JB/106/343/001

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1823. Feb. 28
Greece. JBs Observations on particular Articles

English government why thus spoken of? you against it.

Thus it is that only to a representative democracy having for
its end in view the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and
to that end to the giving advancement to the intent, and execution and effect to the will declared as far as it can be declared of the greatest
number, can the application be made of this principle if and universally dependence
be appl absolute and universal dependence with every advantage. Applied tosuch as any such form of government
as the English, it would be the consummation consummation of despotism
and misrule: it would give to the law what is laws, were they ever so much worse than they are a strength
altogether irresistible. But of whatsoever remains useful in the
English government by its service not in the strength but in the
weakness of the laws. So inexorably hostile to the interests
of the greatest number are those laws and judicial practices which belong to the constitutional
branch of the field of law, that rather than that those parts should
not be weak, it is desirable that those which should be weak together
and so intensely mischievous are they, that on this account the weakness of the
whole can not be too great.⊞ ⊞ Accordingly in the
general texture of the
law such a degree
of weakness and comparative
inefficiency has place as
is scarcely to be found
in any of the purely
despotic Monarchies.
This salutary weakness
has for its cause partly
the care taken by anxiety of the
Aristocracy to cause
give to themselves security
against arbitrary power
in the hands of the
Monarch, partly the
arrangements made
by the members of the
Judiciary for the purpose
of keeping screwed
up to its utmost pitch
that uncertainty on
which their sinister emolument
and no less sinister
power depend.

To keep up keep on foot the delusion by which the whole system, taken
together is regarded not only in the aggregate is represented as being not only comparatively but positively
good – good, not only when compared with the various being
of but which despotism under its various modifications , worse are those which – to keep on foot this evidence
opposition to the the purpose of stock all all-providing delusion, a substitute to the principle only true principle above mentioned
delusion in the will of the people, a law by has been and held up to view. It is that which holds out
the be the division of the power into those parts the division of power among rulers as the most efficient
of governments of some distant one is at of if not the only security for good government: the division of power the meaning in this by
the regarded as the only service of good government, notwithstanding division the supreme power in its highest grade: the division of it, namely among divers authorities, two or more: an any such power as an
Constitution universally applying Constitutive power in the hands of the greatest
being recognised as one as being numbers, as above, not being recognized as that which either has or
the machinery of government. for ought to have place anywhere in the machinery of government.

This passage principle has this much of much good in it, that though
incompatible with the only form of government, it has
has at times operated on as a palliative, how feeble soever, to the instances of a bad
to the mischief produced by a bad one.

Identifier: | JB/106/343/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 106.
Date_1	1823-02-28	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	106	Main Headings	constitutional code
Folio number	343	Info in main headings field	greece jb observations on particular articles
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c1 / e13 / f17
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	j whatman 1821
Marginals		Paper Producer	admiral pavel chichagov
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1821
Notes public		ID Number	34931
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