...consideration of convenience.' At others he explains the rights of men away, though admitting their existence : In the gross and complicated mass of human passions...primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of refraction'and reflections, that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity...

...consideration of convenience.' At others he explains the rights of men away, though admitting their existence : In the gross and complicated mass of human passions...primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of refraction and reflections, that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity...

...balances, compromises, or mixtures. "These metaphysical rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium are, by...laws of nature, refracted from their straight line." Since "the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity," "the primitive rights of men"...

...Enlightenment to have produced, because these "metaphysick rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by...laws of nature, refracted from their straight line." To Burke, "natural rights" truly conceived are very different from the "primitive rights" of precivilized...

...analogy from Newtonian natural philosophy: These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by...human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of man undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections that it becomes absurd to talk of them as...

...rights, which Burke deprecatingly calls "metaphysic rights," do not come to us directly, but "like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of nature, refracted from their straight line."78 Taking a cue from this famous remark, we might say that for Burke laws of nature are laws...

...uniformity of all metaphysical abstractions: "These metaphysical rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are by the laws of nature, refracted from their straight line.""2 This simile from the Reflections was repeated three years later in parliament: "Laws," he...

...(Reflections, Works, vol. 5, pp. 119-23) These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by...laws of nature, refracted from their straight line. (Ibid., p. 125) The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes: and in proportion as they...

...terrestnal existence. These metaphysic nghts entetimg mto common life, like rays of light which pierce tato a dense medium, are, by the laws of nature, refracted from their straight ltae. Indeed ta the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the pnnnttve nghts of...

...natural-rights theorists by making a plea for tradition and histoty, insisting that these primitive rights undergo such 'a variety of refractions and reflections, that it becomes absurd to ralk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction' (1989: 112). Human...