10 June 1810

Influence

Ch.

' Influence convenient

2

This /The/ ambiguity, and along with it the advantage it affords to the defenders of abuse, shews itself in two forms /shapes/ -

1. In the first place comes the property which the word has of bringing to view /presenting to the mind/ along with the object which is really noxious another, and to at least an equal extent which is really innoxious. The good being thus confounded with the bad in /under/ the same appellation, the person with the {remedy} /useful medicament/ /aliment/, it is not without diffidence and hesitation /faultering/ that a man can bring himself to pass condemnation on both together, on the compound and unanalysed mass.

2. Another circumstance which contributes, how imperceptibly soever contributes to blunt the edge of resentment and censure when directed against this object /influence/, is the uncertainly in which /the cloud of uncertainty which hovers over/ the efficiency of the thing /influence/ /power in question/ is involved.

As there may be influence which is not /not being/ exercised over the will is on that account innoxious, so there may be influence which though exercised over the will, over a will over which it ought not be exercised, at least by the person by or on the part of whom it is exercised, is till not noxious /innoxious/. For on any given occasion to be noxious i.e. to be productive of a noxious effect it must be productive of some effect, but without producing any noxious effect, without producing any effect at all, it may happen to influence to have been exercised. It will have been thus inefficiently exercised, if when exercised on one part, it is not followed by correspondent obsequiousness on the other.