ÁÁ[lxxxiv. 78]

1821 Decr 25

Codification Proposal

?.5. Admission Universal.

Members Unapt

III. Aptitude and Inaptitude

By this relation we are led to a consideration of prime importance /cardinal moment/. In the order of importance moral aptitude stands before intellectual: each being understood in all degrees in any of which it is likely to have place. In so far as moral aptitude is wanting /deficient/, by intellectual aptitude, and active talent, both or either in proportion to the degree in which it is present, appropriate aptitude taken in the aggregate will, instead of being encreased, be diminished. In proportion as appropriate moral aptitude is deficient, the disposition of the man and the tendency of his endeavours will be to make sacrifice of the universal interest © the greatest happiness of the greatest number to his own particular and sinister interest: to that part of his own happiness which he purchases or thinks to purchase at the expence of the other members of the community /his fellow Citizens/.

The gradations to which and to which alone this observation can be applied with truth, are those which in the political situations in question are likely to be exemplified. Opposite to appropriate intellectual aptitude and appropriate active talent stand degrees of inaptitude, by the existence /operation/ of which would have for its consequence a greater defalcation from the mass of aggregate mass of appropriate aptitude taken in the aggregate than could be made from the most compleat absence of appropriate moral aptitude. By the mere case of ministering to his own happiness a man possessed of a certain degree of intellectual aptitude and active talent would be led to make better provision for the happiness of his fellow citizens than would or could be made by a man in whose instance /whom/ intellectual aptitude or active talent were to a certain degree deficient, although at the same time endowed with the highest conceivable degree of appropriate moral aptitude.