This man, who was probably guilty in his conscience as well as in act, thus fell by that most lucky, providential, and most useful flash of lightning.
Edmund Burke: “This man, who was probably guilty in his conscience as well as in act, thus fell by that most lucky, providential, and…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke reflects on the moral implications of a man's guilt and the consequences of divine intervention.
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Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.





