Thursday, February 04, 2010
on moderation
"This enterprise [of creating a language of interest to reinforce the language of rights used by Whig thinkers to explain and legitimise the Revolution] hinged on the cultivation of moderation in the use of political and religious language; but that, [Charles] Leslie remarked caustically, was simply to encourage hypocrisy:
'It is a Catholicon, and Cures all Diseases! Take but a Dose of this and thou mays't Drink Poison, and Break all the Ten Commandments without any Offence! It Reconciles Churches, or No Churches, Christ and Belial, Light and Darkness! It can Transform a Rebel into a Saint, and Satan to an Angel of Light! It can make a Schismatick, a true Friend of the Church; and a Whore an Honest Woman!' "
- From Nicholas Phillipson, "Propriety, property and prudence: David Hume and the defence of the Revolution"
'It is a Catholicon, and Cures all Diseases! Take but a Dose of this and thou mays't Drink Poison, and Break all the Ten Commandments without any Offence! It Reconciles Churches, or No Churches, Christ and Belial, Light and Darkness! It can Transform a Rebel into a Saint, and Satan to an Angel of Light! It can make a Schismatick, a true Friend of the Church; and a Whore an Honest Woman!' "
- From Nicholas Phillipson, "Propriety, property and prudence: David Hume and the defence of the Revolution"
