They have been
taught that the circumstance of the Gospel's being
?
taught that the circumstance of the Gospel's being
?
Edmund Burke
This
disposition still remains, - at least in the great body
of the people.
We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly,
that religion is the basis of civil society, and the
source of all good, and of all comfort. * In England
we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust
of superstition, with which the accumulated absurdity
of the human mind might have crusted it over in the
course of ages, that ninety-nine in a hundred of the
people of England would not prefer to impiety. We
shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to
the substance of any system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect its construc* Sit igifur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse omniun rerum ac moderatores deos; eaque, que gerantur, eorum geri vi,
ditione, ac numine; eosdemque optime de genere hominum mereri;
et qualis quisque sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua mente, qua
pietate colat religiones intueri: piorum et impiorum habere rationem.
His enim rebus imbutae mentes haud sane abhorrebunt ab utili et a
vera sententia. - Cic. de Legibus, 1. 2.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 351
tion. If our religious tenets should ever want a
further elucidation, we shall not call on Atheism to
explain them. We shall not light up our temple
from that unhallowed fire. It will be illuminated
with other lights. It will be perfumed with other
incense than the infectious stuff which is imported
by the smugglers of adulterated metaphysics. If our
ecclesiastical establishment should want a revision, it
is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we
shall employ for the audit or receipt or application
of its consecrated revenue. Violently condemning
neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since heats
are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the Protestant: not because we think it has less of the Christian religion in it, but because, in our
judgment, it has more. We are Protestants, not
from indifference, but from zeal.
We know, and it is our pride to know, that manll
is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in
France is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover
our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian religion
which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and
one great source of civilization amongst us, and
among many other nations, we are apprehensive
(being well aware that the mind will not endure a
void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading
superstition might take place of it.
For that reason, before we take from our establishment the natural, human means of estimation, and give it up to contempt, as you have done, and in
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doing it have incurred the penalties you well deserve
to suffer, we desire that some other may be presented
to us in the place of it. We shall then form our
judgment.
On these ideas, instead of quarrelling with establishments, as some do, who have made a philosophy and a religion of their hostility to such institutions,
we cleave closely to them. We are resolved to keep
an established church, an established monarchy, an
established aristocracy, and an established democracy, each in the degree it exists, and in no greater. I shall show you presently how much of each of these
we possess.
It has been the misfortune (not, as these gentlemen
think it, the glory) of this age, that everything is to
be discussed, as if the Constitution of our country
were to be always a subject rather of altercation
than enjoyment. For this reason, as well as for the
satisfaction of those among you (if any such you
have among you) who may wish to profit of examples, I venture to trouble you with a few thoughts upon each of these establishments. I do not think
they were unwise in ancient Rome, who, when they
wished to new-model their laws, sent commissioners
to examine the best-constituted republics within their
reach.
First I beg leave to speak of our Church Establishment, which is the first of our prejudices, - not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wisdom. I speak of it first. It
is first, and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking ground on that religious system of which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the early
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received and uniformly continued sense of mankind.
That sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built
up the august fabric of states, but, like a provident
proprietor, to preserve the structure from profanation
and ruin, as a sacred temple, purged from all the
impurities of fraud and violence and injustice and
tyranny, hath solemnly and forever consecrated the
commonwealth, and all that officiate in it. This con
secration is made, that all who administer in the government of men, in which they stand in the person
of God Himself, should have high and worthy notions
of their function and destination; that their hope
should be full of immortality; that they should not
look to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the vulgar, but to a
solid, permanent existence, in the permanent part of
their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in
the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the
world.
Such sublime principles ought to be infused into
persons of exalted situations, and religious establishments provided that may continually revive and enforce them. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every sort of politic institution, aiding the rational
and natural ties that connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not more than
necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, Man,- whose prerogative it is, to be in a great
degree a creature of his own making, and who,
when made as he ought to be made, is destined to
hold no trivial place in the creation. But whenever
man is put over men, as the better nature ought ever
to preside, in that case more particularly he should as
nearly as possible be approximated to his perfection.
VOL. III. 23
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The consecration of the state by a state religious
establishment is necessary also to operate with a
wholesome awe upon free citizens; because, in order
to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some determinate portion of power. To them, therefore, a
religion connected with the state, and with their
ditty towards it, becomes even more necessary than
inii such societies where the people, by the terms of
their subjection, are confined to private sentiments,
and the management of their own family concerns.
All persons possessing any portion of power ought
to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea
that they act in trust, and that they are to account
for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
This principle ought even to be more strongly impressed upon the minds of those who compose the collective sovereignty than upon those of single princes. Without instruments, these princes can do nothing.
Whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, finds
also impediments. Their power is therefore by no
means complete; nor are they safe in extreme abuse.
Such persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance,
and self-opinion, must be sensible, that, whether covered or not by positive law, in some way or other they
are accountable even here for the abuse of their trust.
If they are not cut off by a rebellion of their people,
they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept
for their security against all other rebellion. Thus
we have seen the king of France sold by his soldiers
for an increase of pay. But where popular authority
is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves in
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a great measure their own instruments. They are
nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under
responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The
share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each
individual in public acts is small indeed: the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation
of their own acts has to them the appearance of a
public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world.
As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can
be made subject to punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought: for, as all punishments are
for example towards the conservation of the people
at large, the people at large can never become the
subject of punishment by any human hand. * It is
therefore of infinite importance that they should not
be suffered to imagine that their will, any more than
that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong.
They ought to be persuaded that they are full as little entitled, and far less qualified, with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary power whatsoever; that
therefore they are not, under a false show of liberty,
but in truth to exercise an unnatural, inverted domination, tyrannically to exact from those who officiate in the state, not an entire devotion to their interest, which is their right, but an abject submission to their occasional will: extinguishing thereby, in all
those'who serve them, all moral principle, all sense
of dignity, all use of judgment, and all consistency
of character; whilst by the very same process they
* Quicqaid multis peccatur inultum.
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give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most
contemptible prey to the servile ambition of popular
sycophants or courtly flatterers.
When the people have emptied themselves of all
the lust of selfish will, which without religion it is
utterly impossible they ever should, - when they are
conscious that they exercise, and exercise perhaps
in a higher link of the order of delegation, the power which to be legitimate must be according to that eternal, immutable law in which will and reason are
the same,- they will be more careful how they place
power in base and incapable hands. In their nomination to office, they will not appoint to the exercise
of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function; not according to their sordid, selfish interest,
nor to their wanton caprice, nor to their arbitrary
will; but they will confer that power (which any
mail may well tremble to give or to receive) on those
only in whom they may discern that predominant proportion of active virtue and wisdom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such as in the great and
inevitable mixed mass of human imperfections and
infirmities is to be found.
When they are habitually convinced that no evil
can be acceptable, either in the act or the permission,
to Him whose essence is good, they will be better able
to extirpate out of the minds of all magistrates, civil,
ecclesiastical, or military, anything that bears the
least resemblance to a proud and lawless domination.
But one of the first and most leading principles on
which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their an
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 357
cestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act
as if they were the entire masters; that they should
not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail
or, commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at
their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society: hazarding to leave to those who come after them
a ruin instead of an habitation, - and teaching these
successors as little to respect their contrivances as
they had themselves respected the institutions of their
forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often and as much and in as many
ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the
whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth
would be broken; no one generation could link with
the other; men would become little better than the
flies of a summer.
And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the
pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer
studied. Personal self-sufficiency and arrogance (the
certain attendants upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would
usurp the tribunal. Of course no certain laws, establisling invariable grounds of hope and fear, would
keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct
them to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes
of holding property or exercising function could form
a solid ground on which any parent could speculate
in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for
their future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked into the habits. As
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soon as the most able instructor had completed his
laborious course of institution, instead of sending
forth his pupil accomplished in a virtuous discipline
fitted to procure him attention and respect in his
place in society, he would find everything altered,
and that he had turned out a poor creature to the
contempt and derision of the world, ignorant of the
true grounds of estimation. Who would insure a
tender and delicate sense of honor to beat almost
with the first pulses of the heart, when no man could
know what would be the test of honor in a nation
continually varying the standard of its coin? No
part of life would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard to science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth
itself would in a few generations crumble away, be
disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of
heaven.
