1820 Feb. 19

Radicalism not dangerous

III. Experience

II. Ireland

Radicalism its origin

Factitious dignity

2

2

2

16

5

A man who to the desire should regard himself as adding the faculty of giving to an institution of the sort in question the colour of a define[?] &c

Nay but says somebody factitious dignity in all its branches is not more than is requisite for operating in the character /way/ of reward and thereby giving bulk to merit in all its shapes and in particular to meritorious public service in all its shapes.

Answers

1. It is not necessary to any such purpose. In relation to every such purpose it is needless.

2. It is therefore at best but so much of the matter of good expended in waste.

3. In[?] Taking meritorious public service in the aggregate, all tendency of it is rather to prevent /exclude/ them to give encrease to any such public service See above

4. It was not for any such purpose that it was instituted. This was not the end /purpose or among the purposes/ for the attainment of which it was instituted. It was instituted for other ends. Being so instituted, a use a use beneficial to the public was required to be found for it by those whose task it is to prove /by whom the acceptable task has been undertaken of proving/ that whatever is is right, that what is and what ought to be are throughout /all over/ the whole field of government the same thing.

5. All meritorious service /public virtue/ to a certain /may to a considerable and in general a sufficient/ degree its own may in a short way of speaking be […?] its own reward: to operate as such all that it requires is to be made known - to be made known /as bare[?]/ exactly for what it is. In this way, and generally speaking, in this way alone, may /can/ the authority of government be employed to good effect. In this way the nature of the service may be particularized and explained with the utmost accuracy and particularity: and the greater the degree of particularity the more exactly appropriate apposite and congruous will the natural reward which in this way will attach itself as it were of itself to the meritorious service.