1819 Aug. 26

Fallacies 9 1

Ch | | Logical Highfliers

| | King can do no wrong

[...?] by advice

In this fictitious tissue /tissue of fiction/ is wrapt up another proposition /position/ /notion/ by which whatsoever be the security purchased by it, the payment made is rather of the dearest. Nothing does the Monarch as such ever do but by the advice of others. Not by his own understanding but by the understanding of some one else is his will ever directed. A consequence is - here comes another question With reference to the functions in question Where is the fitness where the appropriate aptitude of a man, who if he has an understanding of his own is not permitted - dares[?] not so much as pretend to trust to it. Such is either his present character or his situation The man on whose will the fate of so many millions of his fellow creatures is continually depending is not only declared but self confessed to be if not in a state of idiotcy, at best in a state of perpetual childhood. Can there be any need of this? can there be any use in it? No: not in any constitution grounded in rational principles. /government actually constituted, and constituted by the light of experience./ But under an imaginary constitution which not being established at any time or place is not to be seen any where, but is /has been/ made up by shreds of fictions a piece of falshood with form or consistency made up of fictions, this confession humiliating as it is must be submitted to.

Here then the distinction between self-formed and derivative judgment - here then this distinction has not only /has/ received its exemplification and through this exemplification its illustration and the proof of its existence, but has received /been recognized/ the sanction of the authority of government. Incapable of framing on any part of the field of government a self-formed judgment, the Monarch of the country - all /most/ excellent and most religious as he is, is in every part of that field reduced to put his understanding under tutelage, and to act upon no firmer ground than that of a derivative judgment.

/The President of the American United States, he is not impeccable: he is not a disville[?] having no understanding of his own: he is like another /any other/ man provided with an understanding and responsible for the use of it