They occupy themselves, that is to say, so completely with _staatslehre_ that they do not admit the mollifying influence of _politik_.

They search for principles of universal right, without the perception that a right which is to be universal must necessarily be so general in character as to be useless in its application.
Yet such defects must not blind us to the general rightness of their insight.

They were protesting against a system strongly upheld on grounds which now appear to have been simply indefensible.

The business of government had been made the private possession of a privileged class; and eagerness for desirable change was, in the mass, absent from the minds of most men engaged in its direction.

The loss of America, the heartless treatment of Ireland, the unconstitutional practices in the Wilkes affair, the heightening of corruption undertaken by Henry Fox and North at the direct instance of the king, had blinded the eyes of most to the fact that principle is a vital part of policy.