[clxvii. 253]

1821 Aug. 6.

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 5. Adopters justified

In form otherwise than Monarchical the regenerated Government could not have been: /Democratical it could not have been in readiness/ for there were no hands in readiness in which the powers belonging to a democracy could have been placed: no hands already in possession of an adequate degree of public confidence. Democratical it could not /easily/ /scarcely/ have been for another reason for by democracy by any thing short of democracy the shock from popular prejudice would have been too great to be endured.

Not that in its present form it can remain uncharged. Mixt up of democracy on the one hand and Monarchy with /supported by/ an Official authority for its support on the other, it will either go on to /made up of such irreconcileable/ representative democracy, or fall back to despotism: fall back to despotism, that is to say in the first instance: for in democracy sooner of later, either directly or through the medium of depotism, the new lights, the sun abovementioned with all its vivifying power will make it end /cause it to terminate/. To the absurdity of Monarchy considered in the light of a means towards the greatest happiness of the greatest number - of any number greater than the ruling one, all eyes /every eye/ will be open. Goodness is - not as pretended - in the direct but in the inverse ratio of the power which a man has over others. By the absurdity of the contrary doctrine, by the immorality the insincerity and the baseness involved in every preachment of it, sooner or later every stomach will be sickened. Under a Monarchy the whole population is composed of sycophants and traitors: the sycophants again of deceivers and dupes: dupes then on whom the language of the idolatory passes for truth: deceivers those by whom the language of the idolatry passes for truth: deceives those by whom it is seen to be what it is. Obey the King is to say in other words assist him in exercising the power of oppression and depredation over the people. Absolute or limited the Monarch is every where a living idol: a God upon earth as He is Emmanuel, God with us. Such by the express declaration of Blackstone was the God by whom for this theology he was so richly rewarded.

In its very cradle from its very origin the force of the matter of corruptive influence (and by the practice of the hands in which it is lodged the whole mass of official emolument is converted as will soon be seen into the matter of corruptive influence the force of the makers of corruptive influence is at work urging /pressing/ it back on the road to pristine despotism /misery/, lodged in irremovable hands, this whole mass goes on accumulating and accumulating like an avalanche.