So that it is almost impossible to make up a complete body of all his bribery: you may find the scattered limbs, some here and others there; and while you are employed in picking them up, he may escape entirely in a prosecution for the whole.
Burke illustrates the complexity and obscurity of corruption, suggesting that it is difficult to fully uncover all instances of bribery.
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More from Edmund Burke
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
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