[xxxvi. 104]

1822 June 28

Constitut Code Rationale

Supreme Operative

Monarch absolute

1. Morals

On not near so good a footing are subjects in the eyes and hands of the best-tempered Monarch. Of the whole number of them no more than a very small part at the utmost are ever under his eye: those who are worst treated, those whose sufferings are greatest from the treatment they receive under his government are never, especially while under /enduring/ that treatment, under his eye. Among them /Of this whole number/ there will always be a large portion by which his ill-will his anger will continually be called forth. By Every obstruction afforded by any one of them to the fulfilment of his will his anger will be called forth, and such obstructions howsoever kept under by fear and hope must notwithstanding be universal and continual.

Whatsoever quantity of the external instruments of felicity he happens at any time to have in his hands or at his immediate command he is never satisfied with it. He never can be satisfied with it so long as he sees around him any other of those instruments that are not equally at his command. In his desires are included those of all the persons attached to his immediate service and of those desires there are not any that are or ever can be compleatly satisfied.

Seeing that his gain in happiness never can have place but by means of loss to theirs and that by /of/ every such gain loss to theirs to a prodigiously greater amount is a neverfailing accompaniment, what he can not entirely avoid the perception of is - that of the suffering thus produced by him ill-will to an amount more or less considerable in the instance of every such sufferer is liable to be the consequence. In them in a word /Among them in a large though never exactly determinate proportion/ he beholds so many enemies: by the contemplation of enmity on their part enmity on his part is produced In /For/ the gratification of this enmity as well as for keeping down resistance and securing against non payment the continually encreasing quantity exacted by him of the instruments of felicity exacted by him at their expence, the afflictiveness of the penal law is continually screwed up to the highest amount that is thought to be consistent with their efficiency. Thus it is that in the very best tempered Monarch by far the greatest number of the rest of the community have an enemy, and that enemy an essentially implacable one. If under such a Monarch such is their condition, what must it be under an ordinary one.