date

[xxxvi. 138] 1822 July 13 Constitut
[xxxvi. 138]

1822 July 13

Constitut. Code Rationale

Supreme Operative

I Monarch

One universally-applying maxim dictated by /the genuine fruit of/ the sinister interest, serves as a means of preservation to absurdity in every imaginable shape. Though the absurd institution or arrangement is not productive of any immediate advantage to yourself says the modern Machiavel to his patron preserve it notwithstanding: for though the existence of it does not serve, the abolition of it would disserve, your own particular interest. Why? Because to justify the abolition it would be necessary to lay down /bring into action/ some position, conformable to reason and subordinate and subservient bearing a reference more or less obvious to the all-comprehensive and universally applying principle - the greatest happiness principle. But by homage paid to that principle, you put arms into the hands of the adversary: when the absurd arrangement from which you derive no advantage is disposed of, presently after enters the adversary and proposes the abolition of an absurd institution and arrangement from which you do derive advantage, and which you can not spare thereupon for a ground for the proposition, out comes this position which, you yourself having made use of, and given your sanction /paid homage/ to you can not give up /oppose/, or elude the force of without rendering your insincerity and the corruptness of your disposition manifest without betraying and laying open to view the corruption with which your heart /whole frame of mind/ is impregnated

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  • Title: [[clx. 139] 1822 July 13 Constitut]
    Description: [clx. 139]

    1822 July 13

    Constitut. Code Rationale

    Supreme Operative

    I. Monarch

    Let /Be/ this the be the general rule /acted upon in all cases/ - whatsoever institution or arrangement is adverse to the universal interest is the result of the /of the rulers/ particular and thence sinister interest of the /in the hands of the/ ruling class. In few instances indeed if in any will the position be wrong in theory - where it is wrong the error will not be productive of any evil consequence in practice. Not so, if the cause being sinister interest the effect is ascribed to a mere error of the understanding to a disorder /derangement/ in the intellectual part of the machinery. In this case it is to the curing men of their error that all your exertions will be directed: to the changing into converts the opponents you have to deal with. Full of this conception You will keep labouring and labouring till you are tired: while you are labouring, the adversary is laughing at you in his sleeve.

    Another bad consequence. So much for the /your/ adversary - the corruptionist. Now for the bystander, before whom in the character of members of the Public Opinion Tribunal ? Seeing that even in your opinion, all its hostility notwithstanding, the fault if any is in the understanding of your adversary not in his will in the intellectual part of your adversarys frame not in the moral, they in their impartial situation can not think less favorably of him than in you /do/ in your hostilely partial situation: along with you, in their expectation of his [...?] they will keep looking for the time when by /in consequence of/ the rectification of his judgment, his conduct will be rectified, which time the cause of the wrong not being in that place will never come. All this while Had the real seat of the wrong been known to them they might have acted accordingly. Seeing the adversary in his true colours, they might have joined with you in acting upon him in the only quarter in which from this time to doomsday /to the end of time/ he can be acted upon with effect: they would /might/ have acted on his fears.

    ? See further on Ch ?.
  • Title: [1818 Nov. 4 Things as they are]
    Description: 1818 Nov. 4

    Things as they are

    Ch. 1. Psychological Causes

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    Address yourself to any member of the ruling few, ask him whether selfishness has any place, whether self interest has any power in his breast, he will answer you in the negative: or rather taking the question for an affront, such will be his indignation he will remain mute. But if for a designation of self-regarding interest as above explained - if for the designation of this universally operating and indispensably necessary principle in human nature there be no other terms than these, the answer he will thereby give you is not only a notoriously {absurd} one /false one/, but a most flagrantly absurd one.

    If this were all the mischief would not be great. But from /by/ /in/ the falsity from the absurdity, mark now the absurdity which is involved.

    As in my breast no such interest as self interest has place no such affection as self interest has any operation, the sense of my duty is the only efficient cause by which on every occasion my conduct is influenced. But my duty is or at any rate part of my duty is to serve the universal interest to serve the whole body of the people to the utmost of my power. Such accordingly is my constant aim: and this being the case, the exclusive advantage that belongs exclusively to me is the score[?] of intellectual aptitude and active talent being moreover the fruit of situation and experience, so[?] on no occasion can I fail of possessing an indispensable title to your confidence.
  • Title: [[xxxvi. 137] 1822 July 15 Constitut]
    Description: [xxxvi. 137]

    1822 July 15

    Constitut. Code Rationale

    Supreme Operative

    I. Monarch

    ?. Cause of Monarchical Misrule, sinister interest not upright prejudice.

    The amount of misrule and its effects being given, a standing question a question that on each occasion presents itself is - as to how much of it is it owing to moral inaptitude, how much to intellectual: how much to sinister interest, how much to prejudice, whether interest-begotten or derived from other causes: not to speak of intellectual weakness. The question however is a matter rather of curiosity than of use: of use to the purpose of affording direction /guidance/ to practice. Take this or that mischievous /anti popular/ arrangement at pleasure: if not its creation, its preservation is at any rate is the work of the sinister interest. Independently of the sinister interest, let /be/ the institution let the arrangement let/ be/ the phantasm of the imagination be ever so absurd, go back far enough, you may always find honest absurdity honest intellectual weakness sufficient for the engendering /creation/ of it. How can it be otherwise? for /since/ among the people at large notions fraught with absurdity are not without example notions which being adverse to the interest of all /those/ by whom they are entertained can not have had for their cause sinister interest at any rate can not have had correct conceptions of particular interest. But so long as it is by the sinister interest that the causes of evil are supported and maintained whether it was in sinister interest or in /the moral part or in/ the intellectual part of the mental frame that the evil had originally its rise matters nothing to any practical purpose Many are the instances in which that which at first sight will present itself as the result of intellectual weakness, will on scrutiny be found /seen/ to have been the genuine fruit of sinister interest: and the more closely the mechanism of misrule is scrutinized into, the more extensively will this genealogy be seen to have had place.

    Give examples