Their fanatical confidence in the omnipotence of Church plunder has induced these philosophers to overlook all care of the public estate, just as the dream of the philosopher's stone induces dupes, under the more plausible delusion of the hermetic art, to neglect all rational means of improving their fortunes.
Burke criticizes the French revolutionaries' financial policies, arguing their reliance on confiscated church property mirrors the folly of alchemists.
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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…
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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