I am far from denying the operation of such causes: but they are infinitely uncertain, and much more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a community.
Burke acknowledges the existence of internal causes affecting states but notes their complexity and uncertainty compared to external factors.
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More from Edmund Burke
Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
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