036_014.xml

Title: [[xxxvi. 14] 1821. April 9.]

Description: [xxxvi. 14]

1821. April 9.

First Lines

First Principles

Appropriate aptitude

aptitude is inversely as altitude

\PS\ Moral aptitude is inversely as altitude in the scale of political property, political influence - compound scale of power, opulence and factitious dignity

Education being supposed not deficient, nor subsistence wanting,

Aptitude, with relation to the exercise of political power, is inversely as the height /altitude/ of a man's place in the composite scale of political influence. This composite scale is composed of three elementary scales,the scale of opulence, the scale of power, and the scale of factitious dignity (a)

In the scale of opulence, language has not yet afforded, as in the scale of temperature, denominations designative here and there of the different degrees. No precise station, therefore, can here be designated by the terms opulent and unopulent. All that can be expressed is - their relative stations: viz. that in the station marked by the term opulent, the quantity of the matter of opulence is greater than in the station marked unopulent.

With relation to useful qualities in general, and in particular with relation to those of which appropriate aptitude with relation to political functions in general is composed, the following are the considerations by which, on the part of the opulent, appropriate aptitude considered in all its branches, inferiority stands indicated.

1. As to moral aptitude -

1. The greater the quantity in value of the services which, at the hands of those on whom his comforts depend, a man has at command, without rendering any correspondent services in return - sevices positive and negative together - positive consisting in the exercise of positive beneficence, negative consisting in the exercise of negative beneficence, that is to say forbearance from injury and annoyance in all their shapes, the less the need he feels for the exercise of such beneficence on his part.

(a)The scale of factitious dignity - for shortness instead of saying the scale of factitious causes of respect

036_016.xml

Title: [[xxxvi. 16] 1820. April 9.]

Description: [xxxvi. 16]

1820. April 9.

First Lines

2. The higher the degree of opulence, the less the degree of sympathy, in the breast of the opulent for the unopulent: for that portion of mankind in behalf of whom the demand for such beneficence as it may be in his way to exercise is greatest.

Correspondent to, and intimately connected with sympathy of affection, is sympathy of conception.

By and in proportion to sympathy of affection, a man is disposed to add to the enjoyments, and subtract from the sufferings, of the objects of his sympathy.

Proprtioned to the correctness clearness and compleatness of the conception a man has of those enjoyments and these sufferings, (the /his/ degree of sensibility being given,) is the strength of the sympathy of affection with relation to those same objects of his sympathy.

Relative Sympathy being wanting, sympathy of affection may be equally wanting, although sympathy of conception be entire: but in so far as sympathy of conception is wanting, sympathy of conception /affection/ has no place.

For all bodily pains, sympathy of conception must, on the part of the experienced surgeon, be grater than on the part of an average man. But if his sensibility and consequently if his sympathy of affection were so likewise, he would not be fit for the exercise of his art.

Want of sympathy of conception concurrs with the feeling of relative independence in destroying in the breast of the opulent, sensibility, and, with it, beneficence positive and negative, with relation to the unopulent: he has no need of their free services: their free and gratuitous services: he has no conception of their wants: he has no feeling for their wants.

So

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.