If there be no certain, invariable rule of eligibility, it were better to get simplicity, if certainty is not to be had, and to resolve all the franchises of the subject into this one short proposition,--the will and pleasure of the House of Commons.
Burke suggests that in the absence of clear eligibility rules, the will of the House of Commons should be the guiding principle.
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More from Edmund Burke
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
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