1818 Sept. 22.

Things as they are

I. Effects

Ch. Matter of Good

§. Factitious Dignity

Aristocracy = Cacocracy - Men certified[?] of title to respect

Efficient causes 1. Cause is Ministerial favour[?]. 2. Opulence 3. Matter of both: mischievous by enhancing the value of opulence and the corruptive influence of the desire of it.

/Over and above/ Parliamentary corruption apart, of which in another place, mischievous in divers /sundry/ points, beneficial in none is the influence which by this factitious dignity is exercised upon the moral character moral and intellectual of the individual invested with it. The greater the quantity of respect a man is assured of receiving notwithstanding bad behaviour, the less the need has he to shackle /encumber/ himself with the obligation /maintenance/ /trouble/ of maintaining that course of good behaviour by which alone he could otherwise have entertained a hope of coming into the receipt of that invaluable security for services to an indefinite amount at the hands {of his fellow countrymen} of all those with whom the accidents of human affairs /vicissitudes of life/ might happen to bring him into relation in any imaginable shape the less the need he would have of being at the pains of keeping his behaviour in a good state.

When thus, divested of all coverings and sources of illusions by an expression alike simple and /not less simple than/ apposite to them, brought to view the nature of this article is placed in its true light and that a clear one - a security for respect notwithstanding bad behaviour what a light does it not /not the phrase/ throw upon the whole subject: by the same words by which the nature of it is held up to view, condemnation passed upon it and that condemnation shewn to be just.