The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
These evils are not accidental. Whoever will take the pains to consider
the nature of society will find that they result directly from its
constitution. For as _subordination_, or, in other words, the
reciprocation of tyranny and slavery, is requisite to support these
societies; the interest, the ambition, the malice, or the revenge, nay,
even the whim and caprice of one ruling man among them, is enough to arm
all the rest, without any private views of their own, to the worst and
blackest purposes: and what is at once lamentable, and ridiculous, these
wretches engage under those banners with a fury greater than if they
were animated by revenge for their own proper wrongs.
It is no less worth observing, that this artificial division of mankind
into separate societies is a perpetual source in itself of hatred and
dissension among them. The names which distinguish them are enough to
blow up hatred and rage. Examine history; consult present experience;
and you will find that far the greater part of the quarrels between
several nations had scarce any other occasion than that these nations
were different combinations of people, and called by different names: to
an Englishman, the name of a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an Italian, much
more a Turk, or a Tartar, raises of course ideas of hatred and contempt.
If you would inspire this compatriot of ours with pity or regard for one
of these, would you not hide that distinction? You would not pray him to
compassionate the poor Frenchman, or the unhappy German. Far from it;
you would speak of him as a _foreigner_; an accident to which all are
liable. You would represent him as a _man_; one partaking with us of the
same common nature, and subject to the same law. There is something so
averse from our nature in these artificial political distinctions, that
we need no other trumpet to kindle us to war and destruction. But there
is something so benign and healing in the general voice of humanity
that, maugre all our regulations to prevent it, the simple name of man
applied properly, never fails to work a salutary effect.
This natural unpremeditated effect of policy on the unpossessed passions
of mankind appears on other occasions. The very name of a politician, a
statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected
with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny; and those
writers who have faithfully unveiled the mysteries of state-freemasonry,
have ever been held in general detestation, for even knowing so
perfectly a theory so detestable. The case of Machiavel seems at first
sight something hard in that respect. He is obliged to bear the
iniquities of those whose maxims and rules of government he published.
His speculation is more abhorred than their practice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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