Burke's book has the appearance of being written as instruction to the French nation; but if I may permit myself the use of an extravagant metaphor, suited to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness attempting to illuminate light.
In "Rights of Man," Paine uses a vivid metaphor to criticize Edmund Burke's arguments against the French Revolution.
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It was Government dethroning Government; and the old one, by attempting to make a new one, made a chasm.
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.
The Parliaments on their part insisted that they had not only a right to remonstrate, but to reject; and on this ground they were always supported by the nation.