Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund BurkeBurke, Edmund
Philosophy
Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
Burke, Edmund
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797; Essays; Political science; Speeches, addresses, etc.
For as sympathy makes us take a concern in whatever men feel, so this
affection prompts us to copy whatever they do; and consequently we have
a pleasure in imitating, and in whatever belongs to imitation merely
as it is such, without any intervention of the reasoning faculty, but
solely from our natural constitution, which Providence has framed in
such a manner as to find either pleasure or delight, according to the
nature of the object, in whatever regards the purposes of our being. It
is by imitation far more than by precept, that we learn everything;
and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more
pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. It is one
of the strongest links of society; it is a species of mutual compliance,
which all men yield to each other, without constraint to themselves, and
which is extremely flattering to all.
STANDARD OF REASON AND TASTE.
It is probable that the standard both of reason and taste is the same in
all human creatures. For if there were not some principles of judgment
as well as of sentiment common to all mankind, no hold could possibly be
taken either on their reason or their passions, sufficient to maintain
the ordinary correspondence of life.
USE OF THEORY.
A theory founded on experiment, and not assumed, is always good for
so much as it explains. Our inability to push it indefinitely is no
argument at all against it. This inability may be owing to our ignorance
of some necessary MEDIUMS; to a want of proper application; to many
other causes besides a defect in the principles we employ.
POLITICAL OUTCASTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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