036_009.xml

Title: [1821. April 26. First Lines]

Description: 1821. April 26.

First Lines

Constitutional Finance?

II. Remains to be shown how it is, and whence it is, that the state of moral appropriate aptitude with relation to the functions in question being in the exalted situations in question such as has been described, the conception, commonly entertained in relation to it, has commonly been so opposite to the state of things as thus describeds and thereby so incorrect and opposite to truth. The cause of this delusion may be seen in the influence exercised by the high alliance - by the confederacy of power, factitious dignity, and excessive opulence partly through the medium of corruption, partly through the medium of force and intimidation on those discourses, written as well as oral, particularly those presenting themselves constantly to view in the written form by which information is conveyed, respecting this quarter of the field of thought and action, - in which instruction is sought, and by which opinion and affections are moulded.

Take, in the first place, opulence even in that minor degree of force with which it operates when the field of its operation is confined to private life. Proportioned to the quantity of the matter of opulence which a man has at his command will be the quantity in which those who are in habits with him, or entertain a prospect of being in habits with him, may expect to share. Proportioned to the intensity of their respective appetites for such share will naturally be their endeavour to procure for those appetites their appropriate gratification according to all such means /actions and discourse together/ safe and not disreputable as they see within their reach. Proportioned to the success of such their endeavours will their own self-satisfaction and that gratiude as towards the author of it can scarcely fail, in some way or other, to be the accompaniment of it. In action as well as discourse, more particularly in discourse as being the cheaper article, will this gratitude, real and figned[?] tgether, find expression and give itself vent.

036_004.xml

Title: [[xxxvi. 4] 1821 April 26 Constitut]

Description: [xxxvi. 4]

1821 April 26

Constitut Code

First Lines

First Principles

Appropriate Aptitude

Aptitude is inversely as altitude

Sympathy of affection (1.) and of conception

[...?] per copies

\PS\ With relation to political function, aptitude is not directly but inversely, as altitude in the conjunct scale of power, opulence and factitious dignity - of political prosperity - of political influence.

Factitious dignity, opulence, - of these will external instruments of human felicity, in themselves /their nature/ separate, but in various proportions naturally intermixed, is composed a sort of medium or atmosphere in which the favorites of fortune live, move, and have their being. Each having the faculty /property/ of introducing its possessor into the possession of the two others, they will on some occasions and to some persons, require to be considered and combined while on other occasions & to other purposes, they will require to be considered as separate. The quantities of these sweets, absorbed by different individuals rise one above another in a scale, the highest point or degree of which is occupied by the position absorbed by a despot of ancient or modern time - an Emperor of China, an Emperor of Rome an Emperor of Russia: the lowest point or Degree by the portion absorbed by an individual of the labouring class, whose labour affords him nothing beyond /above/ the means of bare subsistence, but that subsistence assured.

When degrees of appropriate aptitude are considered with relation to the possession and exercise of the powers of government, a conception commonly entertained appears to be, is that the height of a man's place in the scale of such appropriate aptitude, is as the height of his place in that scale of external felicity - in other words as the quantity possessed by him of that compound of the external elements of felicity - directly,

Upon a nearer inspection /closer scrutiny/ it will be found that how natural soever this conception is erroneous and that the reverse of it is the true one: that the proportions may in the main hold good, but that the ratio is not the direct but the reverse.

First let it be seen, that the appropriate aptitusde in question is not directly but inversely as the heighth of the place occupied by the individual in gorgeous scale: next where it is that the opposite corruption has come to be so generally entertained: in the influence exercised by the matter of wealth operating as an instrument of delusion, the cause it will be seen is to be found.

036_026.xml

Title: [[xxxvi. 26] 1821. April 25.]

Description: [xxxvi. 26]

1821. April 25.

First Lines.

Constitutional Finance

In so far as, with reference to that better and happily larger portion of the whole community, they are regarded as being, in this scale of public virtue and good behaviour, superior or equal, delusion has place. Screwing /Raising/ up to its maximum the degree and effect of this delusion is a third purpose in which, under this form of Government, public waste employs itself.

In an absolute Monarchy

In proportion to the quantity in which the waste employs itself in the affording of gratification to the appetites of the individuals in question, and by the whole of that quantity the purpose of delusion is completely /in a complete degree/ accomplished, and the purpose of corruption in a principal degree: To screw up the effect of corruptive influence to its maximum may probably require endeavours to an amount more or less considerable specially directed to that particular purpose: and Such endeavours are /being/ acordingly no where and never wanting, means are wanting for forming /pronouncing by/ any sufficiently grounded judgment whether, without such endeavours, the mere possession of that same or any other quantity of the subject matter of waste operating of itself in the character of matter of corruptive influence would, in the hands in question, be adequate to the production of the actual effect. Be this as it may, it will be, if it is not already, sufficiently manifest that, by the same quantity of the matter of wealth thus expended in waste by the hands in question, in addition to the gratification of the several appetites, those two other purposes, corruption and delusion - all three, though so inseparably connected, so perfectly distinguishable from each other, are produced.

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