He will in the following constitutional paper observe how well, in their enigmatical style, like the Assembly and their abettors, the old philosophers proscribe all hereditary distinction, and bestow it only on virtue and wisdom, according to their estimation of both.
Burke discusses how old philosophers, like the National Assembly, reject hereditary distinctions in favor of virtue and wisdom.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
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…
Other voices in this conversation
