All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded, as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.
Burke warns that the French Revolution seeks to discard the vital "moral imagination" and its civilizing ideas, leaving human nature exposed and undignified.
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They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
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