To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and
versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of
obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look
into its defects or corruptions but with due caution;
that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to
the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father,
with pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this
wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on
those children of their country who are prompt rashly
to hack that aged parent in pieces and put him into
the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poi
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 359
sonous weeds and wild incantations they may regenerate the paternal constitution and renovate their father's life.
Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be
dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be
considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by
the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with
other reverence; because it is not a partnership in
things subservient only to the gross animal existence
of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the
ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in
many generations, it becomes a partnership not only
between those who are living, but between those who
are living, those who are dead, and those who are to
be born. -Each contract of each particular state is
but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal
society, linking the lower with the higher natures,
connecting the visible and invisible world, according
to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath
which holds all physical and all moral natures each
in their appointed place. This law is not subject to
the will of those who, by an obligation above them,
and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will
to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty, at their
pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent
improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder
the bands of their subordinate community, and to
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dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected
chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and
supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because
this necessity itself is a part, too, of that moral and
physical disposition of things to which man must be
obedient by consent or force: but if that which is
only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, Nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and
exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and
peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the
antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion,
and unavailing sorrow.
These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long
will be, the sentiments of not the least learned and
reflecting part of this kingdom. They who are included in this description form their opinions on such
grounds as such persons ought to form them. The
less inquiring receive them from an authority which
those whom Providence dooms to live on trust need
not be ashamed to rely on. These two sorts of men
move in the same direction, though in a different
place. They both move with the order of the universe. They all know or feel this great ancient
truth:-" Quod illi principi et prcepotenti Deo qui
omnem hune mundum regit nihil eorum quce quidera
fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et ccetus hominurn
jure sociati quce civitates appellantur. " They take this
tenet of the head and heart, not from the great name
which it immediately bears, nor from the greater from
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whence it is derived, but from that which alone can
give true weight and sanction to any learned opinion,
the common nature and common relation of men.
Persuaded that all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the point of reference to which all should be directed, they think themselves
bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of
the heart, or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of their high origin and
cast, but also in their corporate character to perform
their national homage to the Institutor and Author
and Protector of civil society, without which civil
society man could not by any possibility arrive at the
perfection of which his nature is capable, nor even
make a remote and faint approach to it. They conceive that He who gave our nature to be perfected by
our virtue willed also the necessary means of its perfection: He willed, therefore, the state': He willed
its connection with the source and original archetype
of all perfection. They who are convinced of this His
will, which is the law of laws and the sovereign of
sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our
corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition
of a signiory paramount, I had almost said this obla,tion of the state itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed, as all
public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind, taught by their
nature, - that is, with modest splendor, with unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp.
For those purposes they think some part of the wealth
of the country is as usefully employed as it can be
in fomenting the luxury of individuals. It is the
? ? ? ? 9362 REFLECTIONS ON THE
public ornament. It is the public consolation. It
nourishes the public hope. The poorest man finds
his own importance and dignity in it, whilst the
wealth and pride of individuals at every moment
makes the man of humble rank and fortune sensible
of his inferiority, and degrades and vilifies his condition. It is for the mail in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which
the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be
equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion of the general wealth of his country is employed and sanctified.
I assure you I do not aim at singularity. I give
you opinions which have been accepted amongst us,
from very early times to this moment, with a continued and general approbation, and which, indeed, are so worked into my mind that I am unable to
distinguish what I have learned from others from
the results of my own meditation.
It is on some such principles that the majority of
the people of England, far from thinking a religious
national establishment unlawful, hardly think it lawful to be without one. In France you are wholly mistaken, if you do not believe us above all other
things attached to it, and beyond all other nations;
and when this people has acted unwisely and unjustifiably in its favor, (as in some instances they have done, most certainly,) in their very errors you will at
least discover their zeal.
This principle runs through the whole system of
their polity. They do not consider their Church
establishment as convenient, but as essential to their
state: not as a thing heterogeneous and separable, -
something added for accommodation, - what they
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 363
may either keep up or lay aside, according to their
temporary ideas of convenience. They consider it
as the foundation of their whole Constitution, with
which, and with every part of which, it holds an
indissoluble union. Church and State are ideas inseparable in their minds, and scarcely is the one ever
mentioned without mentioning the other.
Our education is so formed as to confirm and fix
this impression. Our education is in a manner wholly in the hands of ecclesiastics, and in all stages from
infancy to manhood. Even when our youth, leaving
schools and universities, enter that most important
period of life which begins to link experience and
study together, and when with that view they visit
other countries, instead of old domestics whom we
have seen as governors to principal men from other
parts, three fourths of those who go abroad with our
young nobility and gentlemen are ecclesiastics: not as
austere masters, nor as mere followers; but as friends
and companions of a graver character, and not seldom persons as well born as themselves. With them,
as relations, they most commonly keep up a close connection through life. By this connection we conceive
that we attach our gentlemen to the Church; and we
liberalize the Church by an intercourse with the leading characters of the country.
So tenacious are we of the old ecclesiastical modes
and fashions of institution, that very little alteration
has been made in them since the fourteenth or fifteenth century: adhering in this particular, as in all
things else, to our old settled maxim, never entirely
nor at once to depart from antiquity. We found. these old institutions, on the whole, favorable to morality and discipline; and we thought they were sus
? ? ? ? 364 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ceptible of amendment, without altering the ground.
We thought that they were capable of receiving and
meliorating, and above all of preserving, the accessions of science and literature, as the order of Providence should successively produce them. And after all, with this Gothic and monkish education, (for such
it is in the groundwork,) we may put in our claim to
as ample and as early a share in all the improvements
in science, in arts, and in literature, which have illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any
other nation in Europe: we think one main cause
of this improvement was our not despising the patrimolly of knowledge which was left us by our forefathers.
It is from our attachment to a Church establishment, that the English nation did not think it wise to
intrust that great fundamental interest of the whole to
what they trust no part of their civil or military public service,- that is, to the unsteady and precarious
contribution of individuals. They go further. They
certainly never have suffered, and never will suffer,
the fixed estate of the Church to be converted into
a pension, to depend on the Treasury, and to be delayed, withheld, or perhaps to be extinguished by
fiscal difficulties: which difficulties may sometimes
be pretended for political purposes, and are in fact
often brought on by the extravagance, negligence,
and rapacity of politicians. The people of England
think that they have constitutional motives, as well
as religious, against any project of turning their
independent clergy into ecclesiastical pensioners of
state. They tremble for their liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they tremble for the public tranquillity, from the disorders of a
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 365
factious clergy, if it were made to depend upon any
other than the crown. They therefore made their
Church, like their king and their nobility, independent.
From the united considerations of religion and
constitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to
make a sure provision for the consolation of the feeble and the instruction of the ignorant, they have incorporated and identified the estate of the Church
with the mass of private property, of which the state
is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but
the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that the provision of this establishment might
be as stable as the earth on which it stands, and
should not fluctuate with the Euripus of funds and
actions.
The men of England, the men, I mean, of light
and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have
any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a
silly, deceitful trick, to profess any religion in name,
which by their proceedings they appear to contemn.
If by their conduct (the only language that rarely
lies) they seemed to regard the great ruling principle
of the moral and the natural world as a mere invention to keep the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct they would defeat the politic
purpose they have in view. They would find it difficult to make others believe in a system to which
they manifestly gave no credit themselves. The Christian statesmen of this land would, indeed, first provide for the multitude, because it is the multitude, and is
therefore, as such, the first object in the ecclesiastical
institution, and in all institutions.
They have been
taught that the circumstance of the Gospel's being
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preached to the poor was one of the great tests of
its true mission. They think, therefore, that those
do not believe it who do not take care it should be
preached to the poor. But as they know that charity is not confined to any one description, but ought to apply itself to all men who have wants, they are
not deprived of a due and anxious sensation of pity
to the distresses of the miserable great. They are
not repelled, through a fastidious delicacy, at the
stench of their arrogance and presumption, from a
medicinal attention to their mental blotches and
running sores. They are sensible that religious instruction is of more consequence to them than to any others: from the greatness of the temptation to which
they are exposed; from the important consequences
that attend their faults; from the contagion of their
ill example; from the necessity of bowing down the
stubborn neck of their pride and ambition to the
yoke of moderation and virtue; from a consideration
of the fat stupidity and gross ignorance concerning
what imports men most to know, which prevails at
courts, and at the head of armies, and in senates, as
much as at the loom and in the field.
