It has been done to show that the British nation was then a great people,--to point out how and by what means they came to be exalted above the vulgar level, and to take that lead which they assumed among mankind.
Burke aims to illustrate the greatness of the British nation and the means by which it achieved prominence.
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But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…
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.
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