[clx. 298]

1822 July 6

Constitut. Code

Factitious honor

Evils of Extravasated

Suppose not only no extravasated factitious honor, but no superiority by power, no superiority by opulence to have place, sympathy and esteem, thence free and spontaneous service in all its shapes would attach itself to superiority in the scale of genuine moral virtue: of effective benevolence in harmony and alliance with self-regarding prudence and thus it is that these same instruments of felicity attaching themselves in the character of reward to that same moral virtue, tend to /operate towards/ the encrease of it, by furnishing inducements to the practice of it. This order is disturbed by power: it is disturbed, as hath been /will be/ seen, by opulence it is thus further disturbed by /experiences further disturbance from/ extravasated factitious honor, and in so far as that order is disturbed by them, those instruments of felicity are every one of them, instruments of moral corruption, instruments of corruptive influence

Note (a)

In the case of the female sex, another article that requires /comes/ to be added to the list of instruments of corruption, moral as well as political, is beauty. But for obvious reasons it belongs not to the present purpose It is not of /belongs not as power and opulence does to/ the number of the objects of which government is the creator: good economy could not in this case as in that /those/ prescribe any proposed reduction in the quantity of it In the female sex Beauty by the influence it gives /exercises/ serves as a compensation for inferiority in the scale of physical strength, and as a couterforce for /to/ the sinister force /power/ which it enables and prompts the male to exercise and thus to reduce /diminish/ the inequality produced by it

Note that when, on this occasion, and in this view, superiority in beauty is attributed to the female sex in comparison with the male, all that to this purpose is true in what is said is that the enjoyment in which both are partakers is in the case of the male most commonly /upon the average/ more intense, the desire accordingly stronger, the need more urgent, and the inducement to employ service in all other shapes for the obtainment of it: and in particular the negative service consisting in the forbearing to apply the superiority in the article /scale/ of physical force to the purpose of intimidation, depredation and oppression in other shapes. For as to beauty itself, it has not absolute, it has only a relative existence. It depends as much upon the nature of the being in whom the sentiment is produced as on the nature of the being by whom it is produced.