The expression has been often used, and always with a fraudulent design; for when the idea of a natural enemy is conceived, it prevents all other inquiries, and the real cause of the quarrel is hidden in the universality of the conceit.
Thomas Paine: “The expression has been often used, and always with a fraudulent design; for when the idea of a natural enemy is…”
Editor's note · Context
In "The American Crisis," Paine argues against the notion of a "natural enemy," revealing it as a deceptive concept that obscures the true origins of conflict.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
The man who is in the receipt of a million a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself.
He writes neither in the character of a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but in the fawning character of that creature known in all countries, and a friend to none--a courtier.
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.
But the spirit of the nation was not to be overcome, and it was so fully sensible of the strong ground it had taken--that of withholding taxes--that it contented itself with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which effectually…