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[129b-427]
17 April 1817
Plan Cat
Note (a)? 4 o
§ 16 Moderate
II
I. Electors
21
4
4
{Under a representative democracy, in proportion as its constitution approaches to the principles of radical reform as above brought to view, this continually operating propensity receives its continually effectual check.}
{In virtue of the springs of action essentially appertaining to human nature in all its possible situations this propensity has place of course in equal degree on the part of the subject many. But by the supposition /to/ the ruling few have it in their power /belong the power requisite /sufficient/ adequate in a more or less considerable degree to afford it its gratification at the expence of the antagonizing interests, and the subject many have not.}
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Title: [[129b-426] 17 April 1817 Plan]Description: [129b-426] 17 April 1817 Plan Cat Note (a)? § 10 Moderate II I. Electors 20 3 3 The point of cardinal importance is the prevention of that mischief /disorder/ which in every constitution but a representative Democracy is an endemical disease, viz the habitual sacrifice of the subject many to that of the ruling few: the preference given to the less extended narrows to the prejudice of the more extended and thence the injury done to the universal interest. This disorder will be greater and greater and thence if not actually exerting sensible mischief the perpetual danger of its existence the greater the extent /magnitude/ given to the any defalcations from the applications made of the /applied to the lower/ principles of mine which beginning at the bottom of the suite[?] may have been made from the application to virtual /the principle/ universality of suffrage: as if for example an exclusion were first put to the votes of those whose means of subsistence have nothing above the wages of labour for their source. That between the interests of its ruling few on the one hand and those of the subject many on the other there exists a radical opposition of interests is unhappily but too certain. Unless it be in the way of commercial industry carried on upon equal terms no otherwise than at the expence of and by the sacrifice of the interests of the subject many to their own can any gratification be given by the ruling few to that appetite for the matter of good in all its shapes: money, power, factitious dignity, respect and reputation which in human nature is insatiable. In this we have the grand and ultimate test by which all arrangements in the way of constitutional law ought to be tried.
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Title: [[129b-502] 4 April 1817 Plan]Description: [129b-502] 4 April 1817 Plan Cat 2 o Note (a) ? Introd § Interests adverse I. Look to interests Good and bad motives 2 A principle of delusion by which it /the admission of it/ finds itself constantly opposed is the vulgar division of motives into good and bad motives: a species of logic under which the motive corresponding to self-regarding interest is stationed in and set at the head of the list of bad motives: as if with any sort of propriety, to a species of motive on the general predominance of which over all others put together the whole species is continually and universally and continually /essentially/ dependent for its existence could with any tolerable degree of propriety could without keeping the whole system of moral ideas in a state of perpetual confusion, any such epithet as bad could be kept attached. Bad, yes: in so far as productive of bad that is mischievous actions, and thence of the correspondent bad intentions so beyond all doubt may this species of motive. But so may be so continually is every other sort of motive whatsoever: so that /hence/ by no such consideration can the attaching to that species of motive the epithet bad be justified.
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Title: [[129b-481] 4[?] April 1817]Description: [129b-481] 4[?] April 1817 Plan Cat 2 o Introd §. Interests adverse III. Course taken ? 3 17 2 By the analysis which has been given some light, it is hoped, will be found to have been thrown upon these two connected scales. The operation of looking into his own mind, the operation to which antecedently to which must have been performed by the /a mans/ mind that of dividing itself polypus-like into two parts both remaining whole and perfect – the one acting in the ordinary course of action, the other employed in making observations on its neighbours as it acts – is an operation to which few minds are disposed, and as little as any those whose principal occupation consists in wading and struggling in the ocean of party politics. Hence it is that while of the mind of a man with the springs by which it is put and kept in action remain a secret to the man himself for want of attention bestowed upon it in this view the nature of the turn which it has taken and of the springs by which these turns have been produced no tolerably clear conception has been formed, yet to an observing bystander what has thus remained a secret /a riddle/ to the agent itself has along remained a riddle, the situation of it has presented itself without effort and without difficulty.
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