Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/21

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[11]

all Times to alleviate those Evils which Providence, that perhaps has designed us for a State of Imperfection, has imposed; how far our physical Skill has cured our constitutional Disorders; and whether, it may not have introduced new ones, cureable perhaps by no Skill.

In looking over any State to form a Judgment on it; it presents itself in two Lights, the external and the internal. The first, that Relation which it bears in Point of Friendship or Enmity to other States. The second, that Relation it's component Parts, the governing, and the governed, bear to each other. The first Part of the external View of all States, their Relation as Friends, makes so trifling a Figure in History, that I am very sorry to say, it affords me but little Matter on which to expatiate. The good Offices done by one Nation to it's Neighbour[1]; the Supportgiven

  1. Had his lordship lived to our days, to have seen the noble relief given by this nation to the distressed Portuguese,

he