1821 July 18

Codification Offer

'12 Offer Operative [?]

In regard to the providing a political community with an all-comprehensive and rationalized code having for its object the greatest happiness of the greatest number the difficulty lies not on the side of the composer /draughtsman/ but on the side of those to whom it belongs to give acceptance to the draught. /As to the furnishing it/ In the present instance an individual there is who is actually in a state of ample preparation for the furnishing of such a draught: and at any rate so far as depended upon endeavours there could not in the nature of the case be any ultimate want of others who at the same price would be eager to perform /undertake/ the work /the task/: motives adequate to the production of the act have place in a sufficient number of human breasts. Not so as to the act of giving it acceptance. One such community alone there is in which any such acceptance could be given by rulers without working against the current /stream/ of /ordinary/ personal interest in the direction in which it runs in the ordinary state of things. By this interest in the ordinary state of things they stand engaged and necessitated to take and keep in their possession at all times the sweets of government, and in particular money, in a quantities /quantities/ in which it is impossible they should possess them /they can not be possessed/ otherwise than by the sacrifice of the greatest interest of the greatest number to the pursuit thus made of their own particular happiness. To produce the /any such/ effect /as that/ in question what is requisite is a state of things such that in it in the instance of a sufficient number of the persons in question each ones share in the universal interest should be of greater value than his share in that particular and sinister interest.