date

1823 Feb. 19 Greece Beginning
1823 Feb. 19

Greece

Beginning

Maximize people's will's efficiency viz

2. by delegation, possible and proper

Insert here inaptitude of the ”one• and the ”many•

What remains to be seen is © in what degree and by what means the maximum of efficiency can in the nature of the case be given to the will of the people

1. That which it is not physically speaking in their power to do in any political community large enough to maintain its independence © and in particular in any such political community as that of Greece is to take any part in the individual arrangements by which its /their/ own greatest happiness is to be produced which have for their objects the production of such their greatest happiness.

The obstacles to their taking any such part are manifest and altogether insuperable. Unless the necessary means of subsistence be produced, all arrangements taken for the security of it from /against/ invasion would be fruitless and absurd. But with the continuity of the labours necessary to the production of the means of subsistence any thing like an equal continuity in the labour of giving existence to the political arrangements necessary to the security of this when produced is on the part of the greatest number altogether /in point of physical possibility absolutely/ incompatible.

2. If all could find time, no place would hold all or more than a minute part of all while occupied conjunctly occupied in the formation of the general will.

It being therefore physical impossible that the /to the/ body of the people should in their own persons respectively seek /endeavour/ to give efficiency to their respective wills in the production of the arrangements which have for their object the production of their greatest happiness, the utmost that remains within the field of physical possibility as capable of being done for this purpose, is that this endeavour of theirs be made by them by proxy: that is to say that in the greatest number possible, they should concurr in the choice of substitutes or say delegates for that purpose being for this purpose distributed into groupes, each groupe concurring in the choice of one such delegate.
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    On this occasion, the proper object of all arrangements taken for the enabling the people thus to act by delegation is the production of such arrangements as it may be presumed would be taken by the people themselves had they respectively sufficient time for the making them an additon to sufficient time for qualifying themselves for the making of them by means of appropriate information in all its various shapes.

    Of the mode of election best adjusted to this end mention will be made a little further on in its place

    At present suppose for argument sake this best mode found and carried into practice.

    Here then we have already two distinguishable bodies of men in the government. 1. The people at large by whom for the taking of these arrangements of detail by which their greatest happiness is to be provided for a set of functionaries have been provided: functionaries placed by the choice or election made of them for that purpose: substitutes delegates functionaries who in point of physical possibility might be chosen out of any assemblage of men but who most naturally and as to the greater portion at any rate most beneficially will have chosen by them from among themselves. In these immediate delegates of the people is supposed /conceived/ as yet to reside the whole of the power just©mentioned: call it the ”Operative power•: in /to/ the people at large remains and resides the power of determining at all times in what individuals that same operative power shall have place: in a word to constitute them what with relation to that function they are: call it the ”Constitutive power•.
  • Title: [1823 Feb. 18 Greece Beginning]
    Description: 1823 Feb. 18

    Greece

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    Therefore even supposing on the part of each lesser number better information /knowledge/ concerning what would be in the highest degree conducive to the greatest happiness of the greatest number than the greater number is, still it is not to the accomplishment the greatest happiness of such greatest number that the endeavours of the /such/ lesser number would be directed but to the accomplishment of the greatest happiness of such lesser number. And as to appropriate knowledge and judgment © in a word appropriate intellectual aptitude © where is that lesser number of whom there can be reason for thinking that they are possessed of appropriate knowledge and judgment in a word of appropriate intellectual aptitude in a higher degree than the whole of the greater number in which this portion of it is contained?

    This being admitted thence comes the next subordinate end /object/ namely that in the determination taken as to the persons by whom the particular arrangements by the execution of which the business /powers/ of government is carried on /are exercised/ the object should be to place the power in the hands of such persons by whom on every occasion such arrangements shall accordingly be made in the highest degree conformable to the will and thence to the interest of the greatest number.

    If it were possible the surest way would be that the persons by whom these arrangements were framed should be the persons themselves of which such greatest number is composed. But, the multitude of such number considered, together with their want of time for the employment in addition to that necessary for providing the means of subsistence, this is manifestly impossible: what remains as the next most probable course /means/ of securing on the part of the arrangements in question conformity to their will, the system according to which those persons by whom the arrangements in question are framed are persons who being all chosen for this purpose by this /such/ greatest number are at short intervals liable to be displaced by such greatest number, and made to give place to the objects of a fresh choice made in that same voice.
  • Title: [1823 Feb. 20 Greece Beginning]
    Description: 1823 Feb. 20

    Greece

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    But under a system of representation having for its end in view the greatest happiness of the greatest number © a system arranged for example as in general are those that have place in the Anglo©American United States are arranged, no such purposed sacrifice of universal interest to the separate interest of a few does or ever can have place. Let a man pitch upon a Candidate who is generally regarded as the most apt of all those who are willing to be constituted delegates for the seat in question he finds in a sufficient number of others an effectual concurrence: let a man be to fix upon a Candidate on whom he could depend for the pursuing upon all occasions his the electors separate and sinister interest at the expence of every other, he would not find any one who to the disposition /will/ in question would Electors in sufficient numbers to place him in the seat.

    As it is in the case of the people in their quality of Electors, on the occasion of the choice of a Delegate to be their representative in the operative Assembly, so is it in the case of those same Delegates on the occasions on which they are occupied in the choice of arrangements proposed to receive the force of law. And thus it is that the universal good is the result of the continual conflict amongst the jarring elements of separate interests, desires and endeavours. To any imaginable amount self sacrifice may in fact have place: but to the production of the greatest happiness of the greatest number not so much as a single instance of it is necessary in the general course of business.