[clx. 296]

1822 July 6

Constitut. Code Rationale

Factitious Dignity /Honor/

?. Evils of Extravasated

? Factitious honor in an extravasated state: mischievous effects peculiar to it.

It /Extravasated factitious honor/ aggravates the evil of inequality: it does so without necessity and without use

All inequality produces /is a source of/ evil - by the inferior /loses/ more is lost in the account of happiness than by the superior is gained.

Inequality in the account /scale/ of power is an /a source of/ evil: but inequality in this account /scale/ is necessary to the existence of society: still the less there is of it consistently with the well-being of society in other respects the better

Inequality in the scale /account/ of money /wealth/ /opulence/ is necessary to the well being. Inequality to a certain degree to the very being of society, for any continuance: for habitual superabundance is necessary as a security against such casual deficiency of which famine and mortality would be the results and unless men in general were permitted to give encrease to their respective portions of superabundance either /if not altogether/ without limits, at any rate not without such limits as would leave an ample range, no aggregate of superabundance could have place.

Inequality in the scale /account even/ of moral accomplishments /acquirements/ /virtue/ moral accomplishments of a nature useful to society is /may even be/ a source of evil and that for the reason /to wit in the way/ above given. But inequality is the necessary /inseparable/ result of competition: and competition is the parent of encrease: and only in proportion to encrease in such accomplishments can general felicity encrease.

Inequality in the scale of intellectual and active accomplishments /acquirement/ and accomplishments existing in and produced by active talent is a source of evil: to wit for the reason /in the way/ above designated. But here too inequality is the inseparable result of competition: here too, competition is the parent of encrease: intellectual accomplishments in so far as they are kept in subservience to and under the controul of moral accomplishments general felicity finds in them a source of encrease.