date

[xxxvi. 26] 1821. April 25.
[xxxvi. 26]

1821. April 25.

First Lines.

Constitutional Finance

In so far as, with reference to that better and happily larger portion of the whole community, they are regarded as being, in this scale of public virtue and good behaviour, superior or equal, delusion has place. Screwing /Raising/ up to its maximum the degree and effect of this delusion is a third purpose in which, under this form of Government, public waste employs itself.

In an absolute Monarchy

In proportion to the quantity in which the waste employs itself in the affording of gratification to the appetites of the individuals in question, and by the whole of that quantity the purpose of delusion is completely /in a complete degree/ accomplished, and the purpose of corruption in a principal degree: To screw up the effect of corruptive influence to its maximum may probably require endeavours to an amount more or less considerable specially directed to that particular purpose: and Such endeavours are /being/ acordingly no where and never wanting, means are wanting for forming /pronouncing by/ any sufficiently grounded judgment whether, without such endeavours, the mere possession of that same or any other quantity of the subject matter of waste operating of itself in the character of matter of corruptive influence would, in the hands in question, be adequate to the production of the actual effect. Be this as it may, it will be, if it is not already, sufficiently manifest that, by the same quantity of the matter of wealth thus expended in waste by the hands in question, in addition to the gratification of the several appetites, those two other purposes, corruption and delusion - all three, though so inseparably connected, so perfectly distinguishable from each other, are produced.

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  • Title: [[xxxvi. 25] 1821. April 25]
    Description: [xxxvi. 25]

    1821. April 25

    First Lines

    Constitutional Finance

    In a limited Monarchy, the Financial Department has for its actual end the opposite of frugality, waste - the maximum of waste.

    In this species /Under this form/ of Government, this waste has three objects:

    1. Personal gratification to the several appetites of the ruling one and the sub-ruling influential and opulent few. This object, in so far as regards the appetites of the ruling one, it has in common with absolute monarchy.

    2. Corruption: exercise of corruptive influence for the purpose of securing corrupt obsequiousness on the part of those whose declared duty, and professed endeavour it is, to keep applied to the respective powers of the Monarch and the sub-ruling portion of the Aristocracy those limitations which they respectively acknowledge: corrupt obsequiousness to the effect of causing them to forbear the keeping actually applied those several limitations, thus rendering the Government in form and pretence limited; in effect to the benefit of the ruling one, and the sub-ruling the influential, and the opulent few, and to the sacrifice of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, absolute.

    3. Delusion. In /To/ so far as the waste applies /employs/ itself, by means of corruptive influence, to the production of corrupt obsequiousness, on the part of those self-acknowledged and self-professed trustees for the whole community, it employs itself in rendering them, and, in so far as it produces its intended effect, it actually does render them, by so much inferior, in respect of public virtue and good behaviour - in respect of benevolence, and that beneficence which is the fruit of benevolence upon the most extended /largest/ scale, inferior to the rest of the community taken at large - inferior to the subject many - inferior to the vast majority of the whole population of the country. In the same proportion as those in whom /on whose part/ corrupt obsequiousness is produced, are rendered inferior in these respects, those by whose corruptive influence this corrupt obsequiousness is produced, are rendered, in at least an equal degre, inferior,

    In

    in a word, with reference to their several functions, appropriate moral aptitude.
  • Title: [[xxxvi. 50] 1821. May 14. First]
    Description: [xxxvi. 50]

    1821. May 14.

    First Lines.

    Constitutional Instruments.

    Delusion

    John Bull is Gulliver under Liliputian chains insensibly applied.

    One great misfortune attendant on the use made of corruption and delusion is, the extreme facility with which the fabrication of these instruments of misrule is attended. Force and intimidation are not applied without special and strenuous exertions on the part of possessors of power, specially directed to the production of obsequiousness - the desired effect. Corruption and delusion are produced by him not only without any strenuous exertions, but without so much as any expence in the article of thought: are produced by him just as well when asleep as when awake.

    To exercise corruptive influence to any amount - to produce corrupt obsequiousness to any amount - it is not necessary that either endeavour, or so much as desire so to do, should have place in his mind. All that is necessary, is - the desire and the endeavour which, in his situation, is of course followed by accomplishment - the endeavour to produce and of course the production of waste. In a word, all that is necessary to him is, on every occasion that presents itself, to yield to the appetite for money in his own breast, or in the breasts of any individual or individuals connected with him in the way of interestor sympathy: for the purpose of their individual gratification, the money is put into their pockets: thereupon, by the eventual expectation of the like benefit from the like source, corruptive obsequiousness is produced in the breast and conduct of ten, twenty, or perhaps fifty times as many breasts as those in which the gratification attached to the receipt and expenditure of the money was produced.
  • Title: [1821. April 26. First Lines]
    Description: 1821. April 26.

    First Lines

    Constitutional Finance?

    II. Remains to be shown how it is, and whence it is, that the state of moral appropriate aptitude with relation to the functions in question being in the exalted situations in question such as has been described, the conception, commonly entertained in relation to it, has commonly been so opposite to the state of things as thus describeds and thereby so incorrect and opposite to truth. The cause of this delusion may be seen in the influence exercised by the high alliance - by the confederacy of power, factitious dignity, and excessive opulence partly through the medium of corruption, partly through the medium of force and intimidation on those discourses, written as well as oral, particularly those presenting themselves constantly to view in the written form by which information is conveyed, respecting this quarter of the field of thought and action, - in which instruction is sought, and by which opinion and affections are moulded.

    Take, in the first place, opulence even in that minor degree of force with which it operates when the field of its operation is confined to private life. Proportioned to the quantity of the matter of opulence which a man has at his command will be the quantity in which those who are in habits with him, or entertain a prospect of being in habits with him, may expect to share. Proportioned to the intensity of their respective appetites for such share will naturally be their endeavour to procure for those appetites their appropriate gratification according to all such means /actions and discourse together/ safe and not disreputable as they see within their reach. Proportioned to the success of such their endeavours will their own self-satisfaction and that gratiude as towards the author of it can scarcely fail, in some way or other, to be the accompaniment of it. In action as well as discourse, more particularly in discourse as being the cheaper article, will this gratitude, real and figned[?] tgether, find expression and give itself vent.