The properties of law are, first, that it should be known; secondly, that it should be fixed, and not occasional.
Edmund Burke: “The properties of law are, first, that it should be known; secondly, that it should be fixed, and not occasional.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke outlines essential properties of law, emphasizing the need for clarity and consistency.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…





