Edmund Burke: “Is every land-mark of the country to be done away in favour of a geometrical and arithmetical constitution?”

Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.

I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.

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.

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…