This temporary fluctuation in opinion is not the first instance of men cherishing the shadow after they have rid themselves of the substance, and clinging with remarkable ardour to a sentiment after they have made quite sure that it shall not inconvenience them in practice.
He reflects on the tendency of people to hold onto outdated sentiments while rejecting their practical implications.
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Yet he had prepared this document for the very purpose of tempting France into a declaration of war.
A rendering less apt for this occasion finds favour with some scholars, that true virtue can never be restored to those who have once fallen away from it.
If they, situated exactly as we are, decline to join, we are not bound single-handed to make up the deficiencies of the rest.
For this line of contention he was called an “unpatriotic trumpet of disaster,” and other names commonly bestowed on all men in all countries who venture to say that what chances for the hour to be a popular war is a blunder.
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