1821 Sept. 26 B §.2

To Toreno

2 o

Letter VI

§ 2. Code welcome

§[?] 3 Conditions

5

1

With regard to any such view /these views/ to see a work appear[?] in the character of a proposed work is one thing: to see the same work in the character of an adopted and sanctioned work is another /a very different/ thing. That in this latter character it would be a real pleasure to me to see this same work of theirs, rival as it is in relation to mine is what I am inclined to think you would hardly have anticipated but from the title given to this my concluding Letter.

The natural satisfaction thus expressed would not be less sincerely in this instance than is the natural satisfaction in the instance just mentioned. {It is not upon any such insubstantial evidence as that of the party in question that I call upon you for belief: it would be an ungrounded confidence.} When the choice is between good and good, any choice in so far as I conceive myself able to distinguish falls without difficulty upon the greater good: where it is between evil and evil, upon the lesser evil. By the Gentlemen in question as noticed in my second Letter, a picture has been given of the state in which they found the body of the existing laws: it is not a /no/ flattering one, and I see no reason to suspect it of being an overcharged one. {As to that proposed succedaneum Though it has not happened to me to be sure of having found so much as a single one of those good things which you, Sir, were fortunate /happy/ enough to find in it} nor would there have been any use in my looking for them it is still no flattery to say that in my mind not any the least doubt have place but that if substituted as far as it goes to that which they have found established, what they propose would if established be a highly beneficial substitution.