The English people are satisfied, that to the great
the consolations of religion are as necessary as its
instructions. They, too, are among the unhappy.
They feel personal pain and domestic sorrow. In
these they have no privilege, but are subject to pay
their full contingent to the contributions levied on
mortality. They want this sovereign balm under
their gnawing cares and anxieties, which, being less
conversant about the limited wants of animal life,
range without limit, and are diversified by infinite
combinations in the wild and unbounded regions of
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imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to
these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the
gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing
on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the
killing languor and over-labored lassitude of those
who have nothing to do; something to excite an
appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where Nature is not left to her own process, where even
desire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated
by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight,
and no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between
the wish and the accomplishment.
The people of England know how little influence
the teachers of religion are likely to have with the
wealthy and powerful of long standing, and how
much less with the newly fortunate, if they appear in
a manner no way assorted to those with whom they
must associate, and over whom they must even exercise, in some cases, something like an authority. What must they think of that body of teachers, if
they see it in no part above the establishment of
their domestic servants? If the poverty were voluntary, there might be some difference. Strong instances of self-denial operate powerfully on our
minds; and a man who has no wants has obtained
great freedom and firmness, and even dignity. But
as the mass of any description of men are but men,
and their poverty cannot be voluntary, that disrespect which attends upon all lay poverty will not depart from the ecclesiastical. Our provident Constitution has therefore taken care that those who are to instruct presumptuous ignorance, those who are to
be censors over insolent vice, should neither incur
? ? ? ? 368 REFLECTIONS ON THE
their contempt nor live upon their alms; nor will it
tempt the rich to a neglect of the true medicine of
their minds. For these reasons, whilst we provide
first for the poor, and with a parental solicitude, we
have not relegated religion (like something we were
ashamed to show) to obscure municipalities or rustic villages. No! we will have her to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments. We will have
her mixed throughout the whole mass of life, and
blended with all the classes of society. The people
of England will show to the haughty potentates of
the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free,
a generous, all informed nation honors the high magistrates of its Church; that it will not suffer the insolence of wealth and titles, or any other species
of proud pretension, to look down with scorn upon
what they look up to with reverence, nor presume
to trample on that acquired personal nobility which
they intend always to be, and which often is, the
fruit, not the reward, (for what can be the reward? )
of learning, piety, and virtue. They call see, without pain or grudging, an archbishop precede a duke.
They can see a bishop of Durham or a bishop of
Winchester in possession of ten thousand pounds a
year, and cannot conceive why it is in worse hands
than estates to the like amount in the hands of this
earl or that squire; although it may be true that so
many dogs and horses are not kept by the former,
and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the
children of the people. It is true, the whole Church
revenue is not always employed, and to every shilling, in charity; nor perhaps ought it; but something is generally so employed. It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 369
will, even with some loss to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of a political benevolence. The world on the whole
will gain by a liberty without which virtue cannot
exist.
When once the commonwealth has established the
estates of the Church as property, it can consistently
hear nothing of the more or the less. Too much and
too little are treason against property. What evil
can arise from the quantity in any hand, whilst the
supreme authority has the full, sovereign superintendence over this, as over any property, to prevent every species of abuse, - and whenever it notably,
deviates, to give to it a direction agreeable to the
purposes of its institution?
In England most of us conceive that it is envy and
malignity towards those who are often the beginners
of their own fortune, and not a love of the self-denial
and mortification of the ancient Church, that makes
some look askance at the distinctions and honors
and revenues which, taken from no person, are set
apart for virtue. The ears of the people of England
are distinguishing. They hear these men speak
broad. Their tongue betrays them. Their language
is in the patois of fraud, in the cant and. gibberish of
hypocrisy. The people of England must think so
when these praters affect to carry back the clergy to
that primitive evangelic poverty which in the spirit!
ought always to exist in them, (and in us, too, however we may like it,) but in the thing must be varied, when the relation of that body to the state is altered,
- when manners, when modes of life, when indeed the
whole order of human affairs, has undergone a total
revolution. We shall believe those reformers to be
VOL. III. 24
? ? ? ? 370 REFLTCTIONS ON THE
then hohiest enthusiasts, not, as now we think them,
cheats and deceivers, when we see them throwing
their own goods into common, and submitting their
own persons to the austere discipline of the early
Church.
With these ideas rooted in their minds, the Commons of Great Britain, in, the nationals! . . gqerugeAm is, will neaver seek their resource from the confiscati'o
of the estates of the Church and poor. Sacrilegse add
proscription are not among the ways and means ofour Committee of Supply. The Jews in Change Alley have not yet dared to hint their hopes of a mortgage
on the revenues belonging to the see of Canterbury.
I am not afraid that I shall be disavowed, when I
assure you that there is not one public man in this
kingdom, whom you wish to quote, - no, not one, of
any party or description, -- who does not reprobate the
dishonest, perfidious, and cruel confiscation which the
National Assembly has been compelled to make of
that property which it was their first duty to protect.
It is with the exultation of a little national pride I
tell you that those amongst us who have wished to
pledge the societies of Paris in the cup of their abominations have been disappointed. The robbery of your Church has proved a security to. the possio s
of ours. r It has roused the people. They see with
horror and alarm that enormous and shameless act
of proscription. It has 6pened, and will more and
more open, their eyes upon the selfish enlargement
of mind and the narrow liberality of sentiment of
insidious men, which, commencing in close hypocrisy
and fraud, have ended in open violence and rapine.
At home we behold similar beginnings. We are on
our guard against similar conclusions.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 371
I hope we shall never be so totally lost to all sense
of the duties imposed upon us by the law of social
union, as, upon any pretext of public service, to confiscate the goods of a single unoffending citizen.
Who but a tyrant (a name expressive of everything
which can vitiate and degrade human nature) could
think of seizing on the property of men, unaccused,
unheard, untried, by whole descriptions, by hundreds
and thousands together? Who that had not lost every trace of humanity could think of casting down
men of exalted rank and sacred function, some of
them of an age to call at once for reverence and compassion, - of casting them down from the highest situation in the commonwealth, wherein they were maintained by their own landed property, to a state
of indigence, depression, and contempt?
The confiscators truly have made some allowance
to their victims from the scraps and fragments of
their own tables, from which they have been so
harshly driven, and which have been so bountifully
spread for a feast to the harpies of usury. But to
drive men from independence to live on alms is itself
great cruelty. That which might be a tolerable condition to men in one state of life, and not habituated
to other things, may, when all these circumstances
are altered, be a dreadful revolution, and one to
which a virtuous mind would feel pain in condemning any guilt, except that which would demand the
life of the offender. But to many minds this punishment of degradation and infamy is worse than death.
Undoubtedly it is an infinite aggravation of this cruel
suffering, that the persons who were taught a double
prejudice in favor of religion, by education, and by
the place they held in the. administration of its fiunc
? ? ? ? 372 REFLECTIONS ON THE
tions, are to receive the remnants of their property
as alms from the profane and impious hands of those
who had plundered them of all the rest,-to receive
(if they are at all to receive) not from the charitable
contributions of the faithful, but from the insolent
tenderness of known and avowed atheism, the maintenance of religion, measured out to them on the standard of the contempt in which it is held, and for
the purpose of rendering those who receive the allowance vile and of no estimation in the eyes of mankind. But this act of seizure of property, it seems, is a
judgment in law, and not a confiscation. They have,
it seems, found out in the academies of the Palais
Royal and the Jacobins, that certain men had no
right to the possessions which they held under law,
usage, the decisions of courts, and the accumulated prescription of a thousand years. They say that ecclesiastics are fictitious persons, creatures of the
state, whom at pleasure they may destroy, and of
course limit and modify in every particular; that the
goods they possess are not properly theirs, but belong
to the state which created the fiction; and we are
therefore not to trouble ourselves with what they may
suffer in their natural feelings and natural persons
on account of what is done towards them in this their
constructive character. Of what import is it, under
what names you injure men, and deprive them of the
just emoluments of a profession in which they were
not only permitted, but encouraged by the state to
engage, and upon the supposed certainty of which
emoluments they had formed the plan of their lives,
contracted debts, and led multitudes to an entire dependence upon them?
