Jump to content

Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/43

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.

[33]

Deaths, Society, and Politicks, which have given us these destructive Views, have given us too the Means of satisfying them. From the earliest Dawnings of Policy to this Day, the Invention of Men has been sharpening and improving the Mystery of Murder, from the first rude Essays of Clubs and Stones, to the present Perfection of Gunnery, Cannoneering, Bombarding, Ruining, and all these Species of artificial, learned, and refined Cruelty, at which we are now so expert, and which make a principal Part of what Politicians have taught us to believe is our principal Glory,

How far mere Nature would have carried us, we may judge by the Example of those Animals, who still follow her Laws, and even those to whom she has given Dispositions more fierce, and Arms more terrible than ever she intended we should use. It is an incontestible Truth, that there is more Havock made in one Yearby