[xxxvi. 10]
1821. April 26.
First Lines
Constitutional Finance?
But as, with the power of granting, the power of refusing receives correspondent encrease, so with that love which produces gratitude will encrease that fear which produces respect: not more than in the hands of the opulent, with the negative power of refusing favour to those who have not been, and those who have ceased to be, the objects of their regard is conjoined, in no inconsiderable degree, the power of doing positive evil to those who were the objects of their positive aversion. By the operation of all these causes taken together, thus intimate is the connection between the idea presented by the word rich, and the idea presented by the word respectable. Of the effect produced by this association on conduct, discourse and, to no inconsiderable degree, on opinion and affection, an exemplification may be seen in the picture of the parasite as drawn by the earliest of the Dramatists whose works have reached us.
If such and so great as the ordinary influence and effect of this matter of wealth in hands of individuals distributed in parcels of an ordinary bulk each, what must it be accumulated in an immense mass in company with supreme power and the highest lot of factitious dignity, togeher with the manufactory in which all inferior lots are fabricated - these instruments of influence all placed in the same hand. If such be the influence /even were wealth the whole/ of wealth when reckoned by thousands, what must it not be when reckoned by millions?
As long as wealth and government have had existence, the powers of poetry and oratory have been employed in singing the praises of the powerful, the dignified and the wealthy. While the effusions of praise have thus had free scope with reward in every shape to pay for them, those of censure have all along and every where been suppressed by every restraint which it was in the power of punishment to apply.
[xxxvi. 11]
1821. April 26.
First Lines
Constitutional Finance?
While the eulogies of Virgil and Horace were rewarded with lavish hand, Ovid for this or that little bed-chamber anecdote was sent to pine in exile. If the quantity of virtue exercised /practised/ were to be measured by the quantity of vitue attributed, the most selfish and hard hearted of tyrants would be the most virtuous of philanthropists. Where profusion alone, and without cruelty, marks the character of the Despot, gratitude and hope and the only brokers the exertions of which will be occupied in the filling the cornucopia of praise: where to the influence of those agents that of fear is added, priase extorted from enemies will add itself to the praise poured in by friends.
In the eyes of the undiscerning and unscrutinizing multitude, it may now be seen how impossible it is that receipt of praise should fail of being considered as conclusive evidence of merit, virtue, excellence - whatsoever be the name of the fictitious entity created by praise to represent the subject which it undertakes to decorate /magnify/, - whether it be merit for example, or virtue or excellence - thus it is that in proportion to the quantity possessed by any man of this efficient cause and title to praise of wealth seen or supposed to be possessed by a man - of wealth though neither power nor factitious dignity were seen in the possession of the same hands, the quantity of this factitious entity supposed on that account or said to be also in his possession, thus merit, virtue, excellence, whatever be its name, will be encreased: on the part of those by whom any of those tokens of wealth by the appearance of which the existence and possession of it are generally regarded as being proved, thus it is that an opinion will really be entertained that, in the composition of his mind, a proportionably pre-eminent quantity of this admirable and admired quality by whatever name it may be stiled, will be to be found.
[xxxvi. 12]
1821. April 26.
First Lines
Constitutional Finance?
It has now, it is hped, been put sufficiently out of doubt how far any such opinion considered in the character of a general one is from being in any agreement with the truth: and that the truth of the case lies not in this opinion but in the reverse of it: that in so far as any such opinion is entertained delusion has place in the breast of him by whom it is entertained: in so far as for the propogating of this opinion endeavours are employed, endeavours for the propogating of delusion are employed.
What is now, moreover, it is hoped sufficiently put out of doubt is that by every additional particle not only of actual wealth, of actual power and of actually existing factitious dignity, but of every thing which, in the character of a token, can contribute to their encrease of the quantity of any one of those external elements of felicity supposed to be /regarded as being/ in the hands of an individual possessing any considerable share of practical power, - the force and efficiency of all this stock /the whole/ of the instruments of delusion will be encreased.
What will at the same time be seen is sufficiently out of dispute is - that in every such instrument of delusion may be seen and truly seen an instrument of misrule: a means of exercising it: and thereby an encouragement and incitement to execute it.
[xxxvi. 13]
1821. April 26.
First Lines
Constitutional Finance?
