When the evil of persevering in hereditary institutions is small, it ought always to be endured, because the evil of departing from them is certainly very great.
Edmund Burke: “When the evil of persevering in hereditary institutions is small, it ought always to be endured, because the evil of…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues for the necessity of enduring hereditary institutions when their negative effects are minimal.
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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.
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.
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…
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.





