27 Sep. 1809

Parl y Reform

B.I. Necessity

'. Soil how prepared

Tests

' Tests imperito[?] and press enslavement

after 12

1

1

'. Parallel Relation between the exaction /imposition/ of tests and the enslavement of the press.

This tyranny /Tyranny in this shape/ (this force upon consciences) is exactly of a piece with that which aims at the instrument of the press.

It is subservient to the same ends: the prevention of intellectual improvement, the prevention of moral improvement: the securing upon the largest scale the sacrifice of the interest of the many to the interest of the few, by the hands and for the benefit of the few: the suppression of all useful truth, the propagation of all pernicious falshood: the exercise /extension and duration[?] taken into the account/ of self-profitable, self-serving wickedness upon the largest possible and imaginable scale; the propitiation of the maximum of imbicillity with its consequences, and the maximum of moral depravity among the greatest possible number, for the greatest possible length of time, for the benefit of the few, in the shape of undue emolument if possible, and to the greatest extent /amount/ possible, in the shape of undue reputation at any rate, and of undue and misexercised /misemployed/ power.

It is exercised as far as occasion serves by the same hands: and the same frame of mind which disposes a man to exercise /for the exercise of/ tyranny in the one shape disposes him for the exercise of it in the other shape. The same man /mind/ whose delight would be in the robes /habit/ of a lawyer /judge/ to return or punish to destruction every man who should presume to call in question the fitness of any person placed by whatever hand in a high situation, would in the habit of a priest or with the soul of a priest in his bosom find congenial delight in forcing into men's mouths the /the sort of/ drinking[??] horn invented for administering tests. Happen what will the tyrant has not lost[?] his labour. The poison is it rejected? a man of virtue is punished, excluded from his share in the common benefit of society vitious[?] man[?] exempted from the pressure of his controuling hand, and society itself excluded from /deprived of/ the benefit of his health[?]-inspiring influence