Perspective apart, he is destined doubtless to live rather as the author of some maxims that few statesmen will dare to forget than as the creator of a system which, even in its unfinished implications, is hardly less gigantic than that of Hobbes or Bentham.
Laski suggests that Burke's legacy will be remembered more for his impactful maxims than for a comprehensive political system.
Share
More from Harold J. Laski
How could it seek security where it defied the desires of the vast majority of its subjects?
Its eldest child is charity, and without it there can be no honesty of opinion.
Yet such defects must not blind us to the general rightness of their insight.
The revolutionary spirit, in fact, was as much the product of the past as the very institutions it came to condemn.
Other voices in this conversation
