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[clxiv. 157]
1820 June 18
Emancipation Spanish
?. Corruptive [...?...?]
He who in ordinary times saves himself from payment to any of the taxes imposed on the consumption of goods imported, injures the fair trader in these articles - the trader who if he pays the tax while others /his competitors/ evade the paying of it, can derive no profit nor any thing better than loss from his trade. He who in ordinary times thus saves himself from the burthens to which he ought to subject himself, does in so far /both respects/ an immoral act, produces mischief in both shapes in both ways /forms/ does an immoral act violates the obligations of morality. He who in times of corruption and misrule carried to such a pitch as just described thus saves himself from expence still injures the fair trader, and in that respect and to that amount does mischief. But were he not /in so far as he omitts/ thus save himself he would by the amount of his payments contribute to the depredation, to the murder committed upon the largest scale, to the force of the system of corruption and despotism by which the maximum of those enormities is created and preserved: he thus renders himself the author of mischief, and of mischief to a still greater amount than that which in the opposite case is the result of the injury to the fair trader. In this case if it be the duty to prevent as far as may be the greater mischief duty concurrs with self-regarding interest in recommending to him that what in the ordinary state of things would in a /the/ moral as well as a /in the/ legal sense be a crime.
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Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]Description: 4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature Anonymous 5. Sympathy towards the individual[?] delinquent - the smuggler on whose head the tendency of the information is to bring down punishment. Under the name /appellation/ of smuggler must for this purpose be understood not merely the habitual and professional smuggler but every individual whatever who, lying on any score under the legal obligation of saying furnishing contributions to the use of the public, seeks to evade the fulfillment of it. If on the one hand the restrictive motive the tendency of which is to restrain a man in such a case from giving open information are in this case more than ordinarily powerful /act in more than ordinary force/, on the other hand, in such stuff as the great majority of individual minds are composed of, the action of the inciting motives is more than ordinarily weak. These are 1. Public spirit. 2. Pecuniary interest in the part of the fair trader, who in respect of his traffic finds a competitor in the person of the smuggler. 3. Sympathy for the prejudices /Fair trader in respect of the damage/ flowing in upon him from that source. 1. Public spirit. In combination with party enmity this principle is found in great abundance: in combination with national enmity in still greater. In the latter state it is found among all classes from the highest down to the very lowest from the least to the most numerous. A combination with love of power and /or/ love of reputation, or both together it is in certain countries /nations/ the leading countries /nations/ in particular such as France and England, among certain classes, over the leading classes by no means rare. But like every other down, love of power and love of reputation require a certain prospect of success: and it is only to certain classes, and in those classes to certain individuals that ny prospect of this kind lies open, in such sort as to operate in the character of a principle of action with any considerate force. In the physical world, gold is said to be by no means an uncommon element though except in a few favoured spots broke down into particles of such [...?] /smallness/ /scarcity/ and dispersion as to be of no commercial value. In the moral world, public spirit in a state perfectly pure, free from any of the combinations above spoken of, is much more rare than gold in the physical wold, and moreover when it does exist exists in particles of such [...?] [...?], as seldom indeed not to be capable in the character of of outweighing an existing motive the lightest article on the abovementioned list of restraining motives.
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Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]Description: 4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature Anonymous 2. Pecuniary interest - the lot of it brought into action in the primal[?] instance, so far as the application /action/ of it intends is a principle of considerable power, and capable in many instances of encountering with advantage the united force of the opposing motives. But in point of extent, it extends to but a very small part of the whole number of the individuals from whom so far as depends upon knowledge and power, information of the sort in question might be to be expected, were they prompted /if prompted/ to /by/ it by motives of sufficient efficacy. In the case of the professional smuggler his rivals among the fair traders are but here and there: his customers are every where. In the case of all assessed[?] or say direct taxes, the smuggler is cash deficient should contributer, the contributors in this case are still more numerous than customers in the other, and /but/ the deficient contributor has no natural adversary, correspondent to what the fair trader is to the professional smuggler to what /that which/ the professional smuggler has in the fair trader. 3. Sympathy for fair trader. This principle is scarcely distinguishable from the first mentioned principle public spirit: the case being such that the interests of the community at large and those of the fair trader coincide and run in the same direction, though that of the fair trader is in greater force. Setting aside the domestic connections of the fair trader (an interest which to this purposes is not distinct from his) if any particular sum[?] of sympathy is felt by him[?] for the fair trader in respect of the damage flowing upon him from the source, it is rather in his quality as member of the community that he gives rise to this emotion, and the emotion itself coincides with that of public spirit, enlivened[?] in more degree by the contemplation of the more particular object which it holds /that presents itself/ in view. The interest would be much stronger if in each individual instance it was known what was the precise amount of the damage sustained on a given occasion or within a given portion of time by each fair trader in consequence of the operations of each smuggler ore each knot /gang/ of smugglers. But this is scarce ever possible.
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Title: [[clxiv. 193] 1820 June 23 Emancipation]Description: [clxiv. 193] 1820 June 23 Emancipation Spanish ? Interests opposite Corruption Monarch and Sub rulers Wilberforce Religion Delusion Now when a man not only is but even declares himself to be determined by every possible means to do his utmost to the keeping up /from disclosure/ an imposture - and such an imposture - an imposture productive of such consequences - whether it be religion or any other that is the topic what fair title to credence can belong to any declaration to any protestations he can make? of the existence of any real sincere persuasion what sort of evidence can any such protestation ever amount to? of /to/ any such evidence what is the probative force that with any colour of reason be attributed? Let him cry Christ Christ! let him cry Lord! Lord! till he is hoarse what evidence can any such cry assert of his believing the existence of any thing or any person that he thus speaks of? Of belief it is /affords/ not any more strongly probative evidence than does persecution for non belief to this or that alledged matter of fact afford any evidence of the corresponding belief. Not that of non-belief it will be any evidence: for of belief in things extraordinary /not probable/ sincerity in all its shapes is at least as frequent an accompaniment as unbelief /non-belief/: and if so it be, that in regard to the thing in question, whatever it be, belief actually has place /existence/ a phrase asserting the existence of it will not drive it into non-existence. The belief thus professed may therefore for any thing that man /men/ can know to the contrary be real. But be it ever so real who is it it /where are those/ that is the better for it? the believer himself? or any one else?
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