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7
Chapter I
General Statement – Alliance between Interest & Duty.
He who in a deliberative assembly who takes before himself are volunteers to bring any motion
forward &confers on himself a distinction in which his prominency must cannot but be
contrasted with the equality of the rest; – & so he who in the republic of letters
chooses to range himself among the few who write as becomes necessarily contradistinguished from
the many who read – and both take upon themselves no inconsiderable responsibility.
But while in the case of a dis public meeting for discussion every impropriety of the speaker has the
chance of immediate correction – in the case of that fictitious & never assembled body
which creates the tribunal of public opinion, – no instant arbitration correction removal of error has
place. Secured for the most part against contradiction, the public writer is
liable to assume a confidence unwarranted by his position. He has a motive
to avoid giving to his doctrines & precepts the support of adequate reasons, the
production of which would interfere with his love of ease – & the production development
of which would demand an additional exercise of intellectual power effort. The public legislator
with all his powers is for the generally less despotic in his phraseology than the public
writer – that self constituted legislator of the people. Ought & ought not are with him He makes laws without
seems as it were, of course – & giving reasons – laws which generally convey only his sovereign will & pleasure. Insert here [It is the who indeed
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deontology |
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chapter i |
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linking material |
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f7 |
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sir john bowring |
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