JB_160_255.xml

Title: [[clx. 255] 1822 July 9 Constitut]

Description: [clx. 255]

1822 July 9

Constitut. Code Rationale

Securities

Factitious honor

?. Expository matter

? Proof of merit fallacious

To /With/ the word merit if any clear idea is attached to it is attached /stands associated/ the idea of service: for by him to whom merit is ascribed, suppose no service rendered or endeavoured to be rendered to any body, the idea of merit evaporates and leaves the word in a state of non-significance.

/Moreover/ If then in virtue of /according to the intimation given by/ the dignity conferred on /ascribed to/ him and the claim /alledged title/ to respect given to him, he has rendered service to any body it must have been service of the meritorious kind: service by the rendering of which the existence of merit has been displayed

This /Moreover this/ service must have had something extraordinary in it - in its nature: something whereby it stands distinguished from ordinary service from service in those shapes in which it is customarily rendered by every body to every body by every dealer for example to his customer by every customer to his dealer - by every seller to his purchaser, by every purchaser to his seller.

As in the case of service so in the case of respect the value /worth/ of it if it has any must consist either of a certainty (as in case of a past event /where the event is past/) or of a probability of pleasure in some shape or other experienced or pain in some shape or other escaped from /averted/ and not experienced.

Laying all together - the intimation given /conveyed/ by the /an/ act by which a title of honor is conferred is - that the individual on whom it is conferred has in some determinate shape or other rendered to some individual or individuals or to the whole community together, service of a meritorious and in some way or other [...?] of an extraordinary cast /kind/, and has thereby shewn /proved/ himself to be possessed of dignity - i.e. by such service to have given himself a title to receive at the hands members of the community in question at large in general, tokens of respect, of the existence of the sentiment of respect in relation to him in their minds in relation to him, as if in payment or part payment of such service.

JB_160_275.xml

Title: [[clx. 275] 1822 July 5 Constitut]

Description: [clx. 275]

1822 July 5

Constitut Code

Factitious Honor

?4 Evils produced by it

3. Every honor that has been conferred on any man in whose instance it is not clear that extraordinary service to the public has in any shape is conferred in a more particular manner at the expence of all those by whom extraordinary service to the public has really been rendered: it is felt by them as an injury. It has always for its tendency, and to an unmeasureable extent for its effect, the preventing men in general from taking on themselves any extraordinary burthen for the purpose of rendering to the public in any shape extraordinary service.

Evil 3. Burthen to the meritorious unhonored.

By Honor by publication /Publication/ of service secures to every extraordinarily meritorious individual, for service past and thence for services to come, the exact portion of honor which in a comparative as well as absolute point of view is most apt with relation to the service. No injury does it to any men: to men in any number it may produce uneasiness: but in no instance can the uneasiness be productive of, or accompanied by, any such sensation as the sensation /conception/ of injustice - of injustice done to any one by him by whom the title to the honour has been adjudged

JB_160_274.xml

Title: [[clx. 274] 1822 July 5 Constitut]

Description: [clx. 274]

1822 July 5

Constitut. Code

Securities

Factitious Dignity /Honor/

?.4. Evils produced by it

Note to the list of good things operating as corruption add punishment i.e. the power of remitting it: also evil in other classes. Hence, tyrants the most praised.

?.4 Factitious honor in general - Evils produced by it - when as usual, arbitrarily conferred

When arbitrarily conferred either it is conferred either without so much as an indication of service in any specific shape rendered to the public, or if with any such indication without proof made and published of the reality of the facts on the supposed reality /ungrounded supposition/ of which it is /has been/ grounded.

1. If conferred without indication of service to the public that which is indicated by it is - that the individual on whom it is conferred is an object of favor to the person or persons by whom it has been conferred. In this case it is mischievous in /on/ the │   │ following ways /accounts/

Mischief /Evil/ 1. Burthen to the unhonoured at large

There are two sets of persons at whose expence is conferred every honour that is conferred: all the members of the community at large - the whole number of them: 2. those particular ones if any among whom peculiar benefits in this shape have been shared.

By the members at large, of any donation of this sort taken singly the expence is in but a small degree if in any degree felt. But when viewed in the aggregate, the expence to which communities have been subjected to in this shape, will, by every man, be more or less clearly perceived, and sensibly /acutely/ felt, in proportion as he thinks of it.

2 By those who, at the time when in the individual instance in question the honor was conferred, were already in possession of it, the expence is felt in a much more acute /intense/ degree. Witness the Dutchess of Northumberland who in the days of George the second was afraid of spitting /durst not spit/ out of her Coach as she passed along the street for fear of spitting upon a Lord.

Evil the second case. Burthen to the co-honored.