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 373
You do not imagine, Sir, that I am going to compliment this miserable distinction of persons with any
long discussion. The arguments of tyranny are as
contemptible as its force is dreadful. Had not your
confiscators by their early crimes obtained a power
which secures indemnity to all the crimes of which
they have since been guilty, or that they can commit,
it is not tlie syllogism of the logician, but the lash of
the executioner, that would have refuted a sophistry
which becomes an accomplice of theft and murder.
The sophistic tyrants of Paris are loud in their declamatiolsm against the departed regal tyrants who in
former ages have vexed the world. They are thus
bold, because they are safe from the dungeons and
iron cages of their old masters. Shall we be more
tender of the tyrants of our own time, when we see
them acting Worse tragedies under our eyes? Shall
we not use the same liberty that they do, when we
can use it with the same safety, when to speak honest truth only requires a contempt of the opinions of
those whose actions we abhor -
This outrage on all the riglhs of property was at
first covered with what, on the system of their conduct, was the most astonishing of all pretexts, - a regard to national faith. The enemies to property at first pretended a most tender, delicate, and scrupulous anxiety for keeping the king's engagements with
the public creditor. These professors of the riglhts
of men are so busy in teaching others, that they have
not leisure to learn anything themselves; otherwise
they would have known that it is to the property of
the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of
the state, that the first and original faith of civil soci
ety is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in
? ? ? ? 374 REFLECTJONS ON THE
time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The
fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition, or by descent, or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the
creditor's security, expressed or implied. They never so much as entered into his head, when he made
his bargain. He well knew that the public, whether
represented by a monarch or by a senate, dan pledge
nothing but the public estate; and it can have no
public estate, except in what it derives from a just
and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at
large. This was engaged, and nothiig else could be
engaged, to the public creditor. No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
It is impossible to avoid some observation on the
contradictions caused by the extreme rigor and the
extreme laxity of this new public faith, which influenced in this transaction, and which influenced not according to the nature of the obligation, but to the
description of the persons to whom it was engaged.
No acts of the old gQyernment of the kings of France
are held valid in the'National Assembly, except its
pecuniary engagements: acts of all others of the
most ambiguous legality. The rest of the acts of
that royal government are considered in so odious
a light that to have a claim under its authority is
looked on as a sort of crime. A pension, given as a
reward for service to the state, is surely as good a
ground of property as any security for money advanced to the state. It is a better; for money is
paid, and well paid, to obtain that service. We have,
however, seen multitudes of people under this description in France, who never had been deprived of their allowances by the most arbitrary ministers in the most
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 375
arbitrary times, by this assembly of the rights of men
robbed without mercy. They were told, in answer to
their claim to the bread earned with their blood, that
their services had not been rendered to the country
that now exists.
This laxity of public faith is not confined to those
unfortunate persons. The Assembly, with perfect consistency, it must be owned, is engaged in a respectable deliberation how far it is bound by the treaties made with other nations under the former government; and their committee is to report which of them
they ought to ratify, and which not. By this means
they have put the external fidelity of this virgin state
on a par with its internal.
It is not easy to conceive upon what rational principle the royal government should not, of the two,
rather have possessed the power of rewarding service
and making treaties, in virtue of its prerogative, than
that of pledging to creditors the revenue of the
state, actual and possible. The treasure of the nation, of all things, has been the least allowed to the
prerogative of the king of France, or to the prerogative of any king in Europe. To mortgage the public
revenue implies the sovereign dominion, in the fullest
sense, over the public purse. It goes far beyond the
trust even of a temporary and occasional taxation.
The acts, however, of that dangerous power (the distinctive mark of a boundless despotism) have been
alone held sacred. Whence arose this preference
given by a democratic assembly to a body of property
deriving its title from the most critical and obnoxious
of all the exertions of monarchical authority? Reason can furnish nothing to reconcile inconsistency;
nor can partial favor be accounted for upon equita
? ? ? ? 376 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ble principles. But the contradiction and partiality
which admit no justification are not the less without
an adequate cause; and that cause I do not think
it difficult to discover.
By the vast debt of France a great moneyed interest
has insensibly grown up, and with it a great power.
By the ancient usages which prevailed in that kingdom, the general circulation of property, and in particular the mutual convertibility of land into money and of money into land, had always been a matter of
difficulty. Family settlements, rather more general
and more strict than they are in England, the jus
retractas, the great mass of landed property held by
the crown, and, by a maxim of the French law, held
unalienably, the vast estates of the ecclesiastic corporations, - all these had kept the landed and moneyed
interests more separated in France, less miscible, and
the owners of the two distinct species of property not
so well disposed to each other as they are in this
country.
The moneyed property was long looked on with
rather an evil eye by the people. They saw it connected with their distresses, and aggravating them.
It was no less envied by the old landed interests,partly for the same reasons that rendered it obnoxious to the people, but much more so as it eclipsed, by the splendor of an ostentatious luxury, the unendowed pedigrees and naked titles of several among
the nobility. Even when the nobility, which represented the more permanent landed interest, united
themselves by marriage (which sometimes was the
case) with the other description, the wealth which
saved the family from ruin was supposed to contnaminate and degrade it. Thus the enmities and heart
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 377
uurnings of these parties were increased even by the
usual means by which discord is made to cease and
quarrels are turned into friendship. In the mean
time, the pride of the wealthy men, not noble, or
newly noble, increased with its cause. They felt
with resentment an inferiority the grounds of which
they did not acknowledge. There was no measure to
which they were not willing to lend themselves, in
order to be revenged of the outrages of this rival
pride, and to exalt their wealth to what they considered as its natural rank and estimation. They struck
at the hobility through the crown and the Church.
They attacked them particularly on the side on
which they thought them the most vulnerable, - that
is, the possessions of the Church, which, through the
patronage of the crown, generally devolved upon the
nobility. The bishoprics and the great commendatory abbeys were, with few exceptions, held by that
order.
In this state of real, though not always perceived,
warfare between the noble ancient landed interest
and the new moneyed interest, the greatest, because
the most applicable, strength was in the hands of the
latter. The moneyed interest is in its nature more
ready for any adventure, and its possessors more
disposed to new enterprises of any kind. Being of
a recent acquisition, it falls in more naturally with
any novelties. It is therefore the kind of wealth
which will be resorted to by all who wish for change.
Along with the moneyed interest, a new description
of men had grown up, with whom that interest soon
formed a close and marked union: I mean the political men of letters. Men of letters, fond of distinguishing themselves, are rarely averse to innovation.
? ? ? ? 378 REFLECTIONS ON THE
Since the decline of the life and greatness of Louis
the Fourteenth, they were not so much cultivated
either by him, or by the Regent, or the successors to
the crown; nor were they engaged to the court by
favors and emoluments so systematically as during
the splendid period of that ostentatious and not impolitic reign. What they lost in the old court protection they endeavored to make up by joining in
a sort of incorporation of their own; to which the
two academies of France, and afterwards the vast undertaking of the Encyclopsedia, carried on by a society
of these gentlemen, did not a little contribute.
The literary cabal had some years ago formed
something like a regular plan for the destruction
of the Christian religion. This object they pursued
with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the propagators of some system of piety.
They were possessed with a spirit of proselytism in
the most fanatical degree, - and from thence, by an
easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their means. * What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act might be wrought by a longer process through the
medium of opinion. To command that opinion, the
first step is to establish a dominion over those who
direct it. They contrived to possess themselves, with
great method and perseverance, of all the avenues to
literary fame. Many of them, indeed, stood high in
the ranks of literature and science. The world had
done them justice, and in favor of general talents
forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles.
* This (down to the end of the first sentence in the next paragraph) and some other parts, here and there, were inserted, on his
reading the manuscript, by my lost son.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 379
This was true liberality; which they returned by endeavoring to confine the reputation of sense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers. I will
venture to say that this narrow, exclusive spirit has
not been less prejudicial to literature and to taste
than to morals and true philosophy. These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and they
have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of
a monk. But in some things they are men of the
world.
disposition still remains, - at least in the great body
of the people.
