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1821. April 13. Codification Offer. '.5. Draughtsman single III Hand single.
But, besides being a screen, this same implement serves as a sort of framework,
the several pieces or timbers of which, afford to one another mutual support:
each one, having his own separate supports and connections, brings them into the
common stock, and gives the benefit of them to the rest. In this way is formed a
well-compacted body:- a phalanx, alike well-formed for active operation and for
defensive resistance: for effecting mischief, and for braving and excluding
punishment.
Thus armed, partly be concealment, partly by force, they will feel themselves
placed out of the reach of the castigatory and restrictive influence of public
opinion: in effect and practice they will be independent of the controuling
power of that indispensable guardian of public virtue. Thus will they be
independent, each of them, of all those on whom it is conducive to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number that they should be conducive.
On the other hand, of his colleagues, or any of them, no one of them will be
altogether independent. The practical consequence is obvious. No one of them
will be able to obtain every thing he wishes; no one of them but will be able to
obtain more or less of what he wishes. Some sacrifice must be made, some
sacrifice will be received, by every one of them. The sort of sacrifice that
every one will be ready to make, is - the sacrifice of every interest and
prejudice, that is neither particularly his own, nor that of any particular
connection of his: in which case is the universal interest. A sacrifice that no
one of them will be ready to make, is - that of his own particular interest, or
prejudices, or that of any interest or prejudice particularly connected with
them. But, in return for the sacrifices thus made, and without repugnance,
namely the sacrifice of all foreign and unregarded interests and prejudices, to
which will be added, not without reluctance, and in proportion to necessity
only, more or less of the particular interest and prejudices of each member, as
above,- in return for these sacrifices each of them will obtain, to a greater or
less extent, the object of his wishes: advancement of his particular and
sinister interest, deference paid to his own particular prejudices, and to his
inbred intellectual weaknesses.
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