The legislators who framed the ancient republics knew that their business was too arduous to be accomplished with no better apparatus than the metaphysics of an undergraduate and the mathematics and arithmetic of an exciseman.
Criticizing the French Revolution, Burke contrasts the profound wisdom of ancient legislators with the superficial intellectual tools of the new French assembly.
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In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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.
The only difference among their financial factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of assignats to be imposed on the public sufferance.
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