We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly,
that religion is the basis of civil society, and the
source of all good, and of all comfort. * In England
we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust
of superstition, with which the accumulated absurdity
of the human mind might have crusted it over in the
course of ages, that ninety-nine in a hundred of the
people of England would not prefer to impiety. We
shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to
the substance of any system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect its construc* Sit igifur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse omniun rerum ac moderatores deos; eaque, que gerantur, eorum geri vi,
ditione, ac numine; eosdemque optime de genere hominum mereri;
et qualis quisque sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua mente, qua
pietate colat religiones intueri: piorum et impiorum habere rationem.
His enim rebus imbutae mentes haud sane abhorrebunt ab utili et a
vera sententia. - Cic. de Legibus, 1. 2.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 351
tion. If our religious tenets should ever want a
further elucidation, we shall not call on Atheism to
explain them. We shall not light up our temple
from that unhallowed fire. It will be illuminated
with other lights. It will be perfumed with other
incense than the infectious stuff which is imported
by the smugglers of adulterated metaphysics. If our
ecclesiastical establishment should want a revision, it
is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we
shall employ for the audit or receipt or application
of its consecrated revenue. Violently condemning
neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since heats
are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the Protestant: not because we think it has less of the Christian religion in it, but because, in our
judgment, it has more. We are Protestants, not
from indifference, but from zeal.
We know, and it is our pride to know, that manll
is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in
France is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover
our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian religion
which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and
one great source of civilization amongst us, and
among many other nations, we are apprehensive
(being well aware that the mind will not endure a
void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading
superstition might take place of it.
For that reason, before we take from our establishment the natural, human means of estimation, and give it up to contempt, as you have done, and in
? ? ? ? 352 REFLECTIONS ON THE
doing it have incurred the penalties you well deserve
to suffer, we desire that some other may be presented
to us in the place of it. We shall then form our
judgment.
On these ideas, instead of quarrelling with establishments, as some do, who have made a philosophy and a religion of their hostility to such institutions,
we cleave closely to them. We are resolved to keep
an established church, an established monarchy, an
established aristocracy, and an established democracy, each in the degree it exists, and in no greater. I shall show you presently how much of each of these
we possess.
It has been the misfortune (not, as these gentlemen
think it, the glory) of this age, that everything is to
be discussed, as if the Constitution of our country
were to be always a subject rather of altercation
than enjoyment. For this reason, as well as for the
satisfaction of those among you (if any such you
have among you) who may wish to profit of examples, I venture to trouble you with a few thoughts upon each of these establishments. I do not think
they were unwise in ancient Rome, who, when they
wished to new-model their laws, sent commissioners
to examine the best-constituted republics within their
reach.
First I beg leave to speak of our Church Establishment, which is the first of our prejudices, - not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wisdom. I speak of it first. It
is first, and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking ground on that religious system of which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the early
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 353
received and uniformly continued sense of mankind.
That sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built
up the august fabric of states, but, like a provident
proprietor, to preserve the structure from profanation
and ruin, as a sacred temple, purged from all the
impurities of fraud and violence and injustice and
tyranny, hath solemnly and forever consecrated the
commonwealth, and all that officiate in it. This con
secration is made, that all who administer in the government of men, in which they stand in the person
of God Himself, should have high and worthy notions
of their function and destination; that their hope
should be full of immortality; that they should not
look to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the vulgar, but to a
solid, permanent existence, in the permanent part of
their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in
the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the
world.
Such sublime principles ought to be infused into
persons of exalted situations, and religious establishments provided that may continually revive and enforce them. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every sort of politic institution, aiding the rational
and natural ties that connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not more than
necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, Man,- whose prerogative it is, to be in a great
degree a creature of his own making, and who,
when made as he ought to be made, is destined to
hold no trivial place in the creation. But whenever
man is put over men, as the better nature ought ever
to preside, in that case more particularly he should as
nearly as possible be approximated to his perfection.
VOL. III. 23
? ? ? ? 354 REFLECTIONS ON THE
The consecration of the state by a state religious
establishment is necessary also to operate with a
wholesome awe upon free citizens; because, in order
to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some determinate portion of power. To them, therefore, a
religion connected with the state, and with their
ditty towards it, becomes even more necessary than
inii such societies where the people, by the terms of
their subjection, are confined to private sentiments,
and the management of their own family concerns.
All persons possessing any portion of power ought
to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea
that they act in trust, and that they are to account
for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
This principle ought even to be more strongly impressed upon the minds of those who compose the collective sovereignty than upon those of single princes. Without instruments, these princes can do nothing.
Whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, finds
also impediments. Their power is therefore by no
means complete; nor are they safe in extreme abuse.
Such persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance,
and self-opinion, must be sensible, that, whether covered or not by positive law, in some way or other they
are accountable even here for the abuse of their trust.
If they are not cut off by a rebellion of their people,
they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept
for their security against all other rebellion. Thus
we have seen the king of France sold by his soldiers
for an increase of pay. But where popular authority
is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves in
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 355
a great measure their own instruments. They are
nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under
responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The
share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each
individual in public acts is small indeed: the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation
of their own acts has to them the appearance of a
public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world.
As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can
be made subject to punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought: for, as all punishments are
for example towards the conservation of the people
at large, the people at large can never become the
subject of punishment by any human hand. * It is
therefore of infinite importance that they should not
be suffered to imagine that their will, any more than
that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong.
They ought to be persuaded that they are full as little entitled, and far less qualified, with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary power whatsoever; that
therefore they are not, under a false show of liberty,
but in truth to exercise an unnatural, inverted domination, tyrannically to exact from those who officiate in the state, not an entire devotion to their interest, which is their right, but an abject submission to their occasional will: extinguishing thereby, in all
those'who serve them, all moral principle, all sense
of dignity, all use of judgment, and all consistency
of character; whilst by the very same process they
* Quicqaid multis peccatur inultum.
? ? ? ? 356 REFLECTIONS ON THE
give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most
contemptible prey to the servile ambition of popular
sycophants or courtly flatterers.
When the people have emptied themselves of all
the lust of selfish will, which without religion it is
utterly impossible they ever should, - when they are
conscious that they exercise, and exercise perhaps
in a higher link of the order of delegation, the power which to be legitimate must be according to that eternal, immutable law in which will and reason are
the same,- they will be more careful how they place
power in base and incapable hands. In their nomination to office, they will not appoint to the exercise
of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function; not according to their sordid, selfish interest,
nor to their wanton caprice, nor to their arbitrary
will; but they will confer that power (which any
mail may well tremble to give or to receive) on those
only in whom they may discern that predominant proportion of active virtue and wisdom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such as in the great and
inevitable mixed mass of human imperfections and
infirmities is to be found.
When they are habitually convinced that no evil
can be acceptable, either in the act or the permission,
to Him whose essence is good, they will be better able
to extirpate out of the minds of all magistrates, civil,
ecclesiastical, or military, anything that bears the
least resemblance to a proud and lawless domination.
But one of the first and most leading principles on
which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their an
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 357
cestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act
as if they were the entire masters; that they should
not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail
or, commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at
their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society: hazarding to leave to those who come after them
a ruin instead of an habitation, - and teaching these
successors as little to respect their contrivances as
they had themselves respected the institutions of their
forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often and as much and in as many
ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the
whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth
would be broken; no one generation could link with
the other; men would become little better than the
flies of a summer.
And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the
pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer
studied. Personal self-sufficiency and arrogance (the
certain attendants upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would
usurp the tribunal. Of course no certain laws, establisling invariable grounds of hope and fear, would
keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct
them to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes
of holding property or exercising function could form
a solid ground on which any parent could speculate
in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for
their future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked into the habits. As
? ? ? ? 358 REFLECTIONS ON THE
soon as the most able instructor had completed his
laborious course of institution, instead of sending
forth his pupil accomplished in a virtuous discipline
fitted to procure him attention and respect in his
place in society, he would find everything altered,
and that he had turned out a poor creature to the
contempt and derision of the world, ignorant of the
true grounds of estimation. Who would insure a
tender and delicate sense of honor to beat almost
with the first pulses of the heart, when no man could
know what would be the test of honor in a nation
continually varying the standard of its coin? No
part of life would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard to science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth
itself would in a few generations crumble away, be
disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of
heaven.
