date

11 June 1811 32 36 Fallacies Authority
11 June 1811 32 36

Fallacies Authority worshipper

3

. 5. Prevalenve Causes

To J. C. Mind the transportation[?]

2

Of such a state of things one necessary consequence is - that, excepting /with the exception of/ those in whose instance by anti-constitutional dependence whatsoever intellectual qualifications this possess are reduced so much worse than useless, the body /House/ is composed of a set of men the furniture of whose minds is /consists/ of a compound /collection/ of jarring prejudices pushed out at and for each occasion out of such of the current prejudices as on that occasion present themselves as most favourable to their interests - to the species of interests to which it has happened to be brought into action /operation/ by the [...?] of the day.

1

Thus while a few only are in any degree of dependence on the people whose fate is in their hands, even these few are in a state of more efficient dependence on the set of men who to the purpose of good government and the acknowledged purposes of the [...?] /existing/ [...?]bution should be dependent upon them, while as towards the [...?] set of men the dependence of the rest of altogether efficient and compleat.

Between the possessers /holders/ /tenants/ of power /in power/ in possession and the holders of the same power or appropriate active talents are decided: of those who having nothing to sell but their votes are not worth purchasing at such price as men have to give - if walking or willing[?] bodies without minds are compared with few or no exception all who have any pretense to the promise[?] of probity and independence.
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    In every society there is a certain portion of knowledge or what passes for knowledge - call it knowledge, call it learning, call it instruction, call it information a certain portion of intellectual matter, useful, useless and mischievous taken all together which a man can no more avoid taking in more or less of it, that the /In an/ atmosphere which he breathes In the pursuit of fish or insects The curlew, the sea-gull can not dip its /her/ wings in the water but at every stroke she must take up a few drops.

    In speaking of ignorance and a seat in Parliament as natural concomitants all that is meant is that it is not in the power of even the grossest degree of ignorance to operate as a disqualification, not that in the Assembly in question ignorance constitutes of itself a title to a seat /is of itself the efficient case/, or that a seat is either /in the possession of a seat there is any thing which operates/ as a cause or as a proof of ignorance.

    Of those creations of the Crown by whose will the acts /of[?] [...?]/ of the House are so habitually and almost necessarily determined it is however the interest, the manifest and undeniable interest, that with the exception of those /such/ as it has been deemed worth while and found practicable to keep in a state of dependence under themselves, the ignorance should be as universal and as gross as possible. Why? Because the grosser the /their/ ignorance, the more compleatly and exclusively is the furniture of men's minds made up of those prejudices those interest-begotten prejudices, to which birth[?] and currency has been given in the existing state of things, for and for the benefit of the existing state of things - in the seat and source of corruption, in the very hope and for the very

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  • Title: [1 June 1811 Fallacies 31 35]
    Description: 1 June 1811

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    $ 5 Prevalence Cause

    3. Question How happens it /can it happen/ that in a place /situation/ for which /for the [...?] occupation of which/ the strongest talents would not be more than required there should /how is it that there can/ be any such failure of natural talents?

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    A man who is fit for nothing else - a man who is fit for absolutely nothing, is not the less likely to occupy a seat in the House of Commons.

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  • Title: [28 Nov 1809 Parl Reform Necessity]
    Description: 28 Nov 1809

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    1

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