1820 Feb. 18

Radicalism not dangerous

III. Experience

II. Ireland

Radicalism - its origin

3

In such a state of things, no Elector having it in his hands[?] /power/ either by himself or by any representative in the election of whom he had a share to give effect to his own personal interest at the expence of all or any other interests, such Elector would have no other power than that of contributing to the best of his judgment to the advancement of his share in the universal[?] /universal/ interest, in that interest, which is no more his than it is that of all the other members of the community, or at the least of the majority /major part/ of that same number.

As to the points of appropriate aptitude, in so far as concerns appropriate probity, the disposition to pursue /advance/ to the utmost that which in his eyes, as above, is his own personal interest - is all at once that can reasonably be expected, and at the same time all that is requisite: as to what concerns appropriate intellectual aptitude, I look upon this class of men as possessing with the benefit of such advice as they will respectively look for all that is necessary, and as much as would be to be found in any narrower or other class of men, with the exception of those, in whom /whose instance/ in so far as any superior degree of intellectual aptitude were possessed by them, it would be sure /it could not fail/ to be employed, as in experience it is every where employed in the advancement not of the universal, but of their own particular interest - that interest which, in as much as it is particular, can not fail to be in a state of continual opposition to the universal interest.