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1823. March
Constitut. Code. III. Reason-giving part
☞ Too – Rewrite this
The hands in which in on this case supposition the power is lodged
will be the hands either of a single person or of divers persons.
If in the hands of a single person the form of gov
no other person having any share in it, the form of government
is that which is designated by the words absolute monarchy: the
each succeeding monarch will be the son, daughter, or other blo
reputed nearest blood relative to the last preceding monarch.
But with reference to the above mentioned all comprehensive
and sole justifiable end of all government a person born in
this situation will be distinguished by relative inaptitude
in the highest degree possible in all its several shapes or elements taken together. The one person in by whom
it will be his will and desire and will to see the greatest possible
quantity of happiness and to whose happiness the happiness
of all the rest will therefore in consequence be made a continual sacrifice
will be is that one person. By this desire is constituted
of itself the maximum of that inaptitude which is the opposite to
appropriate moral aptitude. But where to instead of appropriate
aptitude the opposite inaptitude and that in the highest
possible degree is his place substituted, the condition of the rest of the
community is not rendered by so much the better but by
so much the worse by any extraordinary degree or measure
a quantity of appropriate intellectual aptitude and
appropriate active aptitude on the part of that same person,
the greater the degree of those same or branches of
appropriate aptitude acting operating in conjunction with reference
to the actual end in view, the greater the aggregate inaptitude
with reference to the only justifiable end in view above
mentioned: the greater the degree of knowledge judgment and
skill and activity and energy of the character the greater would
be the sacrifice he would be enabled to make and would make accordingly
of the greatest happiness of the greatest number of the members of
the community, to his
own happiness or
supposed happiness:
Witness Frederic the Great
of Prussia, and Bon
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Identifier: | JB/037/109/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 37. |
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1823-03 |
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037 |
constitutional code |
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109 |
constitut. code iii reason-giving part |
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001 |
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recto |
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jeremy bentham |
j whatman 1819 |
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john flowerdew colls |
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1819 |
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[[notes_public::"too diffuse - rewrite this" [note in bentham's hand]]] |
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