We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us.
Edmund Burke: “We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us.”
Editor's note · Context
In his critique of the French Revolution, Burke declares that British thought remains uninfluenced by prominent Enlightenment philosophers associated with revolutionary ideas.
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A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.





