[xxxvi. 14]

1821. April 9.

First Lines

First Principles

Appropriate aptitude

aptitude is inversely as altitude

\PS\ Moral aptitude is inversely as altitude in the scale of political property, political influence - compound scale of power, opulence and factitious dignity

Education being supposed not deficient, nor subsistence wanting,

Aptitude, with relation to the exercise of political power, is inversely as the height /altitude/ of a man's place in the composite scale of political influence. This composite scale is composed of three elementary scales,the scale of opulence, the scale of power, and the scale of factitious dignity (a)

In the scale of opulence, language has not yet afforded, as in the scale of temperature, denominations designative here and there of the different degrees. No precise station, therefore, can here be designated by the terms opulent and unopulent. All that can be expressed is - their relative stations: viz. that in the station marked by the term opulent, the quantity of the matter of opulence is greater than in the station marked unopulent.

With relation to useful qualities in general, and in particular with relation to those of which appropriate aptitude with relation to political functions in general is composed, the following are the considerations by which, on the part of the opulent, appropriate aptitude considered in all its branches, inferiority stands indicated.

1. As to moral aptitude -

1. The greater the quantity in value of the services which, at the hands of those on whom his comforts depend, a man has at command, without rendering any correspondent services in return - sevices positive and negative together - positive consisting in the exercise of positive beneficence, negative consisting in the exercise of negative beneficence, that is to say forbearance from injury and annoyance in all their shapes, the less the need he feels for the exercise of such beneficence on his part.

(a)The scale of factitious dignity - for shortness instead of saying the scale of factitious causes of respect