The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life by the change of its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigor of a juvenile activity.
Burke uses a metaphor to explain how underlying principles or evils persist and renew themselves, despite changes in their outward manifestation.
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More from Edmund Burke
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.
If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.
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