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Section 4
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
The third “right” Price asserted was “the right to form a government for ourselves.” Burke asserts that the radicals can draw no more precedent for this “right” from the Glorious Revolution than they could for the previous ones. He explains that “the Revolution was made to preserve our antient indisputable laws and liberties, and our […] constitution.” The idea of forming a new government “is enough to fill us with disgust and horror,” because the desire at the time of the Revolution, as now, was “to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers.”
Burke’s analysis of Price’s sermon moves to the third “right,” that of self-government. Again, this one cannot be derived from history, Burke argues. That’s because the Glorious Revolution was fundamentally backward-looking. With this argument, Burke deepens the theme of the use of history and also turns to the theme of the importance of tradition, in order to portray the revolutionaries—both English and French—as objectionably future-oriented.
Themes
Burke claims that England’s “oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta.” Even this document was “a re-affirmance of the still more antient standing law of the kingdom.”
The Magna Charta, or Magna Carta, was written in 1215 and agreed to by King John. It primarily concerned the relationship between the monarch and barons, but it was long viewed as an iconic symbol of liberty in English history.
Themes
Likewise in the Petition of Right, a law made under Charles I, the parliament asserts the freedom of English subjects not on the basis of “abstract […] ‘rights of men,’” but on the basis of their inheritance “as Englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers.” Burke explains that this reliance on “positive, recorded, hereditary title” is superior to the “vague, speculative right” which is vulnerable to “every wild litigious spirit.”
The Petition of Right was a 1628 statement of English civil liberties, particularly those rights that the king of England may not infringe. Burke’s point here is that, in its history, England’s understanding of its rights has been based on specific rights passed down through the centuries, not indefinite, abstract “rights” like those championed by the revolutionaries.
Themes
Burke goes on to argue that the Declaration of Right, too, says nothing of a so-called right for the people “to frame a government for themselves.” It, too, was primarily concerned to secure long-held liberties that had recently been threatened. From the Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, then, “it has been the uniform policy of our constitution” to claim liberties as an “inheritance derived to us from our forefathers.” Because of that emphasis on inheritance, England has an inherited crown, peerage, and house of commons, as well as the people inheriting various privileges and liberties “from a long line of ancestors.”
Burke seeks to draw a continuous historical line from the medieval period through more recent history to the present, in order to show that England has always founded its understanding of its rights on its inheritance. This is why specific aspects of English governance are inherited, like the crown and houses of parliament. Burke makes this argument to demonstrate that the English people receive their government; they don’t seek to form a new one.
Themes
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Burke holds that this policy of inheritance is “the result of profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection.” He argues that “a spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views”—that people who do not look back to their ancestors will not be inclined to think about their posterity. By experience, the English people know that this idea of inheritance has preserved an idea of conservation while maintaining a possibility of improvement.
Burke argues that there is a kind of wisdom embedded in nature with which practices like inheritance are aligned. He further suggests that those who disregard such wisdom are selfish, with insufficient respect for either the past of the future. Those who heed it, by contrast, respect their ancestors while also remaining open to change. Thus Burke portrays a conservatism that isn’t stagnant, but is flexible and responsive to the needs of the present.
Themes
Burke goes on to explain that the English political system, in his view, maintains “a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world.” This system is at once “never old, or middle-aged, or young,” but constantly moving through a cycle of “perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.” By patterning government upon nature, “we are never wholly new; [yet] in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete.”
Burke portrays this flexible conservatism as going with the grain of nature. Like the changing of the seasons, it is perpetually open to change and progress, but firmly rooted in its past. By grounding governance in nature in this way, Burke is able to portray his view as reform-minded as opposed to revolutionary.
Themes
One of the advantages of this emphasis on inheritance is that “the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with […] gravity.” A “rational” freedom is best preserved by favoring “our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for the great conservatories […] of our rights and privileges.”
Burke doesn’t say that freedom is a bad instinct in itself. Rather, it’s not enough by itself to produce healthy changes. It needs to be grounded in nature and a sound understanding of the past, rather than newfound inventions disconnected from collected wisdom.
Themes