To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and
versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of
obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look
into its defects or corruptions but with due caution;
that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to
the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father,
with pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this
wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on
those children of their country who are prompt rashly
to hack that aged parent in pieces and put him into
the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poi
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 359
sonous weeds and wild incantations they may regenerate the paternal constitution and renovate their father's life.
Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be
dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be
considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by
the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with
other reverence; because it is not a partnership in
things subservient only to the gross animal existence
of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the
ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in
many generations, it becomes a partnership not only
between those who are living, but between those who
are living, those who are dead, and those who are to
be born. -Each contract of each particular state is
but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal
society, linking the lower with the higher natures,
connecting the visible and invisible world, according
to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath
which holds all physical and all moral natures each
in their appointed place. This law is not subject to
the will of those who, by an obligation above them,
and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will
to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty, at their
pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent
improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder
the bands of their subordinate community, and to
? ? ? ? 360 REFLECTIONS ON THE
dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected
chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and
supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because
this necessity itself is a part, too, of that moral and
physical disposition of things to which man must be
obedient by consent or force: but if that which is
only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, Nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and
exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and
peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the
antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion,
and unavailing sorrow.
These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long
will be, the sentiments of not the least learned and
reflecting part of this kingdom. They who are included in this description form their opinions on such
grounds as such persons ought to form them. The
less inquiring receive them from an authority which
those whom Providence dooms to live on trust need
not be ashamed to rely on. These two sorts of men
move in the same direction, though in a different
place. They both move with the order of the universe. They all know or feel this great ancient
truth:-" Quod illi principi et prcepotenti Deo qui
omnem hune mundum regit nihil eorum quce quidera
fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et ccetus hominurn
jure sociati quce civitates appellantur. " They take this
tenet of the head and heart, not from the great name
which it immediately bears, nor from the greater from
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whence it is derived, but from that which alone can
give true weight and sanction to any learned opinion,
the common nature and common relation of men.
Persuaded that all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the point of reference to which all should be directed, they think themselves
bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of
the heart, or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of their high origin and
cast, but also in their corporate character to perform
their national homage to the Institutor and Author
and Protector of civil society, without which civil
society man could not by any possibility arrive at the
perfection of which his nature is capable, nor even
make a remote and faint approach to it. They conceive that He who gave our nature to be perfected by
our virtue willed also the necessary means of its perfection: He willed, therefore, the state': He willed
its connection with the source and original archetype
of all perfection. They who are convinced of this His
will, which is the law of laws and the sovereign of
sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our
corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition
of a signiory paramount, I had almost said this obla,tion of the state itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed, as all
public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind, taught by their
nature, - that is, with modest splendor, with unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp.
For those purposes they think some part of the wealth
of the country is as usefully employed as it can be
in fomenting the luxury of individuals. It is the
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public ornament. It is the public consolation. It
nourishes the public hope. The poorest man finds
his own importance and dignity in it, whilst the
wealth and pride of individuals at every moment
makes the man of humble rank and fortune sensible
of his inferiority, and degrades and vilifies his condition. It is for the mail in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which
the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be
equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion of the general wealth of his country is employed and sanctified.
I assure you I do not aim at singularity. I give
you opinions which have been accepted amongst us,
from very early times to this moment, with a continued and general approbation, and which, indeed, are so worked into my mind that I am unable to
distinguish what I have learned from others from
the results of my own meditation.
It is on some such principles that the majority of
the people of England, far from thinking a religious
national establishment unlawful, hardly think it lawful to be without one. In France you are wholly mistaken, if you do not believe us above all other
things attached to it, and beyond all other nations;
and when this people has acted unwisely and unjustifiably in its favor, (as in some instances they have done, most certainly,) in their very errors you will at
least discover their zeal.
This principle runs through the whole system of
their polity. They do not consider their Church
establishment as convenient, but as essential to their
state: not as a thing heterogeneous and separable, -
something added for accommodation, - what they
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may either keep up or lay aside, according to their
temporary ideas of convenience. They consider it
as the foundation of their whole Constitution, with
which, and with every part of which, it holds an
indissoluble union. Church and State are ideas inseparable in their minds, and scarcely is the one ever
mentioned without mentioning the other.
Our education is so formed as to confirm and fix
this impression. Our education is in a manner wholly in the hands of ecclesiastics, and in all stages from
infancy to manhood. Even when our youth, leaving
schools and universities, enter that most important
period of life which begins to link experience and
study together, and when with that view they visit
other countries, instead of old domestics whom we
have seen as governors to principal men from other
parts, three fourths of those who go abroad with our
young nobility and gentlemen are ecclesiastics: not as
austere masters, nor as mere followers; but as friends
and companions of a graver character, and not seldom persons as well born as themselves. With them,
as relations, they most commonly keep up a close connection through life. By this connection we conceive
that we attach our gentlemen to the Church; and we
liberalize the Church by an intercourse with the leading characters of the country.
So tenacious are we of the old ecclesiastical modes
and fashions of institution, that very little alteration
has been made in them since the fourteenth or fifteenth century: adhering in this particular, as in all
things else, to our old settled maxim, never entirely
nor at once to depart from antiquity. We found. these old institutions, on the whole, favorable to morality and discipline; and we thought they were sus
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ceptible of amendment, without altering the ground.
We thought that they were capable of receiving and
meliorating, and above all of preserving, the accessions of science and literature, as the order of Providence should successively produce them. And after all, with this Gothic and monkish education, (for such
it is in the groundwork,) we may put in our claim to
as ample and as early a share in all the improvements
in science, in arts, and in literature, which have illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any
other nation in Europe: we think one main cause
of this improvement was our not despising the patrimolly of knowledge which was left us by our forefathers.
It is from our attachment to a Church establishment, that the English nation did not think it wise to
intrust that great fundamental interest of the whole to
what they trust no part of their civil or military public service,- that is, to the unsteady and precarious
contribution of individuals. They go further. They
certainly never have suffered, and never will suffer,
the fixed estate of the Church to be converted into
a pension, to depend on the Treasury, and to be delayed, withheld, or perhaps to be extinguished by
fiscal difficulties: which difficulties may sometimes
be pretended for political purposes, and are in fact
often brought on by the extravagance, negligence,
and rapacity of politicians. The people of England
think that they have constitutional motives, as well
as religious, against any project of turning their
independent clergy into ecclesiastical pensioners of
state. They tremble for their liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they tremble for the public tranquillity, from the disorders of a
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 365
factious clergy, if it were made to depend upon any
other than the crown. They therefore made their
Church, like their king and their nobility, independent.
From the united considerations of religion and
constitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to
make a sure provision for the consolation of the feeble and the instruction of the ignorant, they have incorporated and identified the estate of the Church
with the mass of private property, of which the state
is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but
the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that the provision of this establishment might
be as stable as the earth on which it stands, and
should not fluctuate with the Euripus of funds and
actions.
The men of England, the men, I mean, of light
and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have
any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a
silly, deceitful trick, to profess any religion in name,
which by their proceedings they appear to contemn.
If by their conduct (the only language that rarely
lies) they seemed to regard the great ruling principle
of the moral and the natural world as a mere invention to keep the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct they would defeat the politic
purpose they have in view. They would find it difficult to make others believe in a system to which
they manifestly gave no credit themselves. The Christian statesmen of this land would, indeed, first provide for the multitude, because it is the multitude, and is
therefore, as such, the first object in the ecclesiastical
institution, and in all institutions.
They have been
taught that the circumstance of the Gospel's being
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preached to the poor was one of the great tests of
its true mission. They think, therefore, that those
do not believe it who do not take care it should be
preached to the poor. But as they know that charity is not confined to any one description, but ought to apply itself to all men who have wants, they are
not deprived of a due and anxious sensation of pity
to the distresses of the miserable great. They are
not repelled, through a fastidious delicacy, at the
stench of their arrogance and presumption, from a
medicinal attention to their mental blotches and
running sores. They are sensible that religious instruction is of more consequence to them than to any others: from the greatness of the temptation to which
they are exposed; from the important consequences
that attend their faults; from the contagion of their
ill example; from the necessity of bowing down the
stubborn neck of their pride and ambition to the
yoke of moderation and virtue; from a consideration
of the fat stupidity and gross ignorance concerning
what imports men most to know, which prevails at
courts, and at the head of armies, and in senates, as
much as at the loom and in the field.
