Previous
Section 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Reflections on the Revolution in France, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Use and Abuse of History
Nature, Tradition, and Wisdom
Revolution and Reform
Theory vs. Practicality
Summary
Analysis
Burke proposes to introduce England’s various establishments. First, he discusses the Church establishment, “the first of our prejudices,” and one grounded in wisdom, not devoid of it. It is necessary both to form the character of people who hold any power in society, to reinforce the sense that they, too, are under authority. Burke argues that a society like France, in which the people now understand themselves to possess immense power, risks becoming shameless and fearless, lacking the built-in check that religion provides.
Burke gives specific examples of how “prejudices” are healthy for society, and how abandoning institutions like religion will actually undermine France’s attempts to update aspects of its society. For example, he argues that the Church ideally restrains people’s sense of their own power, but there’s nothing to serve this function under the Revolution.
Themes
The problem with lacking such checks as religion is that people do not think themselves accountable to posterity, and they leave to their descendants “a ruin instead of an habitation.” People would no longer study jurisprudence, which contains “the collected reason of ages”; “personal self-sufficiency and arrogance […] would usurp the tribunal.” A similar deterioration would occur in science, literature, and other areas of life in the commonwealth.
Burke goes on to show how various aspects of life and culture will suffer in the absence of controlling “prejudices.” The absence of these not only displays a lack of regard for the past and harms the present, but hurts future generations as well.
Themes
To avoid “the evils of inconstancy and versatility,” which are worse, in Burke’s view, than stubborn prejudice, “we have consecrated the state.” The state can make mistakes, but its faults should be approached “as […] the wounds of a father.” Prejudice teaches the English to “look with horror” on those “children” who heedlessly destroy their “father.”
The role of the state is to contain and preserve those institutions that uphold society. It is not perfect, but it should be treated with reverence and respect—the opposite of what the French are presently doing, argues Burke.
Themes
Society, Burke goes on to explain, is a “contract.” It is a more substantial type of contract than one concerning, say, trade in “pepper and coffee,” or something else contracted or dissolved at will. This contract, rather, is “a partnership in all science […] all art […] in every virtue, and in all perfection.” It’s not only between the living, but between living, dead, and future generations.
Burke picks up the idea of the social contract that has been popularized in early modernity by such figures as John Locke. But Burke, expanding on this concept, doesn’t just see a contract as something pertaining to two parties, or even to an entire generation, but to society as a whole—past, present, and future.
Themes
Get the entire Reflections on the Revolution in France LitChart as a printable PDF.
Burke explains that the state was willed by God as a means of perfecting human virtue. He assures Depont that the majority of English people have always thought this way, and that they do not think it is lawful to be without a religious establishment; in fact, the idea of one runs throughout their entire system of governance. Church and state are inseparable in English minds.
Burke ties together church and state by showing how religion has traditionally been thought indispensable to the state’s aims of instilling virtue.
Themes
English education is in the hands of the Church, and has remained so throughout England’s history—even the English Reformation preserved continuity with the religious past, rather than destroying it. England also finds it critical that their clergy remain independent, not unduly dependent on the crown or the nobility.
Burke argues that religion, too, like government, is one of those things that must be both mindful of the past and open to improvement—he sees the Church of England (whose so-called Elizabethan settlement had preserved aspects of both Catholic practice and Protestant theology) as an example of this.
Themes
The Church’s property is private, unlike in France; the state is not its proprietor, “but the guardian only and the regulator.” English society also welcomes religion’s influence throughout its ranks and classes, honoring the Church hierarchy and accepting that an Archbishop should rank higher than a Duke. And the Church’s wealth is not commanded by the state, since “the world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.”
Burke continues to illustrate the distinctively English approach to the Church and its relationship to the state, in hopes of commending this to Depont. He argues that the Church must maintain a certain independence in order to fulfill its virtuous role.
Themes
Burke believes that it’s primarily “envy and malignity” that leads some to scorn ecclesiastical revenues, not true concern for the poor. Until these objectors are seen giving up their own goods for the poor, the people of England will believe such “reformers” to be mere hypocrites. For all these reasons, Great Britain will never seek revenue by confiscating Church properties. France’s measures along these lines are “perfidious and cruel.” Only a tyrant would abruptly strip the clergy of their means of support in this way.
In France, one of the declared motivations for the confiscation of Church properties was that these monies should be in the hands of the poor. Burke argues that there’s little evidence for this being the case. Furthermore, France’s National Assembly also made the case that the Church was basically a creation of its legal system and thus confiscation wasn’t unjust.
Themes
Burke argues that the “professors of the rights of men” are not to be believed in their claims regarding property, because they clearly do not understand that the property of the citizen, not the demands of the state, is the basis of civil society—“the claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity.” Burke points out, too, that though nothing about France’s earlier government has been upheld as valid by the National Assembly, except for its financial engagements. Meanwhile, people have been denied the money they are owed because “their services had not been rendered to the country that now exists.”
Burke points out various inconsistences in the way that the French government has handled the differences pre- and post-revolution. He sees a fundamental problem with France’s view of the state, instead of the citizen, as primary. This view allows France to make unjust demands on citizens’ properties. Burke’s view of the priority of the citizen is one that he sees as embedded in nature and tradition as opposed to theory.
Themes
