date

1811 June 10 + 11 . 5 33 37
1811 June 10 + 11

. 5 33 37

Fallacies ad vericundum

Authority worshippers

4

. 6. Prevalence Cause

Power without responsibility - real and efficient responsibility - is power without obligation - real and efficient obligation. Power in so far as it is clear of obligation is property: power in so far as it is coupled and charged with obligation is a trust.

Obligation In every part of the field of action - and in every shape /exercise[?]/ obligation is in every shape a burthen, from which by the principle of self-preservation, by regard for his own case, by interest in that shape in which it may be termed the interest of the people, every man in proportion as be feels himself possessed by it feels himself urged and excited to endeavour to shake[?] off /[...?] himself/.

So happily have matters been mangaed so admirably in the /managing/ hands of the managers has public power been adjusted to the purposes of personal convenience, - the power which a man possesses /is in the enjoyment of/ by the possession /property/ of a box at the Opera is not less pure from obligation than the power which he is in the enjoyment of /put with/ by the possession of a seat in the House of Commons.

Power without obligation is the position of the Emperor of Morocco and /not to speak of/ the Emperor of France. Power without obligation is the position of the Members of the House of Commons, not to speak of the Member of the House of Lords.

The power of the Emperor is a whole: the power of the Member is but a part of a [.../]lar whole: in this lies all the difference.
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  • Title: [11 June 1811 35 39 Ch. | | Authority]
    Description: 11 June 1811 35 39

    Ch. | | Authority-worshippers

    6

    5. Prelavence Cause

    1. In the House of Lords or Commons as in the Opera House a man takes his seat each time that more amusement is offered /pronounced/ there than elsewhere, and at no other.

    2. For /such is/ the /a/ House of Commons as at the Opera House the same qualifications [...?] necessary as at the Opera House, a ticket begged or bought.

    3 With any such art or science in the art or science of legislation /government in any of its branches/ not much acquaintance is understood to be necessary: to enable a man to take but /occupy a/ seat in the Opera House: but just[?] as much as to enable him to take /occupy/ a seat in the House of Commons.

    In the Opera House a man does not feel himself bound by /the weight of/ any obligation other than that of abstaining from every thing by which annoyance or disturbance may be given to the ease and convenience of the company present: of these same obligations and no other does a man feel the weight in repsect of his /a/ seat in the House of Commons

    In the Opera House the length and frequency of his presence depends altogether on his own conception of what would be most agreeable to himself, in that single conception unmixt with any considerations of a public nature: in that single conception, with the exception of such member whpse votes are at the command of those /to/ whose power /it is/

    they

    their acknowledged duty and their pretended determination to apply a contrast - in that single conception, in its most perfect purity, short and casual occasion excepted or not excepted, depends the length and frequency of the same mans attendance in the House
  • Title: [June 1881 1811 June 11 + + 1 38 42]
    Description: June 1881 1811 June 11 + + 1 38 42

    To J. C. This is

    not

    Rudiment. Copy it. ad vercundum

    3 Ch | | Authority worshipper

    9

    6 Relevance Cause?

    Member = Emperor

    Parallel between the lot of a Member of Parliament a that of a Emperor of Morocco.

    1. Power without /equally pure form[?]/ obligation in the portion of the Emperor of Morocco not to speak of the Emperor of France. Power without obligation is the portion of the Member of the House of Commons: - not to speak of the House of Lords.

    2. The power of the Emperor is a whole /an integer/ /an integral quantity/: - the power of the Member is but a part of a sinister whole: - in this lies all the difference.

    3. An Emperor of Morocco may be as ignorant as he pleases: a borough-holding Member of Parliament may also be as ignorant as he pleases. No degree of ignorance renders it more difficult to a more than it would be otherwise. to become an Emperor of Morocco. Adequate borough property being in possession, No degree of ignorance renders it less easy to a man than it would be otherwise to become a Member of the House of Commons.

    4 Birth gives a man his title to undivided despotism enjoyed by an Emperor of Morocco: birth gives a man his title to the fraction of despotic power enjoyed by a borough-holding Member of the House of Commons.

    5. No fraud, no insincerity, no hypocrisy, no jargon is necessary, to enable a man to enjoy and defend the despotism enjoyed by an Emperor of Morocco. Perpetual fraud, perpetual insincerity, perpetual hypocrisy, a perpetual flow of jargon is necessary to enable the[?] man to enjoy and defend the [...?] scrap of fractional despotism enjoyed by a Member of the House of Commons

    6. By ascending /his mounting/ and maintaining himself on his throne, no acknowledged principle is violated by an Emperor of Morocco. By maintaining himself in his seat the most solemnly acknowledged as well as most vital of public principles is perpetually violated by a borough-holding Member of the House of Commons.
  • Title: [[mainly in copyist’s hand] 1819 Nov]
    Description: [mainly in copyist’s hand]

    1819 Nov 9.

    Benthams

    §.1. Seats & Districts

    {1. Seats & Districts}

    Over number Remedies

    3

    6

    Under any efficient obligation of attendance, to many a man, whose services might be of prime use, the nausea, produced by stale arguments, served up in a bas manner, would suffice to render the function intolerable, affords a most powerful cause for non-attendance, and even in some degree an excuse for it.

    But where, as in a British House of Commons, with the exception of those men of all work who are hired for it, any such obligation as that of attendance is no more felt than at an opera, every man feels the remedy and that a compleat one, in his hands.

    As to the desks, an implement necessary to the remedy employed in the Congress House, in England the size and form of the House, convenient as it is in other respects, would of itself suffice perhaps to put an exclusion upon it. But a French Assembly might in this particular see in the English House of Commons what to avoid, in the Congress House of Representatives what to imitate.

    The Book of Fallacies – a work commenced about nine years ago and still in an unfinished state, is, in an illustrious hand, in a course of preparation for the press. A Table, exhibiting an arrangement, and a list of these poisoned weapons, accompanies the present work. The proposed names alone being here given and not the things denominated – those names unavoidably grotesque, and given without explanation – some readers may, in the mean time, find amusement in them in the character of riddles: and another pastime might be – the calculating what proportion, of the aggregate mass of parliamentary oratory, might fly off in vapour, if subjected to the test afforded by these denominations.