date

1821 July 10 Codification Offer
1821 July 10

Codification Offer

'.9

2 Factitious mischievous

III. Factitious Dignity

In the case /situation/ of him by whom the dignity is conferred - in a word in the case of the Patron of the Dignity - it is in this case that its mischievousness is at the highest pitch. On the dignitary himself it conferrs, if not strictly speaking power at any rate the equivalent of power - a means of influencing will, the good enjoyment of which is independent on good behaviour, and which as shewn in the case of power and opulence in excess is thereby /as such/ affords encouragement and incitement to ill-behaviour exempting a man from the restraint and consequently the suffering attached in a greater or less degree to the exercise of official benevolence in its two opposite aspects positive and negative. On the Patron of the Dignity it conferrs in like manner actual power in possession the enjoyment of which is as above an encouragement to ill behaviour and thence not only as in the other case mischievous, but in a prodigiously higher degree: for in his power is included the sum of all the portions of power possessed by all the several dignitaries possessors of the dignity of which he is patron: and in that same proportion does it give encrease to /magnify/ the power and thence the inclination to pursue personal happiness at the expence of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Factitious Dignity is the factitious cause or productive instrument of factious respect.
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    III Factitious Dignity. Power is purely mischievous as to all that is not needless /whatsoever of it is not needful/. Factitious Dignity is in the whole of it purely mischievous. At the expence of the whole - not only of the greatest number but of the whole, is all power created and conferred. At the expence of the whole, is all factitious dignity created and conferred Of operative power the constitutive cause and at the same time the immediate effect is not only obsequiousness but obedience on the part of him over /on/ whom it is exercised. Of factitious dignity the /an/ effect is not obedience indeed but obsequiousness on the part of those at whose expence it is created and conferred. In so far as it is productive of this effect, it is by producing in the minds of those at whose expence it is created the opinion of the existence of superiority either in respect of useful moral and intellectual endowments, or in respect of power, opulence, separately or collectively on the part of him on whom it is conferred, and by whom it is accordingly possessed.

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    On the part /In the case/ of him on whom it is conferred - of him by whom it is possessed - in a word the Dignitary - so far as regards the possession of power and opulence this opinion is commonly well-grounded and just /true/. But in so far as regards the possession of /useful/ endowments moral and intellectual useful, namely to the greatest number and by means of a tendency to the augmentation of their happiness, it is not to this opinion but the reverse of it, that is well grounded and true. The cause of its being so is in this case the same as in the case of excessive opulence and superfluous power, as above.
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    Factitious dignity is the factitious cause of factitious respect.

    The respect of which it is productive has for its more remote cause a confused and indeterminate mass of opinions or conceptions - a mass of which, severally or in a greater or less number collectively, the following seem to be the ingredients.

    1. Opinion of the existence of preeminent power on the part of the dignitary.

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    3. Opinion of the dignitary's being in the habits of personal converse with other persons possessed of the same of equal and even inferior /superior/ dignities and thence or otherwise of equal end even superior masses of power and opulence.

    4. Opinion of the dignitary's having a place in the esteem or affection or both, of the patron of the dignity - thence of his having a chance more or less considerable of obtaining for other persons those /such/ benefits as it is in the power of such patron to bestow.

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