I state to you the account of the profit and loss of tyranny: take it as an account of profit and loss; forget the morality, forget the law, forget the policy; take it, I say, as a matter of profit and loss.
Burke critiques tyranny by framing it in terms of profit and loss, urging a pragmatic view over moral considerations.
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The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
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?
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
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