  This understanding of the mind gave speakers and writers an unusually powerful role. It was in their hands to connect words which suggested pro-attitudes with arrangements of their choosing: for these words had did not imply only one set of conceptual contents, because they implied none. If one recollects the propensity to imitation that Burke found in mankind, this choosing was likely also to be leading. So Burke was exceptionally sensitive to the role of men of letters and public speakers in moulding opinion. By the same measure, he had an unusually lively sense of their responsibilities. It was they who had the power to guide people to the proper ends, or elsewhere. Guidance need not be directly didactic—indeed, it could not be, because there could be no definitions to expound — but would be a matter of providing a linguistic context which guided listeners and readers to goals that were ethically and politically beneficial.