Their estates, instead of being the means of their security, will become the very causes of their danger.
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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But if, through a supine security, to which such fortunes are peculiarly liable, they neglect the use of their influence in the season of their power, on the first derangement of society the nerves of their strength will be cut.
Then will be felt, in all its energy, the danger of encouraging a spirit of litigation in persons of that immature and imperfect state of knowledge which serves to render them susceptible of doubts, but incapable of their solution.
Then will be felt the plenitude of the mischief of teaching the people to believe that all ancient institutions are the results of ignorance, and that all prescriptive government is in its nature usurpation.
Then will be felt the full effect of encouraging doctrines which tend to make the citizens despise their Constitution.
Mistaking malignity for sagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a good administration of affairs, and come to think that all reformation depends, not on a change of actors, but upon an alteration in the machinery.
From their disgust at men, they are soon led to quarrel with their frame of government, which they presume gives nourishment to the vices, real or supposed, of those who administer in it.
They are put out of humor with all public men and all public parties; they are fatigued with their dissensions; they are irritated at their coalitions; they are made easily to believe (what much pains are taken to make them believe) that…
The indecision of those who happen to rule at the critical time, their supine neglect, or their precipitate and ill-judged attention, may aggravate the public misfortunes.
Governments of all kinds are administered only by men; and great mistakes, tending to inflame these discontents, may concur.
Great discontents frequently arise in the best constituted governments from causes which no human wisdom can foresee and no human power can prevent.
But they are not the cause, they are the disgusting symptoms of a frightful distemper.
I admit, indeed, that, if we estimated the danger by the value of the writings, it would be little worthy of our attention: contemptible these writings are in every sense.
On their principle, it is the resistance, and not the assault, which produces the danger.
But they who are wedded to the Constitution will not act the part of wittols.
They pretend that their doctrines are infinitely beneficial to mankind; but it seems they would keep them to themselves, if they were not greatly provoked.
Perhaps the greatest mischiefs that have happened in the world have happened from persons as wild as those we think the wildest.
Let us see what is done in France; and then let us undervalue any the slightest danger of falling into the hands of such a merciless and savage faction!
In the one, their means are unstained by crimes, and their settlement favors morality; in the other, vice and confusion are in the very essence of their pursuit, and of their enjoyment.
The first secures its liberty by establishing its throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversion of its monarchy.
Both Revolutions profess liberty as their object; but in obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy to order, the other from order to anarchy.
They cannot assert that the Polish Revolution cost more dearly than that of France to the interests and feelings of multitudes of men.
They cannot pretend that Poland has not obtained a better system of liberty or of government than it enjoyed before.
To finish all,--this great good, as in the instant it is, contains in it the seeds of all further improvement, and may be considered as in a regular progress, because founded on similar principles, towards the stable excellence of a…
A name, which every wind to heaven would bear, Which men to speak, and angels joy to hear!
Politicians like Edmund Burke
