30 July 1810 '.4

Parl. Reform Plan

Ch. Course to be taken

'.4. Means of conversion

1

'.4. Sole means of conversion, popular pressure.

Two /Three/ lessons there are which on this occasion they must take care never to let slip out of their minds /mind/.

One is that which is given by Locke - according to whom uneasiness - uneasiness and nothing else - is the official cause of every thing that is done. The sight of the philosopher was indeed here a little of the shortest. He /If he did not/ forget that there was /is/ such a thing as pleasure: what he did forget was that through the medium of hope pleasure is not less a cause of action, than through the medium of fear, pain ie. that there are not only pleasures of possession but pleasures of expectation: and that though as yet not in possession expectation of pleasure enough entertained without any concomitant, or at any rate without any predominant pain of privation or regret, so there be but some other pleasure in possession to occupy and satisfy the mind in the mean time.

He of whose pleasure the bed is the chief source, is he never easy but in bed? He of whose pleasure the table is the chief source, is he never easy but when at table?

But, after allowance made for oversight and exaggeration, thus far /to the present purpose/ Locke's notion of the power of uneasiness may /must/ be admitted to be true /correct/. That which in the breast of the /those/ possible friends of efficient reform it is not in their power to create is - pleasure. That which in the same breast it is in their power to create is uneasiness. Locke's principle of uneasiness. Let them not disdain instruction here; though it be from the pen of a philosopher, a theorist, a speculatist, that it comes.