorious work more power, God engraved the sign of the priesthood upon the forehead of the one who first practiced this pious office.

This is the origin of positive legislation. (g) These simple precepts then required no greater extent than the physical and moral needs of society, and those were few. But people created needs for themselves, and sophistic disputes confused the small sum of the commandments. Then one saw a hundred others arise from one most simple, clear law, and the scholars

(g) Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws. Book I. Chapter 3. Cicero, On Duties. Book II. Chapter 12.

obscured through their explanations this very law which they wanted to clarify and from which they wanted to draw conclusions. If one gets lost from the straight path in a forest, it requires time to find it again. And so one has not yet succeeded in tracing our laws back to simpler principles, although it is said without ceasing that regulations are all the better the fewer of them there are, and the simpler and more concise they are.

For one who knows the essence of justice, it is not difficult to make good laws. The good and the useful constitute this essence of justice. To be sure, few people apply themselves to the study of what is just, good, and useful. Indeed! They misjudge its distinguishing character. They do not know that everything which is just is also good and useful, and that nothing is useful which contradicts integrity and justice. (h) The Sophists ancient teachers of rhetoric often accused of using fallacious arguments claimed in their deceptive disputes that some things could be useful and yet not honorable on that account. Socrates raised his voice against this false proposition and proved

(h) original Latin: "Cui quidem ita sunt Stoici ascensi, ut quidquid honestum esset..." To this, indeed, the Stoics so agreed that they considered whatever was honorable to be useful, and nothing useful that was not honorable. Cicero, On Duties, Book III, Chapter 3; Book III, Chapter 21; Book III, Chapter 7.