1822 March 25

Rid Yourselves

Note?

Part 1

Letter 2. Interests

and in the subjection of the power being in the instance of real possession supposed

the same in this supposition the quantity of uneasiness will be greater and greater

in proportion as the numbers of those under subjection to the power is great when

compared with the number of them by whom the correspondent power is possessed. Hence

it is that the greatest happiness of the greatest number requires that the quantity

of power exercised /possessed/ to the least quantity that can have place consistently

with the fulfilment of the end of government. As to misdeeds, the agents /misdoers/

at whose hands damage to those several possessions or mass to be apprehended, are the

possessions of the several parties of the aggregate /power possessors/ mass of the

power exercised by the functionaries of government by these functionaries among who

the powers of government are shared: the facility of producing damage as above [...?]

on the part those ordinary misdoers who by the sharers in the power of government are

stiled malefactors and criminals as nothing compared with

the quantity of their faculties possessed by the functionaries of government.

Security to be entire must therefore be not only against foreign /damage from/

misdoers and against damage from ordinary and powerless internal misdoers but against

damage from public functionaries acting in /as/ the character of misdoers. To afford this security is the characteristic object professed to

be aimed at by the Constitutional Code. As to equality in respect of the above

several possessors that which causes in so far as obtainable without [...?] to

security causes it to be required by the greatest happiness of the greatest number is

- that in so far as inequality has place, the enjoyment /good/ obtained by him who

has most is less than the evil suffered by him who has least: and the difference is

so great, that if one man had for example a million of times the quantity quantity of

the external instruments of felicity that another man has it might still be a

question whether the felicity of the one were so much as [...?] so great as that of

the other Absolute equality however would neither be consistent with the greatest

happiness of the greatest number, as with security on the part of the greatest

number, nor yet with physical possibility: who in respect of the greatest happiness

of the greatest number equality is spoken of as a state of things desirable, which is

to be understood as such one approach to absolute equality as is consistent with

security: and for the designation of this degree, the term practical equality may serve.