I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions.

_I hate the very sound of them_.

This is the true touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of man: does it suit his nature in general ?--does it suit his nature as modified by his habits ?" He could not bear to think of having legislative or political arrangements shaped or vindicated by a delusive geometrical accuracy of deduction, instead of being entrusted to "the natural operation of things, which, left to themselves, generally fall into their proper order." [Footnote 1: "Speech on American Taxation."] Apart from his incessant assertion of the principle that man acts from adequate motives relative to his interests, and not on metaphysical speculations, Burke sows, as he marches along in his stately argument, many a germ of the modern philosophy of civilisation.

He was told that America was worth fighting for.

"Certainly it is," he answered, "if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them." Every step that has been taken in the direction of progress, not merely in empire, but in education, in punishment, in the treatment of the insane, has shown the deep wisdom, so unfamiliar in that age of ferocious penalties and brutal methods, of this truth--that "the natural effect of fidelity, clemency, kindness in governors, is peace, good-will, order, and esteem in the governed." Is there a single instance to the contrary?
Then there is that sure key to wise politics:--"_Nobody shall persuade me when a whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are not means of conciliation_." And that still more famous sentence, "_I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people_." Good and observant men will feel that no misty benevolence or vague sympathy, but the positive reality of experience, inspired such passages as that where he says,--"Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries I have found much human virtue.
The age unquestionably produces daring profligates and insidious hypocrites?
What then?
Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that is in it ?...