The moral scheme of France furnishes the only pattern ever known which they who admire will instantly resemble.
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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It has this of wonderful in it, that it resembles what Lord Verulam says of the operations of Nature: It was perfect, not only in its elements and principles, but in all its members and its organs, from the very beginning.
That revolution seems to have extended even to the constitution of the mind of man.
Before this of France, the annals of all time have not furnished an instance of a complete revolution.
Must I be annihilated, lest, like old John Zisca's, my skin might be made into a drum, to animate Europe to eternal battle against a tyranny that threatens to overwhelm all Europe and all the human race?
No philosophy can make me above it: no melancholy can depress me so low as to make me wholly insensible to such an honor.
Retired as I am from the world, and from all its affairs and all its pleasures, I confess it does kindle in my nearly extinguished feelings a very vivid satisfaction to be so attacked and so commended.
My opinion is against an overdoing of any sort of administration, and more especially against this most momentous of all meddling on the part of authority,--the meddling with the subsistence of the people.
Tyranny and cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused powers, but I believe that no government ever yet perished from any other direct cause than its own weakness.
All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious power ended always, I may say…
But though its enemies were not enemies to its faults, its faults furnished them with means for its destruction.
These nefarious monsters destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was in the Constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed and nourished great men, and great patterns of virtue to the world.
The once mighty state which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this error.
They cannot do the lower duty; and in proportion as they try it, they will certainly fail in the higher.
Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains will, in a manner, provide…
It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often engaged my thoughts whilst I followed that profession,--What the state ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little…
Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our own, and we shall do tolerably well.
Not only very few (I have observed that I know of none, though I live in a place as poor as most) have actually died of want, but we have seen no traces of those dreadful exterminating epidemics which, in consequence of scanty and…
The consideration of this ought to bind us all, rich and poor together, against those wicked writers of the newspapers who would inflame the poor against their friends, guardians, patrons, and protectors.
This is owing to a care and superintendence of the poor, far greater than any I remember.
Even now, I do not know of one man, woman, or child that has perished from famine: fewer, if any, I believe, than in years of plenty, when such a thing may happen by accident.
I consider, therefore, the stopping of the distillery, economically, financially, commercially, medicinally, and in some degree morally too, as a measure rather well meant than well considered.
Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries called in some physical aid to their moral consolations,--wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
Let me add, what wits inspired with champagne and claret will turn into ridicule,--it is a medicine for the mind.
Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to remove distempers, much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away in their beginnings.
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