Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a fault of another kind: there was much weakness,--there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of attempting the connection by any means, however manifestly feeble and ineffectual.
Burke discusses the weaknesses in the desire to associate with a powerful but unsocial entity.
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More from Edmund Burke
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
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.
But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
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