The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
People not very well grounded in the principles of public morality find
a set of maxims in office ready made for them, which they assume as
naturally and inevitably, as any of the insignia or instruments of the
situation. A certain tone of the solid and practical is immediately
acquired. Every former profession of public spirit is to be considered
as a debauch of youth, or, at best, as a visionary scheme of
unattainable perfection. The very idea of consistency is exploded. The
convenience of the business of the day is to furnish the principle for
doing it. Then the whole ministerial cant is quickly got by heart. The
prevalence of faction is to be lamented. All opposition is to be
regarded as the effect of envy and disappointed ambition. All
administrations are declared to be alike. The same necessity justifies
all their measures. It is no longer a matter of discussion, who or what
administration is; but that administration is to be supported, is a
general maxim. Flattering themselves that their power is become
necessary to the support of all order and government; everything which
tends to the support of that power is sanctified, and becomes a part of
the public interest.
Growing every day more formed to affairs, and better knit in their
limbs, when the occasion (now the only rule) requires it, they become
capable of sacrificing those very persons to whom they had before
sacrificed their original friends. It is now only in the ordinary course
of business to alter an opinion, or to betray a connection. Frequently
relinquishing one set of men and adopting another, they grow into a
total indifference to human feeling, as they had before to moral
obligation; until at length, no one original impression remains upon
their minds: every principle is obliterated; every sentiment effaced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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