[clx. 294]

1822 July 5

Constitut. Code

Factitious dignity

?.7. Successional

Punishment in a vicarious state is as /no less/ alien to nature than it is repugnant to reason and general utility

In consequence of the various connections of interest and sympathy, domestic more especially by which men are linked together, punishment in an extravasated state is to an indefinite extent unhappily unavoidable. By Evil to this extent /amount/ a moderate appetite for the spectacle of human suffering would have been sufficient. Not so to the appetite of /in the eyes of/ an English lawyer To reconcile men to the contemplation /view/ of the boundless quantity produced by them under the orders of their Monarch for the satisfaction /gratification/ of the conjunct of the kindred /kindred/ appetites of rapacity and vengeance, they have pointed to the /that/ unhappy abundance of evil in this shape /mis seated punishment/ which no human ingenuity under the orders of human benevolence is able altogether to exclude.

Impute not /Tax not with/ irrelevancy to what is here said of mis-seated punishment. Partly in the way of suggestion, partly in the way of supposed or pretended justification injustice in the application of the matter of evil leads to injustice in the application of the matter of good. To be lavish of punishment and lavish of reward, belongs to the same mind and to the same form of government. Prodigality whatsoever be the subject matter of it - the prodigality by which others suffer is the result /offspring/ of contempt - of the contempt entertained towards those /of which they are the objects/ /with which they are regarded/ who suffer by it

/Of/ Vicarious reward is an absurdity that, even in the most barbarous state of society appears not to have been exemplified /no example has been found /found an example//.

The deficiency has however been amply compensated for by the amplitude of the field in which extravasated reward, with its waste and absurdity have been and continue to be exhibited.

In the case of punishment, the substitution of a manifestly improper object to a supposed or pretended proper one was introduced by priestcraft. By vicarious punishment sin was said in Latin to be expiated to be expelled by piety: in English to be atoned for. A God or Gods was offended - but, roast meat being given to their priests, the priests were saturated, and the Gods satisfied. Offending and non-offending were in consequence all-at-one: at-one-ment was thus made.