1822 May 25

Economy etc

Altogether different is the plan that for the accomplishment of that same end

requires to be pursued on /on the occasion of/ the location of the supreme

operative power: on the occasion of the quantity and quality of the powers with

which those individuals shall be invested in whose hands the exercise of

whatsoever operative power shall come to be placed in those hands the

designation of which shall have been effected by those in whose hands the

supreme constitutive power resides /is located or rather remains located/. For

the accomplishment of the universal end in the case of the possessors of the

supreme constitutive power the provision made can not be well adapted, otherwise

than in so far as facility is left or given to each individual to make what in

his eyes is the best provision possible for his own individual interest in the

case of the possessors of the supreme operative power, unless in so far as the

utmost difficulty is opposed to his endeavours to make what is in his eyes is

the best provision possible for his own individual interest, to the detriment of

the interest of the other individuals of that same community that is to say in

so far as mutual incompatability and competition have place, making provision

for his own interests to the detriment of theirs In the first case the power

left in or brought into existence needs no limits: no limits that could be

applied to it could have any tendency to secure to the exercise given to it the

most perfect conduciveness to its end: in the other case it requires to be

applied to it the strictest limits which in any direction can be applied to it,

consistently with its retaining amplitude sufficient for its giving

accomplishment to that same end.

So far then as regards the supreme Constitutive power, that which the legislator

has to do is - not the taking men by selection and rendering or even to render

/place/ the aggregate of their individual interests in a state of identification

with relation to the universal interest, but the taking at once those /that

class of individuals/ the aggregate of whose interests constitutes the universal

interest - the taking those individuals belonging to this all comprehensive

groupe[?], and lodging the power in their hands.