No: I am a great inventive genius, who have gone out of all the ordinary roads of finance, have made great discoveries in the unknown regions of that science, and have for the first time established the corruption of the supreme magistrate as a principle of resource for government.
Burke critiques a person's claim to genius in corrupt financial practices, highlighting the absurdity of their self-justification.
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Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
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.
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
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