To support the dignity of the Crown, to add splendour to the Crown, to add lustre to the Crown, so many phrases upon the strength of which money wrung from a starving people by scarcely supportible taxation, is day by day by the creatures and dependents of the Monarch called for without measure and without shame: called for and granted accordingly, with what effect? With the effect of labouring in vain to fill overfull the ever leaky cup of his personal gratification, of giving any encreasing force or perpetual encrease to the delusion by which the seat of necessary depravity, is converted into the seat of imaginary and fabled excellence, and in making every day fresh and fresh advances towards the accomplishment of the constant object of all endeavours the conversion of a scarce disguised, into the more simple and convenient form of an undisguised, and openly avowed, despotism.
It has been seen to what inevitable necessity by the original and unchangeable nature of man, an irremovable Chief Magistrate call him Duke call him Consul, call him King, call him Emperor, cal him what you will, is an enemy to all that are subject to his rule, with the exception of those who are sharers with him in the sinister profit - and that enemy an implacable one.
What at the same time is no less manifest is that by every step by which any advance can be made towards dissolving the disastrous association by which the instruments of vice and misery are palmed upon mankind as the necessary instruments of security and universal happiness, or real service and that a most important one vice will be rendered
[xxxvi. 14]
1821. April 9.
First Lines
First Principles
Appropriate aptitude
aptitude is inversely as altitude
\PS\ Moral aptitude is inversely as altitude in the scale of political property, political influence - compound scale of power, opulence and factitious dignity
Education being supposed not deficient, nor subsistence wanting,
Aptitude, with relation to the exercise of political power, is inversely as the height /altitude/ of a man's place in the composite scale of political influence. This composite scale is composed of three elementary scales,the scale of opulence, the scale of power, and the scale of factitious dignity (a)
In the scale of opulence, language has not yet afforded, as in the scale of temperature, denominations designative here and there of the different degrees. No precise station, therefore, can here be designated by the terms opulent and unopulent. All that can be expressed is - their relative stations: viz. that in the station marked by the term opulent, the quantity of the matter of opulence is greater than in the station marked unopulent.
With relation to useful qualities in general, and in particular with relation to those of which appropriate aptitude with relation to political functions in general is composed, the following are the considerations by which, on the part of the opulent, appropriate aptitude considered in all its branches, inferiority stands indicated.
1. As to moral aptitude -
1. The greater the quantity in value of the services which, at the hands of those on whom his comforts depend, a man has at command, without rendering any correspondent services in return - sevices positive and negative together - positive consisting in the exercise of positive beneficence, negative consisting in the exercise of negative beneficence, that is to say forbearance from injury and annoyance in all their shapes, the less the need he feels for the exercise of such beneficence on his part.
(a)The scale of factitious dignity - for shortness instead of saying the scale of factitious causes of respect
[xxxvi. 15]
1821. April 9.
First Lines
So much for moral aptitude. Now as to intellectual aptitude and active talent.
1. The greater the quantity in value a man has of those good things which are the fruits of the labour of others, the less the need he has of labour on his own part: the less therefore will his frame, whichever part of it, bodily or mental be in question, be inured to labour. But, other circumstances equal, intellectual aptitude will be in proportion to labour.
Accordingly, in every department in which the waste and corruption of Government has furnished pay enough for both, you will see two sorts of men in pairs: viz. 1. the man who bears the title and cuts the figure doing nothing of the business: 2. the unopulent man who bears no title, cuts no figure, and cuts /does/ no /all the/ business.
3. in general, the greater
And so likewise in regard to active talent /aptitude/.
3. The greater the exercise given to the will, the less the exercise given to the understanding.
The Monarch is all will: understanding is wanting to him. Will occupies itself about the end, understanding about the means. All the Monarch has to do is to look out for ends: for objects suited to his fancy and his taste. To find out means for the obtainment of those objects belongs to others: to the two legged and featherless instruments of his pleasure.
Of the Right Honourable House - of the Honourable House - the members are, each of them, a fraction of a Monarch - a Monarch in miniature. Accordingly, in neither situation, has reason, fruit of the labour of the understanding, any effective place. By collision of wills it is, not by collision of understandings, that every result is produced. When argument, or any thing which has the semblance of it is exhibited, it is only for appearance sake: for any such delusion, as it is thought these may be a convenience in propogating without doors.
[xxxvi. 16]
1820. April 9.
First Lines
2. The higher the degree of opulence, the less the degree of sympathy, in the breast of the opulent for the unopulent: for that portion of mankind in behalf of whom the demand for such beneficence as it may be in his way to exercise is greatest.
Correspondent to, and intimately connected with sympathy of affection, is sympathy of conception.
By and in proportion to sympathy of affection, a man is disposed to add to the enjoyments, and subtract from the sufferings, of the objects of his sympathy.
