'
'By establishing a system of laws as the rule of government,' said
HAMET, 'many evils will be avoided, and many benefits procured. If the
law is the will only of the sovereign, it can never certainly be known
to the people: many, therefore, may violate that rule of right, which
the hand of the Almighty has written upon the living tablets of the
heart, in the presumptuous hope, that it will not subject them to
punishment; and those, by whom that rule is fulfilled, will not enjoy
that consciousness of security, which they would derive from the
protection of a prescribed law, which they have never broken. Neither
will those who are inclined to do evil, be equally restrained by the
fear of punishment; if neither the offence is ascertained, nor the
punishment prescribed. One motive to probity, therefore, will be
wanting; which ought to be supplied, as well for the sake of those who
may be tempted to offend, as of those who may suffer by the offence.
Besides, he who governs not by a written and a public law, must either
administer that government in person, or by others: if in person, he
will sink under a labour which no man is able to sustain; and if by
others, the inferiority of their rank must subject them to temptations
which it cannot be hoped they will always resist, and to prejudices
which it will perhaps be impossible for them to surmount.
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