date

7 Aug 1809. Parl. Reform Ch
7 Aug 1809.

Parl. Reform

Ch. Necessity Hume

Humes concession

2

24

To bring the propositions /ideas in question each of them/ to a precise point.

To give correctness to the expressions, and perhaps to the ideas, some alteration /change/ will require to be made in some of the expressions: for David Hume, though a man of genius was seldom a close reasoner /had not the faculty of close reasoning/: a deficiency of which his general habit of scepticism was a consequence and a proof.

1. Amendment 1. After the word gift, add with the power of taking it away at pleasure. By power of reward howsoever arbitrary power of reward for example by appointment to lucrative offices neither absolute power nor any thing approaching to absolute power, unless power of punishment, for example by power of inaction[?] in relation to those same offices, be conjoined with it. Witness the Kings of Poland who had always good things to give and in plenty, but without power of taking them away: not to speak of patent places here with us.

2. Amendment the 2 d. Add more, or if any, yet not so much, but that the taking away of the quantity of property attached to the office / their respective offices/ would produce in their respective bosoms /respectively/ a sense of privation operating in the occasion in question in the

character of a motive with a force too great to experience on that same occasion from the motives acting on the other side any effectual resistance.

Without an amendment to this effect the supposition he makes would be a nugatory and useless one, not being altogether incapable of finding its exemplification any where. For in what possible state of things would /could/ the House of Commons now a days be composed any part of it of a set of men, each of whom on being dismissed from Office would feel his coat stripped off his back. Yes, if you go a few centuries back, viz. to the times when /back to the reign of Henry the 7 th, when/ under the name of liveries the retainers of the King or of a Baron wore uniforms and when the subsistence of many a brave gentleman depended on the overplus grass of a common for his cattle, or of the overplus meat in his Majesty's or his Lordship's kitchens, for the more immediate source of his sustenance.
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  • Title: [7 Aug 1809 + Parl Reform Ch]
    Description: 7 Aug 1809 +

    Parl Reform

    Ch. Necessity Hume

    Humes Concession

    1

    23

    What is curious is that if Hume were taken for judge the matter would be decided and that not exclusively in favour of parliamentary reform, i.e. a government without corruption that being what he himself has expressly declared against but in favour of a commonwealth, viz. in the estimation of every person in whose eyes that form of government were preferable to absolute monarchy.

    But that in such a case Humes authority any more than any body elses authority ought to weigh for any thing, much less be regarded as decisive - or will be so in the judgment of any one who holds himself capable of weighing reason and forming a judgment for himself - but that those persons whose sole look out is for a shove to gain their faith again, and who in their adherence to such their opinions, begged or borrowed those opinions are, are not among the least tenacious, /tenacious - that in persons of this description it may be visible/ may on that the authority of Hume which they might /may/ have supposed to be in their favour, is in fact against them.

    "Did the House of Commons" (says he) ["]depend in the same maxims on the King" (viz as the King is made dependent on the House of Commons by the power of the purse) "and had none of the members any property but from his gift, would not he command their resolutions, and be from that moment, absolute."

    Thus far, David Hume: from which taking into the account, on the footing on which they have since some out, the facts relative to and probative of that dependence, it will be sufficiently clear that in his opinion, at least supposing his view of the matter confined to those facts, the King would at the moment at which I am writing be pronounced to be already absolute.

    + Essays &c [...?] p.107[?].
  • Title: [7 Aug 1809 Parl. Reform Ch]
    Description: 7 Aug 1809

    Parl. Reform

    Ch. Necessity Hume

    Humes concession

    3

    25

    3. Amendment the 3 d. Instead of " had none of the Members any property" &c put if on each occasion a majority of the Members had not any property &c

    Had the proposition stood as in the amendment here proposed /brought to view/ the propriety of the conclusion (it will scarce be disputed) would have remained unaltered. And on this occasion, as on the last mentioned it is no more than what justice and consistency require to substitute to such of the words as if understood strictly and literally would be /render the proposition/ a nugatory one such others as are necessary to reduce /bring/ it within the limits of reason and good sense.
  • Title: [7 Aug. 1809 + Parl. Reform]
    Description: 7 Aug. 1809 +

    Parl. Reform

    Ch. Necessity Hume

    8

    8

    The more clearly his train[?] of reasoning is looked into, the weaker and weaker it will be found to be.

    /Once more/ Why then is it once more that the House of Commons has never since the days of Charles the first made this imaginary conquest, never produced this imaginary change? Because says Hume "the interest of the body is here restrained by (the interest) /that/ of the individuals: and that the House of Commons stretches not its power, because such an usurpation would be contrary to the interest of the majority of its members." Thus for Hume, and still the people with all their power constitutional /factitious reward[?]/ as well as original and natural are forgotten as compleatly as if they were so many sheep.

    Such a power i.e. the supposed absolute power contrary to the interest of the majority i.e. the habitually attending and acting majority of the Members? What? Did he suppose - yes for the moment he must have supposed that all the emolument they could have seized on if possessed /sole possessors/ of absolute power would not have exceeded that which under the system of that corruption which under the name of influence is in his view of the matter so necessary possess already. What a picture of the government drawn by [...?] by so able a hand, in the very act of defending it! the quantity of the people's money lavished upon the deputies of the people - and for no other purpose than to pay them for not conquering the King and Lords and so overthrowing the government this quantity of the people's money thus lavished so enormous that not even absolute power could give them more! these /The/ people more pressed to save the government from being thus destroyed than they could be pressed if it were destroyed. This too given as a reason for supporting /preventing/ the government from being destroyed & were in the way mentioned. Would it not be a [...?] better for suffering the government to be so destroyed, or even for destroying it?