[p. 115]
|115| the field. – If the great political bodies which at present decide on the entitlement to vote believe that they are fulfilling a duty of high justice in extending the external conditions of this authorisation and conferring it upon a greater number, it may escape their consideration that they thereby diminish the influence of the individual, weaken his idea of its importance and thereby his interest in exercising this right, quite apart from how any power of the state at all comes to dispose over this right of the citizens, to take into consideration in doing so 50 or 100 francs or so many pounds sterling and to alter this right according to such magnitudes – a right which, according to its determination, has been assumed as sovereign, original, inalienable, in general as the opposite of being something that can be conferred or taken away.
As the common sense of the English people, standing in such good repute, lets the individuals feel the insignificance of their influence on the affairs of state through their single vote, so the same common sense also gives the correct feeling of its {ignorance in general and of the} slight capacity to judge the talents, knowledge of business, skill and cultivation of mind required for high offices of state; should 40 shillings or 10 pounds of ground rent or 200 francs of direct taxes, with the additional centimes counted in or not, seem to it to contain so great an accession of capacity? The strictness of the French Chambers in excluding the point of view of other capacity against that which is supposed to lie in the 200 fr. with [or] without the additional centimes, and in ascribing it only to the members of the Institute, is characteristic enough; the formalism of respect for the 200 fr. has overcome the respect for the capacity and good will of prefectural and judicial councillors, physicians, advocates etc., who do not pay so much in taxes. – Moreover the voters know
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