Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.

of an understanding fruitful in expedients are to be exercised; they are to be exercised in a con|tinued conflict with the combined force of op|posite vices; with the obstinacy that rejects all improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and disgusted with every thing of which it is in pos|session. But you may object—

A process of this kind is slow. It is not fit for an assembly, which glories in performing in a few months the work of ages. Such a mode of reforming, possibly might take up many years.

Without question it might; and it ought. It is one of the excellen|cies of a method in which time is amongst the as|sistants, that its operation is slow, and in some cases almost imperceptible. If circumspection and cau|tion are a part of wisdom, when we work only up|on inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty too, when the subject of our demolition and construction is not brick and timber, but sentient beings, by the sudden alteration of whose state, condition, and habits, multitudes may be rendered miserable. But it seems as if it were the prevalent opinion in Paris, that an unfeeling heart, and an undoubting confidence, are the sole qualifications for a perfect legislator. Far different are my ideas of that high office. The true lawgiver ought to have an heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance; but his movements towards it ought to be delibe|rate. Political arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to be only wrought by social means.

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Title: Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
Author: Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Canvas: Page 248
Publication: London :: printed for J. Dodsley,; 1790.

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Full citation: "Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k043880.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 13, 2025.

Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.

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