The English people are satisfied, that to the great
the consolations of religion are as necessary as its
instructions. They, too, are among the unhappy.
They feel personal pain and domestic sorrow. In
these they have no privilege, but are subject to pay
their full contingent to the contributions levied on
mortality. They want this sovereign balm under
their gnawing cares and anxieties, which, being less
conversant about the limited wants of animal life,
range without limit, and are diversified by infinite
combinations in the wild and unbounded regions of
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imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to
these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the
gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing
on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the
killing languor and over-labored lassitude of those
who have nothing to do; something to excite an
appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where Nature is not left to her own process, where even
desire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated
by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight,
and no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between
the wish and the accomplishment.
The people of England know how little influence
the teachers of religion are likely to have with the
wealthy and powerful of long standing, and how
much less with the newly fortunate, if they appear in
a manner no way assorted to those with whom they
must associate, and over whom they must even exercise, in some cases, something like an authority. What must they think of that body of teachers, if
they see it in no part above the establishment of
their domestic servants? If the poverty were voluntary, there might be some difference. Strong instances of self-denial operate powerfully on our
minds; and a man who has no wants has obtained
great freedom and firmness, and even dignity. But
as the mass of any description of men are but men,
and their poverty cannot be voluntary, that disrespect which attends upon all lay poverty will not depart from the ecclesiastical. Our provident Constitution has therefore taken care that those who are to instruct presumptuous ignorance, those who are to
be censors over insolent vice, should neither incur
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their contempt nor live upon their alms; nor will it
tempt the rich to a neglect of the true medicine of
their minds. For these reasons, whilst we provide
first for the poor, and with a parental solicitude, we
have not relegated religion (like something we were
ashamed to show) to obscure municipalities or rustic villages. No! we will have her to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments. We will have
her mixed throughout the whole mass of life, and
blended with all the classes of society. The people
of England will show to the haughty potentates of
the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free,
a generous, all informed nation honors the high magistrates of its Church; that it will not suffer the insolence of wealth and titles, or any other species
of proud pretension, to look down with scorn upon
what they look up to with reverence, nor presume
to trample on that acquired personal nobility which
they intend always to be, and which often is, the
fruit, not the reward, (for what can be the reward? )
of learning, piety, and virtue. They call see, without pain or grudging, an archbishop precede a duke.
They can see a bishop of Durham or a bishop of
Winchester in possession of ten thousand pounds a
year, and cannot conceive why it is in worse hands
than estates to the like amount in the hands of this
earl or that squire; although it may be true that so
many dogs and horses are not kept by the former,
and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the
children of the people. It is true, the whole Church
revenue is not always employed, and to every shilling, in charity; nor perhaps ought it; but something is generally so employed. It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 369
will, even with some loss to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of a political benevolence. The world on the whole
will gain by a liberty without which virtue cannot
exist.
When once the commonwealth has established the
estates of the Church as property, it can consistently
hear nothing of the more or the less. Too much and
too little are treason against property. What evil
can arise from the quantity in any hand, whilst the
supreme authority has the full, sovereign superintendence over this, as over any property, to prevent every species of abuse, - and whenever it notably,
deviates, to give to it a direction agreeable to the
purposes of its institution?
In England most of us conceive that it is envy and
malignity towards those who are often the beginners
of their own fortune, and not a love of the self-denial
and mortification of the ancient Church, that makes
some look askance at the distinctions and honors
and revenues which, taken from no person, are set
apart for virtue. The ears of the people of England
are distinguishing. They hear these men speak
broad. Their tongue betrays them. Their language
is in the patois of fraud, in the cant and. gibberish of
hypocrisy. The people of England must think so
when these praters affect to carry back the clergy to
that primitive evangelic poverty which in the spirit!
ought always to exist in them, (and in us, too, however we may like it,) but in the thing must be varied, when the relation of that body to the state is altered,
- when manners, when modes of life, when indeed the
whole order of human affairs, has undergone a total
revolution. We shall believe those reformers to be
VOL. III. 24
? ? ? ? 370 REFLTCTIONS ON THE
then hohiest enthusiasts, not, as now we think them,
cheats and deceivers, when we see them throwing
their own goods into common, and submitting their
own persons to the austere discipline of the early
Church.
With these ideas rooted in their minds, the Commons of Great Britain, in, the nationals! . . gqerugeAm is, will neaver seek their resource from the confiscati'o
of the estates of the Church and poor. Sacrilegse add
proscription are not among the ways and means ofour Committee of Supply. The Jews in Change Alley have not yet dared to hint their hopes of a mortgage
on the revenues belonging to the see of Canterbury.
I am not afraid that I shall be disavowed, when I
assure you that there is not one public man in this
kingdom, whom you wish to quote, - no, not one, of
any party or description, -- who does not reprobate the
dishonest, perfidious, and cruel confiscation which the
National Assembly has been compelled to make of
that property which it was their first duty to protect.
It is with the exultation of a little national pride I
tell you that those amongst us who have wished to
pledge the societies of Paris in the cup of their abominations have been disappointed. The robbery of your Church has proved a security to. the possio s
of ours. r It has roused the people. They see with
horror and alarm that enormous and shameless act
of proscription. It has 6pened, and will more and
more open, their eyes upon the selfish enlargement
of mind and the narrow liberality of sentiment of
insidious men, which, commencing in close hypocrisy
and fraud, have ended in open violence and rapine.
At home we behold similar beginnings. We are on
our guard against similar conclusions.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 371
I hope we shall never be so totally lost to all sense
of the duties imposed upon us by the law of social
union, as, upon any pretext of public service, to confiscate the goods of a single unoffending citizen.
Who but a tyrant (a name expressive of everything
which can vitiate and degrade human nature) could
think of seizing on the property of men, unaccused,
unheard, untried, by whole descriptions, by hundreds
and thousands together? Who that had not lost every trace of humanity could think of casting down
men of exalted rank and sacred function, some of
them of an age to call at once for reverence and compassion, - of casting them down from the highest situation in the commonwealth, wherein they were maintained by their own landed property, to a state
of indigence, depression, and contempt?
The confiscators truly have made some allowance
to their victims from the scraps and fragments of
their own tables, from which they have been so
harshly driven, and which have been so bountifully
spread for a feast to the harpies of usury. But to
drive men from independence to live on alms is itself
great cruelty. That which might be a tolerable condition to men in one state of life, and not habituated
to other things, may, when all these circumstances
are altered, be a dreadful revolution, and one to
which a virtuous mind would feel pain in condemning any guilt, except that which would demand the
life of the offender. But to many minds this punishment of degradation and infamy is worse than death.
Undoubtedly it is an infinite aggravation of this cruel
suffering, that the persons who were taught a double
prejudice in favor of religion, by education, and by
the place they held in the. administration of its fiunc
? ? ? ? 372 REFLECTIONS ON THE
tions, are to receive the remnants of their property
as alms from the profane and impious hands of those
who had plundered them of all the rest,-to receive
(if they are at all to receive) not from the charitable
contributions of the faithful, but from the insolent
tenderness of known and avowed atheism, the maintenance of religion, measured out to them on the standard of the contempt in which it is held, and for
the purpose of rendering those who receive the allowance vile and of no estimation in the eyes of mankind. But this act of seizure of property, it seems, is a
judgment in law, and not a confiscation. They have,
it seems, found out in the academies of the Palais
Royal and the Jacobins, that certain men had no
right to the possessions which they held under law,
usage, the decisions of courts, and the accumulated prescription of a thousand years. They say that ecclesiastics are fictitious persons, creatures of the
state, whom at pleasure they may destroy, and of
course limit and modify in every particular; that the
goods they possess are not properly theirs, but belong
to the state which created the fiction; and we are
therefore not to trouble ourselves with what they may
suffer in their natural feelings and natural persons
on account of what is done towards them in this their
constructive character. Of what import is it, under
what names you injure men, and deprive them of the
just emoluments of a profession in which they were
not only permitted, but encouraged by the state to
engage, and upon the supposed certainty of which
emoluments they had formed the plan of their lives,
contracted debts, and led multitudes to an entire dependence upon them?
