The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
What security against all this?--All human securities are liable to
uncertainty. But if anything bids fair for the prevention of so great a
calamity, it must consist in the use of the ordinary means of just
influence in society, whilst those means continue unimpaired. The public
judgment ought to receive a proper direction. All weighty men may have
their share in so good a work. As yet, notwithstanding the strutting and
lying independence of a braggart philosophy, Nature maintains her
rights, and great names have great prevalence. Two such men as Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Fox, adding to their authority in a point in which they concur
even by their disunion in everything else, might frown these wicked
opinions out of the kingdom. But if the influence of either of them, or
the influence of men like them, should, against their serious
intentions, be otherwise perverted, they may countenance opinions which
(as I have said before, and could wish over and over again to press)
they may in vain attempt to control. In their theory, these doctrines
admit no limit, no qualification whatsoever. No man can say how far he
will go, who joins with those who are avowedly going to the utmost
extremities. What security is there for stopping short at all in these
wild conceits? Why, neither more nor less than this,--that the moral
sentiments of some few amongst them do put some check on their savage
theories. But let us take care. The moral sentiments, so nearly
connected with early prejudice as to be almost one and the same thing,
will assuredly not live long under a discipline which has for its basis
the destruction of all prejudices, and the making the mind proof against
all dread of consequences flowing from the pretended truths that are
taught by their philosophy.
In this school the moral sentiments must grow weaker and weaker every
day. The more cautious of these teachers, in laying down their maxims,
draw as much of the conclusion as suits, not with their premises, but
with their policy. They trust the rest to the sagacity of their pupils.
Others, and these are the most vaunted for their spirit, not only lay
down the same premises, but boldly draw the conclusions, to the
destruction of our whole Constitution in Church and State. But are these
conclusions truly drawn? Yes, most certainly. Their principles are wild
and wicked; but let justice be done even to frenzy and villany. These
teachers are perfectly systematic. No man who assumes their grounds can
tolerate the British Constitution in Church or State. These teachers
profess to scorn all mediocrity,--to engage for perfection,--to proceed
by the simplest and shortest course. They build their politics, not on
convenience, but on truth; and they profess to conduct men to certain
happiness by the assertion of their undoubted rights. With them there is
no compromise. All other governments are usurpations, which justify and
even demand resistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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