Proprtioned to the correctness clearness and compleatness of the conception a man has of those enjoyments and these sufferings, (the /his/ degree of sensibility being given,) is the strength of the sympathy of affection with relation to those same objects of his sympathy.
Relative Sympathy being wanting, sympathy of affection may be equally wanting, although sympathy of conception be entire: but in so far as sympathy of conception is wanting, sympathy of conception /affection/ has no place.
For all bodily pains, sympathy of conception must, on the part of the experienced surgeon, be grater than on the part of an average man. But if his sensibility and consequently if his sympathy of affection were so likewise, he would not be fit for the exercise of his art.
Want of sympathy of conception concurrs with the feeling of relative independence in destroying in the breast of the opulent, sensibility, and, with it, beneficence positive and negative, with relation to the unopulent: he has no need of their free services: their free and gratuitous services: he has no conception of their wants: he has no feeling for their wants.
So
[xxxvi. 17]
1821. April 9.
First Lines
Financial Law.
\PS\ Financial law - law belonging to the Department of Finance - Revenue Law.
Financial law has, for its elementary part, portions detached from the several other branches of law.
From the civil branch of law By the Contributions which it opposes, burthens /correspondent/ to that amount are distributed among the several contributors: considered /contemplated/ in this point of view, the matter of the law of finance belongs to the distributive called the civil branch of law.
Penalties are attached to the conduct of all such persons whose endeavours are in any way applied in weakening the efficiency of these impositions: contemplated in this point of view, the matter of the law of finance belongs to the penal branch of law.
It is by the authority of certain persons invested with corresponding powers, that these contributions are imposed: the determination who these persons shall be - in what way they shall become invested with these powers - belongs to the Constitutional branch of Law.
Thus much as to receipt: after receipt, or in contemplation of receipt, comes expenditure.
In whatsoever shape money or money's worth passes out of the hands of those at whose command it is, if it be not disposed of in absolute waste, it operates in the character of matter of reward: contemplated in this point of view, the matter of financial law belongs to the remuneratory branch of law.
[xxxvi. 18]
1821 April 16
Financial [...?]
Traveller April 9th. 1821. In Prussia, no military promotion till after examination.
Financial Law has for its proper end economy.
Of economy there are two branches: the one positive or say distributive; the other negative or say restrictive: the one, the distributive - the positive branch; the other restrictive - the negative branch.
The distributive branch, has for irs object the due /apt/ appropriation of the aggregate of the sums levied to the several services for which they are levied.
The restrictive branch has for its object avoidance to being any sum of all exaction, the burthensomeness of which is not outweighed by the usefulness of the application made of it.
For judging of the consistency of any mass of expenditure with the proper ends of economy take for a test this directive rule: with the alledged benefit, alledged to be expected, from the expenditure compare the unquestionable burden produced by a part to the same amount, to the most burthensome tax: frego the benefit, the burden is excluded.
Economy in a state, Taken in its narrowest and most ordinary sense, Economy in a state, has for its subject matter money and money's worth: taken in its most extensive sense, it comprehends the matter of reward, in those additional shapes in which it is to Government, that it is indebted for its existence viz. power and factitious dignity.
Suppose negative economy, practice at all times in its utmst perfection, no positive act is required for the accomplishment of its end: suppose a failure to any amount to have taken place, waste to that amount has been committed. Thereupon comes the demand for a new branch of economy - the reformative:- say in one word retrenchment.
Retrenchment in either of both of two shapes - simply discontinuative abrogative: simply discontinuative is confined to the case where the species of expenditure discontinued has been made over for all? not constituting a point in a line of established expenditure: abrogative is necessary in so far as a line of that sort has place.
To simply discontinuatie retrenchment a negative act suffices; to abrogative, a positive act is necessary - the enactment of an appropriate law /ordinance/ or regulation. For the actual ends of Financial Law see Constitutional Law.
[xxxvi. 19]
1821 April 10
First Lines
Constitutional Finance
Finance
Finance - ask for its actual end, - in a representative democracy economy - good economy in both its branches.
In an absolute Monarchy bad economy and good economy in both shapes likewise /at the same time/ bad economy in the shape of misappropriation - by applying to the personal use of the Monarch as much as possible of what is collected by the power of government; waste, in respect of that which /whatsoever/ is not so /thus/ misapplied - useful appropriation with reference to the several branches of the service to which it is so applied: restrictive economy - frugality - that as much as possible may remain[?] applicable to those improper purposes.