Laws are very convenient things, and yet those that are bound by them are seldom satisfied. All agree that laws are useful; all find pleasure in making them for others; and, all dislike the constraint they impose on themselves. It is a question, certainly very difficult to be resolved, whether, in the droll and unnatural state into which a great part of the world has now sunk, more evil would not arise from the perfect fulfilling and completion of the laws imposed by compact and force, in society and in legislation; than does accrue at present from the evasion of them. The evil which arises from the evasion of them, consists in the necessarily imperfect execution of those plans suggested by the wise folks of the times for the improvement of man and Society. The evil which would accrue from obedience to them, would be owing to the vanity, the prejudices, and the ignorance of those wise folks, who not able to understand and govern themselves, still pretend to comprehend and direct the world.

The importance of this question is such, that I shall leave it to my brothers of the class book to discuss; and I think this the wiser plan, because each of them is in possession of data, which at all events will be sufficient to introduce the question, though they may be too scanty for its resolution. It can scarcely be necessary for me to explain, that, by these data, I mean the little code of laws we have amongst ourselves for the management of the class book, and our observance of them.

Thus, there is a law, that each member shall take charge of the book for two months; another, that all the papers for the period shall be given in by the end of the first month; and a third, that the book shall be delivered up at the end of the period of two months to the next member in rotation who is to take charge of it:[…]