date

1820 Feb. 18 Radicalism not dangerous
1820 Feb. 18

Radicalism not dangerous

III. Experience

II. Ireland

Radicalism - its origin

3

In such a state of things, no Elector having it in his hands[?] /power/ either by himself or by any representative in the election of whom he had a share to give effect to his own personal interest at the expence of all or any other interests, such Elector would have no other power than that of contributing to the best of his judgment to the advancement of his share in the universal[?] /universal/ interest, in that interest, which is no more his than it is that of all the other members of the community, or at the least of the majority /major part/ of that same number.

As to the points of appropriate aptitude, in so far as concerns appropriate probity, the disposition to pursue /advance/ to the utmost that which in his eyes, as above, is his own personal interest - is all at once that can reasonably be expected, and at the same time all that is requisite: as to what concerns appropriate intellectual aptitude, I look upon this class of men as possessing with the benefit of such advice as they will respectively look for all that is necessary, and as much as would be to be found in any narrower or other class of men, with the exception of those, in whom /whose instance/ in so far as any superior degree of intellectual aptitude were possessed by them, it would be sure /it could not fail/ to be employed, as in experience it is every where employed in the advancement not of the universal, but of their own particular interest - that interest which, in as much as it is particular, can not fail to be in a state of continual opposition to the universal interest.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1819 May 18 C Disfranchising]
    Description: 1819 May 18 C

    Disfranchising

    Disfranchising

    §.5. Evil 4. Multiplying Country Members

    17

    13

    9

    {4}

    they must expect to be ript[?] open if they talk as they do

    Anti-Reformist – And if you had the power, would it then be your wish and your endeavour to exclude Country Gentlemen /the class of those in question/ from the House?

    Reformist Not more than it would be yours. In regard to men of that class, as in regard to men of all classes my wish is {and my endeavour would be so to order matters} that finding themselves under an inability to sacrifice the universal interest to their personal and other partial interests, they should confine their endeavours to the advancement of that interest of theirs which consists in each mans share in the universal interest. So much as to probity: and that, finding himself by the merits of those whose studies and occupations had been directed to the qualifying themselves for the due /their intellectual faculties for the apt/ discharge of the duties of their situation excluded from that share of power which his property might otherwise have enabled him to attain the ignorant and inapt father should by appropriate /an apt/ course of instruction /education/ to make provision for stocking with appropriate and useful matter the vacuities which experience had rendered him sensible of in his own mind. So much for intellectual aptitude.

    In a word the worst that /all that/ I wish is – leaving the class itself in possession of that share of power which by the mere influence of understanding on understanding would without any of that sinister influence which is exercised by will on will, adhere /cleave[?]/ to it so long as the property itself adhered to it – in this same class of men to individuals uniting the possessing appropriate aptitude in no shape to substitute other or even the same individuals possessing that same appropriate aptitude in every shape.

    General propositions have, as such, their exceptions. In this case, whoever chooses to make himself an exception, is so.
  • Title: [1818 Sept. 2. Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Sept. 2.

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Reasons ult o

    '.2. Electors Who

    Universality

    2. Intellect 1. Comparative

    10

    2

    10

    Answer. The inaptitude thus imputed to them in the shape in question will require to be considered in the first place in a comparative point of view, in the next {place} in an absolute point of view

    1. {Consider it} in a comparative point of view. From The degree of inaptitude, be it what it may, will form /afford/ no practical objection to the lodging the power in question in the hands in question, any further than it is clear that there are other hands such that by lodging in them that same power a greater degree of appropriate aptitude in both points taken together, to wit appropriate probity and appropriate intellectual aptitude promises to be obtained there by lodging in these.

    But of this supposition the contrary will be /is/ found to be true. To the advancement of the universal interest, intellectual aptitude on the part of the persons in question be they who they may, can not be subservient any further than their desire and endeavour is to contribute to that effect, in a word /in other words/ any further than it has for its accompaniment appropriate moral aptitude, appropriate probity, in the same breast. In so far as their desire and endeavour is, at the expence and at the sacrifice of this universal interest to advance each man his own personal interest, or collectively an interest common to them all, and adverse to as well as less extensive than, the universal interest, the more consummate /strong extensive and efficient/ their intellectual power, so far from serving /promoting/ they will disserve and injure the universal interest: they will render the sacrifice of it to their own narrower and sinister interest more easy more extensive, more effectual.

    But reason and experience concurr as above in shewing, that neither in Monarchy nor in aristocracy is any such appropriate probity in any tolerably adequate degree to be found: on the contrary, both will concurr in shewing that it is in a representative Commonwealth the degree of it can not but go on encreasing in proportion to the approach made by the system of representation to that of universal suffrage.
  • Title: [1818 Sept. 29. Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Sept. 29.

    Parl. Reform Bill

    VII or VIII

    Reasons 3 o

    '.2. Electors Who

    Universality

    1. Probity

    17

    But, under /on/ the here proposed system /plan/ of virtually universal suffrage no elector has any possible means of giving effect to this same propensity: he has no possible means of promoting in any case his self-regarding interest separately considered, and to the sacrifice or prejudice of the interest of any other individual or of that of the whole community: he has not any possible means of preventing self regarding interest in any shape other than that of his own share in the aggregate the universal interest.

    37. This then, with a degree of effect or at least of promise proportioned to that of his appropriate intellectual aptitude, is the interest and the only interest which in the exercise of the right in question it will be to his study and endeavour to promote.

    37. Thus then /under/ Monarchy and Aristocracy this predominance of personal /self-regarding/ over universal interest, and the consequently constant sacrifice of the universal to the particular interest, is altogether certain and impreventible: under Representative Democracy, in the situation of Representative, preventible; in the situation of Elector, impossible: that is to say the sacrifice of the universal interest notwithstanding the predominance of the self-regarding /personal/ interest.