We know that it is one of the signs of a corrupt and degenerate age, and one of the means of insuring its further corruption and degeneracy, to give mild and lenient epithets to vices and to crimes.
Burke warns that softening the language around vices leads to further moral decay in society.
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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.
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.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
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