[…?] 1810[?]

Parl y Reform

Ch. 18

Ch. 18 Mischief of Idol worship

1

1. Former case[?] while there was a pretender: i.e. till accession of Ge 3

2. The practice continued after the case[?] – Causes of the continuance 1. Vis[?]

inertia. 2. G.3. supposed youthful virtue. 3. Interested adulation.

§ 2 Former use of idol-worship now obsolete.

Such praises must always be groundless: the true character of the King: viz. as to

the disadvantageous points of it never can be known. The evidence is always garbled.

What there is bad in it is throughout suppressed by the fear of punishment: what

there is good in it is magnified. Whatever good /in the way of eloquence/ is said of

it, there are always several causes of it, each of them more likely to have been

productive of the eloquence than the truth is. 1. The sinister interest in which the

eulogist is a partaker along with the king: 2. the prejudice begotten by that

interest: 3. the prejudice begotten by the eloquence of others whose eloquence are

derived from one or other of the above sources.

While there was a pretender, the praises given to the King, true or false /due or

undue/, were at the expence of the Pretender: now there is no Pretender so far as

they are undue they are at the expence of the nation.

Supposing them not to augment his power his personal power they would be not only

innocent, but, (saving the mischief to the minds, moral or intellectual of the

eulogists where undue) beneficial: viz: as cherishing the affection towards the King

in the character of common father, and thence toward fellow subjects in the character

of brethren

Of a man in public trust and so far as concerns his trust

We ought never to speak well, if so it be a man of whom it

is not safe to speak ill, if so it be that it is not safe

to speak ill of him. Why? because of every praise thus bestowed on him, is to

encrease both the power and the inclination he will have to abuse his trust to his

own private purposes.
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