date

1820 Feb. 19 Radicalism not dangerous
1820 Feb. 19

Radicalism not dangerous

III. Experience

II. Ireland

Radicalism - its origin

Factitious dignity

17

6

This nice discrimination all this nicety of discrimination factitious dignity supposing it ever to have any such object as the production of meritorious service necessarily confounds and puts out of sight. So many Knights of the Garter, so many Knights of the Bath, so many Knights of the Thistle, so many Knights of S t Patrick so many simple Knights /Knights Bachelors/ so many Baronets, suppose all these men to have rendered to the country in some shape or other meritorious public service, how in any one instance can you perceive or so much as discover in what degree or in what shape the service has been rendered?

Meritorious public service - factitious dignity - is it possible without extreme violence even for so short a time and for the purpose of the argument to bring the mind to conceive[?] /keep forced into the mind the conception/ of any tendency on their part to take up their abode in the same subject receptacle?

Personal favour or money - look at /open the book of/ history in these two causes you will behold the original and only ordinary[?] sources of distinction in that shape.

Look in the first place to the order of the garter. A /As a/ token of the place occupied by the wearer in the private affections of the Monarch - in this character and no other, as every body may see, was it conferred.

As to the others one and all they are but so many copies inferior copies of the /that/ same original.

In one thing they all agree and that is a […?] with the person.

One lot of factitious dignity there is which is hereditary which in imitation of that composed of independent /irresponsible/ power and factitious dignity called a peerage is capable of continuing for ever in the same family descending to the eldest and nearest male of the last possessor. Of this institution what is the purpose? Giving encrease to meritorious public service? No such thing. What then? Giving encrease to the wasteful and selfish expenditure of the Monarch in pursuit of his own individual pleasures. It was sold by him to who ever would pay the price for it; sold, and the produce of it poured into that tub of the Danaides his privy purse.
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  • Title: [1820 Feb. 19 Radicalism not dangerous]
    Description: 1820 Feb. 19

    Radicalism not dangerous

    III. Experience

    II. Ireland

    Radicalism its origin

    Factitious dignity

    2

    2

    2

    16

    5

    A man who to the desire should regard himself as adding the faculty of giving to an institution of the sort in question the colour of a define[?] &c

    Nay but says somebody factitious dignity in all its branches is not more than is requisite for operating in the character /way/ of reward and thereby giving bulk to merit in all its shapes and in particular to meritorious public service in all its shapes.

    Answers

    1. It is not necessary to any such purpose. In relation to every such purpose it is needless.

    2. It is therefore at best but so much of the matter of good expended in waste.

    3. In[?] Taking meritorious public service in the aggregate, all tendency of it is rather to prevent /exclude/ them to give encrease to any such public service See above

    4. It was not for any such purpose that it was instituted. This was not the end /purpose or among the purposes/ for the attainment of which it was instituted. It was instituted for other ends. Being so instituted, a use a use beneficial to the public was required to be found for it by those whose task it is to prove /by whom the acceptable task has been undertaken of proving/ that whatever is is right, that what is and what ought to be are throughout /all over/ the whole field of government the same thing.

    5. All meritorious service /public virtue/ to a certain /may to a considerable and in general a sufficient/ degree its own may in a short way of speaking be […?] its own reward: to operate as such all that it requires is to be made known - to be made known /as bare[?]/ exactly for what it is. In this way, and generally speaking, in this way alone, may /can/ the authority of government be employed to good effect. In this way the nature of the service may be particularized and explained with the utmost accuracy and particularity: and the greater the degree of particularity the more exactly appropriate apposite and congruous will the natural reward which in this way will attach itself as it were of itself to the meritorious service.
  • Title: [nd [wm 1816] Factitious dignities]
    Description: nd [wm 1816]

    Factitious dignities

    Government at 70

    Factitious dignities

    Their Origin

    2

    2

    § - Origin or factitious dignities. By one of those associations in which the commonly prevailing opinions have their cause and their defect ideas such as those expressed by the words virtue and merit stand attached in mens minds to the ideas designated by the word dignity when applied to political situations and considered as produced and conferred by the hand /by the will/ of the Monarch. Dignity is from the latin dignus[?] english, worthy: Worthy ie being held in honor - Of being taken for an object of respect by all the other members of the community. Ask what the source or efficient cause is of the title which a man has to this respect the answer will be either as it consists simply in public merit ie in meritorious public service or else that it consists in power, or in a word in power and merit taken together. Ask again whether power not only is but ought to be an efficient cause of such respect the answer will probably be - no, not simply when considered in its own account: yes when considered on account of the meritorious service presumed to be and considered as being rendered by the due exercise of the power in question whatever it may be.

    Upon examination little less than completely unfounded in historical truth will every such notion be found to be.

    Go back to the norman conquests - for it w d be useless to go beyond it no such thing as dignity existing in a separate state uncombined with power will you find. No power will you find but what was associated with military rank.

    {Earls, Barons, Knights, Esquires […?] Baronets}

    The design which brought William the Conqueror into this island - William the founder of the reigning dynasty was a design of usurpation and depredation. Immediately under him came a small number of chieftains under the name of Earls under them a not much larger number by the name of Barrons; under them again to the number of a very few thousand men by the name of
  • Title: [[clx. 278] 1822 July 12 Constitut]
    Description: [clx. 278]

    1822 July 12

    Constitut Code Rationale

    6 Factitious honor excluded

    4. Evils produced

    7. Evil 7: evil by sanction given to imposture. The character in which this token operates is that of a certificate of merit on the part of the wearer: of useful and meritorious service rendered by him in some shape or other to the community at large: and combined with this certificate is a draught drawn upon the members of the community in their character of members of the Public Opinion Tribunal for value received: a draught payable in tokens of respect, value received in the shape of meritorious service

    The functionaries by whom this counterfeit /deceptious/ instrument is uttered are by the practice of uttering it and the habit of seeing it accepted, encouraged to act in the character of impostors. It operates in this way on their moral faculties as an instrument of demoralization

    8 Evil 8: evil by propagation of delusion. This evil is the counterpart of the last preceding one. In so far as the imposture /fraud/ passes upon them undiluted - in so far as they /men/ are imposed upon by it, and bestow respect where respect is undue and the payment of it mischievous - mischievous to themselves[?] mischievous, as hath been seen to every body it operates upon their intellectual faculties: it operates as an instrument of intellectual depravation.