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
Their principles always go to the extreme. They who go with the
principles of the ancient Whigs, which are those contained in Mr.
Burke's book, never can go too far. They may, indeed, stop short of some
hazardous and ambiguous excellence, which they will be taught to
postpone to any reasonable degree of good they may actually possess. The
opinions maintained in that book never can lead to an extreme, because
their foundation is laid in an opposition to extremes. The foundation of
government is there laid, not in imaginary rights of men, (which at best
is a confusion of judicial with civil principles,) but in political
convenience, and in human nature,--either as that nature is universal,
or as it is modified by local habits and social aptitudes. The
foundation of government (those who have read that book will recollect)
is laid in a provision for our wants and in a conformity to our duties:
it is to purvey for the one, it is to enforce the other. These doctrines
do of themselves gravitate to a middle point, or to some point near a
middle. They suppose, indeed, a certain portion of liberty to be
essential to all good government; but they infer that this liberty is to
be blended into the government, to harmonize with its forms and its
rules, and to be made subordinate to its end. Those who are not with
that book are with its opposite; for there is no medium besides the
medium itself. That medium is not such because it is found there, but it
is found there because it is conformable to truth and Nature. In this we
do not follow the author, but we and the author travel together upon the
same safe and middle path.
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