It contains first of all no less than five hundred fifty-six articles analyzing special cases from the Reports of Cases in the King's Bench, George Andrews, Robert Raymond, William Salkeld and Coke's "Institutes", for in a colony where no attempt had been made to codify the body of existing laws, and where the common law was the supreme law of the land, the first prerequisite to becoming a good lawyer was to assimilate an enormous number of cases and precedents. Jefferson proceeded, like all the law students of his time, to dig in "Coke upon Littleton" and others, putting down in his "Commonplace Book" decisions, discussions, definitions, matters of importance to a country lawyer, such as wills, devises, commercial contracts, cases on larceny, trespassing, debts, damages, bankruptcy, leases, libels; and he did it with his customary thoroughness and clarity. A detailed study of the "Commonplace Book" would be most illuminating for those who, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, still maintain that Jefferson was an impractical philosopher, interested only in abstract principles and in theory. On the other hand, he was not simply a country lawyer, either. If he had not seemed to manifest any interest in the abstract study of the principles of law, in what he used to call "metaphysical disquisitions", he was keenly interested in the historical development of the legal structure on which rested modern society and particularly the colonial society of Virginia. He carefully went through Lord Kames' "Historical Law Tracts" and studied from him the history of criminal law, promises and covenant, property, securities upon land, courts, briefs. It is in Kames that he found a definition of society which he could have written himself and which expresses his political individualism and subordination to law: Mutual defence against a more powerful neighbor being in early times the chief, or sole motive for joining society, individuals never thought of surrendering any of their natural rights which could be retained consistently with their great aim of mutual defence. This is elaborated upon in the passage quoted from the "History of Property": Man, by his nature, is fitted for society, and society by its conveniences is fitted for man. The perfection of human society consists in that just degree of union among the individuals, which to each reserves freedom and independency, as far as is consistent with peace and good order. The bonds of society where every man shall be bound to dedicate the whole of his industry to the common interest would be of the strictest kind, but it would be unnatural and uncomfortable, because destructive of liberty and independence; so would be the enjoyment of the goods of fortune in common.