1821 April 28

First Lines

Constitutional

Distributive

In so far as it matches with, and is determined by, the state of the Constitutional branch of law, the state of the remunerative /distributive/ branch of law, as applied to benefits, will, under the different forms of government wear /present/ the different complexions /aspects/ following.

The state of the distributive branch of Law as applied to benefits exercises an influence on the state and the results of the Constitution branch of Law in manner following:

The mater of opulence is the matter of corruption: in it is contained a large proportion of the matter of delusion: of the stock of instruments applicable and applying themselves to the production of delusion.

A man who feels in his hands a certain portion of the matter of opulence, especially favoured by situation in other respects, has in his hands inducements for seeking to acquire, in such proportions as his individual taste prescribes and the state of the Government under which he lives place within his reach, in the greatest attainable quantities, continual additions to whatsoever stock he has already in his hands of the several external instruments of felicity - opulence, power, and factitious dignity. For the obtainment of these several objects of general desire, he acts under the continual temptation of employing this stock of the matter of opulence in the character of metter of corruption: by applying it to the sensitive faculties of the several possessors of political power in those several shapes in which, by the exercise of that power in his favour, the several objects of his abovementioned naturally insatiable concupiscence: applying itself to those several faculties in such sort as, by its corruptive influence on them, to produce a correspondent and requisite exhibition of corrupt obsequiousness.