[clx. 197]

1821 April 19

First Lines

Distributive Law

In the penning of arrangements which present themselves in the shape of arrangements of Civil or Distributive, never should the Legislator let slip out of his mind, the effects they are capable of producing in the respective fields of three other branches of Law, the remuneratory branch, the penal branch and the Constitutional branch /viz the remuneratory, the penal and the Constitutional/.

Render the receipt of a benefit, conditional you convert it into a reward.

Render the receipt of a burthen, conditional, you convert it into a punishment.

Lodge in a succession of hands in large masses of a certain magnitude, the matter of which benefits are made, to be distributed /allotted to/ among, such as shall perform or undertake to perform certain acts - give to this arrangement a certain degree of permanence, you esablish a foundation, - you found an institution. Foundation is Legislation.

According to certain opinions of the whole number of the individuals, belonging past present and to come, belonging to the human species, a majority, or some other very large proportion, are, on the termination of the present life, consigned to a state of torment exceeding, in an infinite ratio, as well in intensity as in duration, the most affective that, in this life, has ever been experienced or can be conceived. According to these same opinions, there exists a certain class of persons so gifted that, by certain acts performable by any one of them in favour of any individual chosen by them /him/ for that purpose, either the probability diminution may be effected /applied/ either in /altogether to/ the probability of his being subjected to such torment, or at any rate to the duration of it. Set an exemption to this effect be supposed obtainable, the greatest mass of the matter of wealth that ever was possessed, or ever could be possessed, by any man would, in the character of a reward for the service by which this exemption or rather this chance of exemption was afforded, be as far from being equal in value to the service thus obtained as the value of the smallest denomination of coin would be to the value of the richest treasure ever accumulated within the compass of one and the same receptacle.

Let