But until this be done, I shall so far take the sense of the public for my guide (and the world knows I am not a flatterer) that what they do not think worth while to read, is not worth mine to answer.
In the preface to "Rights of Man, Part Two," Paine outlines his criteria for responding to criticisms of his work.
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It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.
He must now show that every one in the line of hereditary succession was a Solomon, or his title is not good to be a king.
The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.