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1823 Feb. 26
Greece. J.B.'s Observations &c
II. Unapt arrangements inserted in the Spanish Constitution, and
not in the Grecian
1. In the first place stand all those articles by which Monarchy is
power is given lodged in the hands of a single individual
in the character situation of Monarch. To enumerate them would here
be useless. The least mass of power that was ever given to a functionary,
to whom that appellation was at the same time given, is in has always
sufficed to place him in a state of incontestable and implorable hostility with the interest
and greatest happiness of the greatest number of the individuals members
of which the community is composed. Money, power, factitious
honour and dignity, faculty of gratifying the appetite for vengeance, faculty of enjoying
perfect the perfection of ease – whatsoever the external instruments of felicity in
any of those shapes are happen to be conferred on him that one individual at the expence of the
greatest number, in point of that which in actual felicity what he gains, bears no sort
of proportion to what they lose. So much for the article of expence in the case of that form of government: now as to relative
and appropriate aptitude –
say moral appropriate
moral aptitude, appropriate
intellectual aptitude
excluding (
and judgment included)
and appropriate active
aptitude. While for the exercise of all the other
functions of government is made dependant on his will the will of that one individual, there
exists not so much as a single function for the exercise of which
every individual in that so mischievously elevated situation, is not, by that very situation,
by all those and by that vast mass of the external instruments of felicity so heaped upon it,
rendered, in an eminent degree, more flagrantly and unquestionably
unapt, than any other individual in the whole community
would be found to be:⊞ ⊞ supposing him not below par in respect of original intellectual power, nor destitute of those intellectual acquirements which in Scotland are obtained by the one in the situation of day labourers. Thus it is, they In every Monarchy all the rest of the people are made victims to,
and the sport of the will of that the very worst man among them – of a man who in
every intelligible sense
of the word worst is
rendered so by the
mere circumstance
of being situated where
he is.
As his in his eyes at least, his interest is in sure to
be at all times, in a state of immutable opposition to the
universal interest, so having on every occasion of competition having it
in his power to make sacrifice of the universal interest to his
particular interest, and those occasions spreading over
the whole field of government, so is his occupied in it is that he has for its his constant
and uninterrupted occupation what may be termed the making of the sinister sacrifice. In a By this same appellation
let it accordingly be characterized. The And into that the more enormous the quantity
he possesses of the aggregate of those same instruments, the more
craving and insatiably is his appetite he has for more and more. The more extensive
the sinister sacrifice is which he has made, the more extensive is
the ulterior sacrifice which
thus of the same kind which
it is his wish and constant
endeavour to make so long
as there is anything as good-life
unsacrificed. Think on this occasion of Napoleon Bonaparte. Think of the allied despots who have succeeded to all his bad qualities without any of his good. Think
of those allied despots not forgetting him the one who
was the avowed partaker of their wishes and endeavours
though by the force os the government
did not admitt of his being or form a party
to their party league.
Identifier: | JB/106/379/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 106.
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106 |
constitutional code |
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379 |
greece. jb's observations &c |
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jeremy bentham |
j whatman 1821 |
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admiral pavel chichagov |
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1821 |
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