All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which by a bland assimilation incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason.
Burke argues that the French Revolution's emphasis on pure reason threatens to dismantle the beneficial social illusions that temper power and foster harmony.
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So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
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