[xxxviii. 69]

1822 July 10.

Constitut Code Rationale

Factitious honor

?.1. Expository matter

??.1. Nature and modifications.

8 or 1. Characters in which a title of honor operates.

1. Order for respect: as such is a title to respect: i.e. to the external tokens of it: order for money is on one individual: for respect, on all.

9. or 2. Exercise of dominion on the many - in almost all.

Instrument of dominion not coercion, not intimidation, but delusion.

Evil thence not so great: yet still too great.

10. or 3. 2. Certificate of good desert, alias merit: import indeterminate; this the course of choice: Fact attested existence of this quality in the subject.

11. or 4. Effect produced, causing to be ascribed to him dignity: i.e. worthiness: viz. of receiving respect or tokens of it: means employed, opinion expressed by the conferring functionary that this benefit has been deserved by him - on whom conferred: deserved i.e. by service rendered by him: quere to whom? Of service, if real, the result must be pleasure or exemption from pain, actual or probable.

12. or 5. So, merited. Take away service, thence pleasure and pain, merit evaporates.

13. or 6. To be meritorious, such service must have had in it something extraordinary. Of services the most useful are such as have no merit. Thus self-feeding, and sale and purchase of food.

14. or 7. Respect - its value, if any, must consist in a certainty or probability of benefits in a more determinate shape.