They are but too often used, under the color of a specious philosophy, to find apologies for the despair of laziness and pusillanimity, and to excuse the want of all manly efforts, when the exigencies of our country call for them the more loudly.
Burke criticizes the misuse of philosophical arguments to justify inaction in times of national crisis.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no more upon it.
Other voices in this conversation
