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

...finds precepts that every human being should fulfill. "This book on duties," as the Abbot of Olivet very correctly says, "should be read and studied from beginning to end. Everything in it is equally important and equally beautifully stated. Everything is connected. One principle leads to the next and often requires the other to make it felt that moral philosophy constitutes a single body. Its parts are so inseparably linked that, after a correct investigation of both the nature of duties and the human heart, the man who is not honest in all things cannot be honest in any single part." (f)

(f) Thoughts of Cicero, by the Abbé d’Olivet Abbot Pierre-Joseph Thoulier d'Olivet, a French scholar and translator of Cicero. Preface, page 9. 1771 edition.

A small, decorative horizontal divider features a central floral or shell-like motif, commonly used in 18th-century printing to separate sections.

Part One.

Concerning Freemasonry, viewed as a social connection; What a well-ordered society is; Principles of such a society; Defects and dangers of a poorly ordered society.

But of all societies, none is more excellent, none more firm, than when good men, similar in character, are joined in intimacy. For that which is honorable original Latin: "honestum" (which we often mention), even if we see it in another, nevertheless moves us and makes us friends with him in whom it appears to reside.

Cicero, On Duties, Book I. Chapter 17.

Glorious, beautiful connection! Is there one more venerable, more desirable, or more lasting than that which consists only of upright men who, united by purity of morals,