I thought it would be impossible to come to any clear and definite idea on this subject, without remounting to the natural passions or dispositions of men, which first gave rise to this species of writing; for from these alone its nature…
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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However, though the more sublime genius and the greatest art are required for the former, yet the latter, as it is more common and more easy, so it is more useful, and administers more directly to the great business of life.
Neither, indeed, can anything be done, even in this, without invention; but it is obvious that this invention is of a kind altogether different from the former.
More observe the characters of men than the order of things: to the one we are formed by Nature, and by that sympathy from which we are so strongly led to take a part in the passions and manners of our fellow-men; the other is, as it were…
By the inventive genius I mean the creator of agreeable facts and incidents; by the descriptive, the delineator of characters, manners, and passions.
Herein, as I believe, consists the difference between the inventive and the descriptive genius.
We are imitative animals; and we are more naturally led to imitate the exertions of character and passion than to observe and describe a series of events, and to discover those relations and dependencies in them which will please.
It is, indeed, very difficult happily to excite the passions and draw the characters of men; but our nature leads us more directly to such paintings than to the invention of a story.
The most celebrated borrow from each other, and are content with some new turn, some corrective, addition, or embellishment.
It would surprise us, if we were to examine the thing critically, how few good original stories there are in the world.
If she be secure herself, she can have no objection to the security of others.
This is to take nothing from her but the power of making herself odious.
By passing to the king, tithes became property to a mixed party; by passing from the king, they became absolutely lay property: the partition-wall was broken down, and tithes and Church possession became no longer synonymous terms.
It is made with great wisdom; since a perpetual body, with a perpetual duty, ought to have a perpetual provision.
Such an impoverished and degraded clergy in quiet tunes could never execute their duty, and in time of disorder would infinitely aggravate the public confusions.
A poor clergy in an opulent nation can have little correspondence with the body it is to instruct, and it is a disgrace to the public sentiments of religion.
There ought to be a symmetry between all the parts and orders of a state.
If I considered this bill as an attack upon the Church, brought in for the purpose of impoverishing and weakening the clergy, I should be one of the foremost in an early and vigorous opposition to it.
Have mercy on the youth of both sexes; protect them from their ignorance and inexperience; protect one part of life by the wisdom of another; protect them by the wisdom of laws and the care of Nature.
Think of the hopeful son tied for life by the meretricious arts of the refuse of mercenary and promiscuous lewdness.
Think of the daughter of an honest, virtuous parent allied to vice and infamy.
It is robbery,--not a jot better than any other.
Do not call this by the name of the sweet and best passion,--love.
While you would guard against the possible operation of this species of benevolent avarice, the avarice of the father, you let loose another species of avarice,--that of the fortune-hunter, unmitigated, unqualified.
It is avarice by proxy; it is avarice not working by itself or for itself, but through the medium of parental affection, meaning to procure good to its offspring.
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