[xxxvi. 209]

1823. Feb. 27

Constitut Code

Factitious dignity

Ancestry

Probabilized misconduct

Factitious honor and dignity

The more respect a man receives on account of factitious honor and dignity or on account of ancestry, the less the inducement he has to practice those self-denials those labours and those abstinences /to possess himself of those points of appropriate aptitude/ which are more or less necessary to a mans rendering himself serviceable to mankind: the less therefore is likely to be his aggregate appropriate aptitude with relation to the habit of such serviceableness, or in a word in relation to virtue public and private virtue.

Oh no! cries the man of ancestry. I possess a title to your esteem and confidence, a title such as no man who is not equally gifted in this respect can pretend to. For good conduct in all its modifications I have an inducement in which no other man whose ancestry is not as illustrious as mine, can pretend to have an equal share Nothing dishonorable could I ever do without tarnishing the lustre of my family the lustre shed on it by my ancestors.

Oh how supremely silly all such language: supposing it sincere, how perfect the blindness betrays of the ruling principles /efficient causes/ of human conduct! What he has in common with all others is the being dependent for no small part of his comfort upon the good opinion, the good will the good offices positive and negative, of the human species in general particularly those individuals of it with whom it happens to him to have most intercourse By any thing otherwise than honorable by any act of his that has any thing dishonorable in it whatsoever kindness may be in their sentiments and affections in relation to him will be lessened. Suppose this inducement to have lost its force, what force in that same /the tutelary/ direction /in question/ can be exerted by those empty sounds If his care for himself be so little, on what ground can it be regarded as any greater for a set of men whom he never sees, of whom he knows comparatively nothing, from whom he never could have received any token of kindness, to /towards/ whom he never could have manifested any mark of kindness, and to whom his qualities and his very existence were [...?] and perfectly unknown?