consummate perfection. An observation which, perhaps, that writer at
least gathered from discovering some defects in the polity even of
this well-regulated nation. And, indeed, if there should be any such
defect in a constitution which my Lord Coke long ago told us "the
wisdom of all the wise men in the world, if they had all met together
at one time, could not have equalled," which some of our wisest men
who were met together long before said was too good to be altered in
any particular, and which, nevertheless, hath been mending ever since,
by a very great number of the said wise men: if, I say, this
constitution should be imperfect, we may be allowed, I think, to doubt
whether any such faultless model can be found among the institutions
of men.

It will probably be objected, that the small imperfections which I am
about to produce do not lie in the laws themselves, but in the ill
execution of them; but, with submission, this appears to me to be no
less an absurdity than to say of any machine that it is excellently
made, though incapable of performing its functions. Good laws should
execute themselves in a well-regulated state; at least, if the same
legislature which provides the laws doth not provide for the execution
of them, they act as Graham would do, if he should form all the parts
of a clock in the most exquisite manner, yet put them so together that
the clock could not go. In this case, surely, we might say that there
was a small defect in the constitution of the clock.

To say the truth, Graham would soon see the fault, and would easily
remedy it. The fault, indeed, could be no other than that the parts
were improperly disposed.

Perhaps, reader, I have another illustration which will set my