Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo

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.

by great mental exertion. In those mo|ments, even when they seem to enjoy the confi|dence of their prince and country, and to be in|vested with full authority they have not always apt instruments. A politician, to do great things, looks for a power, what our workmen call a pur|chase; and if he finds that power, in politics as in mechanics he cannot be at a loss to apply it. In the monastic institutions, in my opinion, was found a great power for the mechanism of politic benevo|lence. There were revenues with a public direction; there were men wholly set apart and dedicated to public purposes, without any other than public ties and public principles; men without the possibility of converting the estate of the community into a private fortune; men denied to self-interests, whose avarice is for some community; men to whom per|sonal poverty is honour, and implicit obedience stands in the place of freedom. In vain shall a man look to the possibility of making such things when he wants them. The winds blow as they list. These institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they are the instruments of wisdom. Wisdom cannot create materials; they are the gifts of na|ture or of chance; her pride is in the use. The perennial existence of bodies corporate and their fortunes, are things particularly suited to a man who has long views; who meditates designs that require time in fashioning; and which propose duration when they are accomplished. He is not deserv|ing to rank high, or even to be mentioned in the order of great statesmen, who, having obtained the command and direction of such a power as
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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 232
Publication
London :: printed for J. Dodsley,
1790.

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"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 14, 2025.
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