They would reject them on the modern, as they once did on the ancient stage, where they could not bear even the hypothetical proposition of such wickedness in the mouth of a personated tyrant, though suitable to the character he sustained.
He notes that audiences would not tolerate the portrayal of tyranny, even hypothetically, in the theatre.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
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.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.
Other voices in this conversation
