He claims a privilege of systematic inconstancy, a privilege of prevarication, a privilege of contradiction,--a privilege of not only changing his conduct, but the principles of his conduct, whenever it suits his occasions.
Burke critiques the inconsistency and contradictions in a person's conduct and principles.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…
Other voices in this conversation
