JB_160_255.xml

Title: [[clx. 255] 1822 July 9 Constitut]

Description: [clx. 255]

1822 July 9

Constitut. Code Rationale

Securities

Factitious honor

?. Expository matter

? Proof of merit fallacious

To /With/ the word merit if any clear idea is attached to it is attached /stands associated/ the idea of service: for by him to whom merit is ascribed, suppose no service rendered or endeavoured to be rendered to any body, the idea of merit evaporates and leaves the word in a state of non-significance.

/Moreover/ If then in virtue of /according to the intimation given by/ the dignity conferred on /ascribed to/ him and the claim /alledged title/ to respect given to him, he has rendered service to any body it must have been service of the meritorious kind: service by the rendering of which the existence of merit has been displayed

This /Moreover this/ service must have had something extraordinary in it - in its nature: something whereby it stands distinguished from ordinary service from service in those shapes in which it is customarily rendered by every body to every body by every dealer for example to his customer by every customer to his dealer - by every seller to his purchaser, by every purchaser to his seller.

As in the case of service so in the case of respect the value /worth/ of it if it has any must consist either of a certainty (as in case of a past event /where the event is past/) or of a probability of pleasure in some shape or other experienced or pain in some shape or other escaped from /averted/ and not experienced.

Laying all together - the intimation given /conveyed/ by the /an/ act by which a title of honor is conferred is - that the individual on whom it is conferred has in some determinate shape or other rendered to some individual or individuals or to the whole community together, service of a meritorious and in some way or other [...?] of an extraordinary cast /kind/, and has thereby shewn /proved/ himself to be possessed of dignity - i.e. by such service to have given himself a title to receive at the hands members of the community in question at large in general, tokens of respect, of the existence of the sentiment of respect in relation to him in their minds in relation to him, as if in payment or part payment of such service.

JB_160_305.xml

Title: [[clx. 305] 1822 July 11 Constitut]

Description: [clx. 305]

1822 July 11

Constitut Code

Factitious dignity /honor/

?. Expository matter

Russia and England

Baronetcy

Besides the classes in which its operation is productive of political corruption in a manifest manner altogether manifest as being the manifest reward of obsequiousness to the sinister interest of the Monarch and his other instruments it has comparatively of late years been made to diffuse /extend/ its poison to the Medical department. Setting aside factitious honor in this and other shapes, celebrity in Medicine would naturally be proportioned to skill in medicine, and thence to the /any/ extraordinarily meritorious service that came to have been rendered in that line - rendered - as the nature of the case - to individuals only /alone/ setting aside /with the exception/ the class of government [...?]: i.e. common Soldiers and Common Sailors: and in this case if genuine[?] scientific merit has /beholds/ its rival and competitor in the arts of gossiping and general obsequiousness, the evil has in this case its cause not in human institution but in the nature of the case. But of late years a custom has sprung up of making Baronets out of Physicians and Surgeons. What has been the consequence? Without Royal or Ministerial favor no man /such practitioner/ can have received any /one factitious/ instrument of felicity in this shape whatsoever may have been his professional merit /excellence/. But with the help of those same causes of advancement, men without any the smallest particle of professional merit /extra-aptitude/ may have received it in any number What is the natural consequence? To particular individuals, death and affliction by death through unapt medical treatment: to the public /community/ at large, evil by extent given to corruptive influence - to gain /obtain/ the requisite concurrence /favor/ at the hands of the arch-corrupter and his instruments, the medical practitioner will have been urged to apply in aid of his appropriate and professional skill, his skill in the arts of gossiping and obsequiousness to the fixing or engaging his patients in the track of corrupt obsequiousness and subservience to the sinister interest of the ruling and other influential classes of those same public enemies.

The title of honor operates as a certificate of professional extra-merit: and considering by whom signed it is naturally a false and deceptitious one. Along with The political poison of /political/ corruption is thus spread the physical poison of disease. The spread of the political poison has naturally been among the motives if not the only motive in which this custom has had its origin.

JB_160_246.xml

Title: [[clx. 246] 1822 June 28 Constitut]

Description: [clx. 246]

1822 June 28

Constitut Code

Securities for I Moral

Ch Factitious Dignity excluded

1. Note that in the case here in question the reward is extraordinary reward rendered in consideration of extraordinary service. This will be either service rendered by an individual at large by an individual who was not by any official situation laid under the obligation of rendering the service or service rendered by a public functionary over and above all such service as in virtue of his office he stood bound to render.

2. Note likewise that the question here is - not between reward in other shapes and reward in the shape of dignity; but only between reward in the shape of natural dignity, and reward in the shape of factitious dignity

Cases there are in which the nature of the service is such that to constitute an adequate inducement in relation to it an inducement of sufficient strength to cause the service to be rendered dignity can not in any shape be sufficient: reward in a more substantial and universally acceptable shape, viz. in the shape of money - is necessary. Take for example extraordinary service rendered at the hazard of life limb and health in the line of military service. Accordingly in the wisest and most frugal of all governments as yet in existence - the government of the United States, for the procurement of such service reward in this shape is not grudged. To /For/ the widow and orphan of him who is killed in the performance of such service a pension is profited. So likewise for him by whom in the performance of service in that shape a limb has been lost or other comparable bodily damage sustained.

3 Note likewise that when Factitious Dignity is spoken of as a species of reward marked for exclusion by it is meant Factitious Dignity considered in the shape and manner in which it is ordinarily conferred in Monarchies - i.e. without the collection and publication of evidence probative of the existence and indicative of the nature and shape of the service, in remuneration of which it is desired that it should be understood to have been conferred.