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 373
You do not imagine, Sir, that I am going to compliment this miserable distinction of persons with any
long discussion. The arguments of tyranny are as
contemptible as its force is dreadful. Had not your
confiscators by their early crimes obtained a power
which secures indemnity to all the crimes of which
they have since been guilty, or that they can commit,
it is not tlie syllogism of the logician, but the lash of
the executioner, that would have refuted a sophistry
which becomes an accomplice of theft and murder.
The sophistic tyrants of Paris are loud in their declamatiolsm against the departed regal tyrants who in
former ages have vexed the world. They are thus
bold, because they are safe from the dungeons and
iron cages of their old masters. Shall we be more
tender of the tyrants of our own time, when we see
them acting Worse tragedies under our eyes? Shall
we not use the same liberty that they do, when we
can use it with the same safety, when to speak honest truth only requires a contempt of the opinions of
those whose actions we abhor -
This outrage on all the riglhs of property was at
first covered with what, on the system of their conduct, was the most astonishing of all pretexts, - a regard to national faith. The enemies to property at first pretended a most tender, delicate, and scrupulous anxiety for keeping the king's engagements with
the public creditor. These professors of the riglhts
of men are so busy in teaching others, that they have
not leisure to learn anything themselves; otherwise
they would have known that it is to the property of
the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of
the state, that the first and original faith of civil soci
ety is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in
? ? ? ? 374 REFLECTJONS ON THE
time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The
fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition, or by descent, or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the
creditor's security, expressed or implied. They never so much as entered into his head, when he made
his bargain. He well knew that the public, whether
represented by a monarch or by a senate, dan pledge
nothing but the public estate; and it can have no
public estate, except in what it derives from a just
and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at
large. This was engaged, and nothiig else could be
engaged, to the public creditor. No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
It is impossible to avoid some observation on the
contradictions caused by the extreme rigor and the
extreme laxity of this new public faith, which influenced in this transaction, and which influenced not according to the nature of the obligation, but to the
description of the persons to whom it was engaged.
No acts of the old gQyernment of the kings of France
are held valid in the'National Assembly, except its
pecuniary engagements: acts of all others of the
most ambiguous legality. The rest of the acts of
that royal government are considered in so odious
a light that to have a claim under its authority is
looked on as a sort of crime. A pension, given as a
reward for service to the state, is surely as good a
ground of property as any security for money advanced to the state. It is a better; for money is
paid, and well paid, to obtain that service. We have,
however, seen multitudes of people under this description in France, who never had been deprived of their allowances by the most arbitrary ministers in the most
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 375
arbitrary times, by this assembly of the rights of men
robbed without mercy. They were told, in answer to
their claim to the bread earned with their blood, that
their services had not been rendered to the country
that now exists.
This laxity of public faith is not confined to those
unfortunate persons. The Assembly, with perfect consistency, it must be owned, is engaged in a respectable deliberation how far it is bound by the treaties made with other nations under the former government; and their committee is to report which of them
they ought to ratify, and which not. By this means
they have put the external fidelity of this virgin state
on a par with its internal.
It is not easy to conceive upon what rational principle the royal government should not, of the two,
rather have possessed the power of rewarding service
and making treaties, in virtue of its prerogative, than
that of pledging to creditors the revenue of the
state, actual and possible. The treasure of the nation, of all things, has been the least allowed to the
prerogative of the king of France, or to the prerogative of any king in Europe. To mortgage the public
revenue implies the sovereign dominion, in the fullest
sense, over the public purse. It goes far beyond the
trust even of a temporary and occasional taxation.
The acts, however, of that dangerous power (the distinctive mark of a boundless despotism) have been
alone held sacred. Whence arose this preference
given by a democratic assembly to a body of property
deriving its title from the most critical and obnoxious
of all the exertions of monarchical authority? Reason can furnish nothing to reconcile inconsistency;
nor can partial favor be accounted for upon equita
? ? ? ? 376 REFLECTIONS ON THE
ble principles. But the contradiction and partiality
which admit no justification are not the less without
an adequate cause; and that cause I do not think
it difficult to discover.
By the vast debt of France a great moneyed interest
has insensibly grown up, and with it a great power.
By the ancient usages which prevailed in that kingdom, the general circulation of property, and in particular the mutual convertibility of land into money and of money into land, had always been a matter of
difficulty. Family settlements, rather more general
and more strict than they are in England, the jus
retractas, the great mass of landed property held by
the crown, and, by a maxim of the French law, held
unalienably, the vast estates of the ecclesiastic corporations, - all these had kept the landed and moneyed
interests more separated in France, less miscible, and
the owners of the two distinct species of property not
so well disposed to each other as they are in this
country.
The moneyed property was long looked on with
rather an evil eye by the people. They saw it connected with their distresses, and aggravating them.
It was no less envied by the old landed interests,partly for the same reasons that rendered it obnoxious to the people, but much more so as it eclipsed, by the splendor of an ostentatious luxury, the unendowed pedigrees and naked titles of several among
the nobility. Even when the nobility, which represented the more permanent landed interest, united
themselves by marriage (which sometimes was the
case) with the other description, the wealth which
saved the family from ruin was supposed to contnaminate and degrade it. Thus the enmities and heart
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 377
uurnings of these parties were increased even by the
usual means by which discord is made to cease and
quarrels are turned into friendship. In the mean
time, the pride of the wealthy men, not noble, or
newly noble, increased with its cause. They felt
with resentment an inferiority the grounds of which
they did not acknowledge. There was no measure to
which they were not willing to lend themselves, in
order to be revenged of the outrages of this rival
pride, and to exalt their wealth to what they considered as its natural rank and estimation. They struck
at the hobility through the crown and the Church.
They attacked them particularly on the side on
which they thought them the most vulnerable, - that
is, the possessions of the Church, which, through the
patronage of the crown, generally devolved upon the
nobility. The bishoprics and the great commendatory abbeys were, with few exceptions, held by that
order.
In this state of real, though not always perceived,
warfare between the noble ancient landed interest
and the new moneyed interest, the greatest, because
the most applicable, strength was in the hands of the
latter. The moneyed interest is in its nature more
ready for any adventure, and its possessors more
disposed to new enterprises of any kind. Being of
a recent acquisition, it falls in more naturally with
any novelties. It is therefore the kind of wealth
which will be resorted to by all who wish for change.
Along with the moneyed interest, a new description
of men had grown up, with whom that interest soon
formed a close and marked union: I mean the political men of letters. Men of letters, fond of distinguishing themselves, are rarely averse to innovation.
? ? ? ? 378 REFLECTIONS ON THE
Since the decline of the life and greatness of Louis
the Fourteenth, they were not so much cultivated
either by him, or by the Regent, or the successors to
the crown; nor were they engaged to the court by
favors and emoluments so systematically as during
the splendid period of that ostentatious and not impolitic reign. What they lost in the old court protection they endeavored to make up by joining in
a sort of incorporation of their own; to which the
two academies of France, and afterwards the vast undertaking of the Encyclopsedia, carried on by a society
of these gentlemen, did not a little contribute.
The literary cabal had some years ago formed
something like a regular plan for the destruction
of the Christian religion. This object they pursued
with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the propagators of some system of piety.
They were possessed with a spirit of proselytism in
the most fanatical degree, - and from thence, by an
easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their means. * What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act might be wrought by a longer process through the
medium of opinion. To command that opinion, the
first step is to establish a dominion over those who
direct it. They contrived to possess themselves, with
great method and perseverance, of all the avenues to
literary fame. Many of them, indeed, stood high in
the ranks of literature and science. The world had
done them justice, and in favor of general talents
forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles.
* This (down to the end of the first sentence in the next paragraph) and some other parts, here and there, were inserted, on his
reading the manuscript, by my lost son.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 379
This was true liberality; which they returned by endeavoring to confine the reputation of sense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers. I will
venture to say that this narrow, exclusive spirit has
not been less prejudicial to literature and to taste
than to morals and true philosophy. These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and they
have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of
a monk. But in some things they are men of the
world.
