Note 837 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

Burke was never weary of attacking the common argument, that, because a country has long flourished under some particular custom, therefore the custom must be good. See an admirable instance of this in his speech on the power of the attorney-general to file informations ex officio; where he likens such reasoners to the father of Scriblerus, who ‘venerated the rust and canker which exalted a brazen pot-lid into the shield of a hero.’ He adds: ‘But, sir, we are told that the time during which this power existed, is the time during which monarchy most flourished: and what, then, can no two things subsist together but as cause and effect? May not a man have enjoyed better health during the time that he walked with an oaken stick, than afterwards, when he changed it for a cane, without supposing, like the Druids, that there are occult virtues in oak, and that the stick and the health were cause and effect?’ Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. pp. 1190, 1191.