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The Revolution Society was initially formed in commemoration of the Glorious Revolution, but in Burke’s day, its London chapter had begun to espouse radical revolutionary principles, such as the people’s right to elect their sovereign. At the Revolution Society’s 1789 dinner, Richard Price delivered his “Discourse on the Love of Our Country,” one of the events that sparked Reflections.
The Revolution Society Quotes in Reflections on the Revolution in France
The Reflections on the Revolution in France quotes below are all either spoken by The Revolution Society or refer to The Revolution Society. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Section 1
Quotes
I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that society, be he who he will […] But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without enquiry what the nature of that government was, or how it was administered? […] Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty?
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Section 2
Quotes
…[T]he political Divine proceeds dogmatically to assert, that by the principles of the Revolution the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all which, with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short sentence; namely, that we have acquired a right 1. ‘To choose our own governors.’ 2. ‘To cashier them for misconduct.’ 3. ‘To frame a government for ourselves.’ This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights, though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction only. […] [The people of England] will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very Revolution, which is appealed to in favour of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which abuses its name.
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The Revolution Society Term Timeline in Reflections on the Revolution in France
The timeline below shows where the term The Revolution Society appears in Reflections on the Revolution in France. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Section 1
...Burke was sympathetic to the French Revolution, because certain London clubs—the Constitutional Society and the Revolution Society —have publicly approved it.
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...he assures Depont that he is not a member of either the Constitutional or the Revolution Society .
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...he suggests that he hasn’t heard of anyone deriving much benefit from their holdings. The Revolution Society , by contrast, has attracted more notice in France. In fact, France’s National Assembly has...
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Burke supposes that he loves “liberty” as much as anyone in the Revolution Society . However, he cannot “give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human...
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Burke describes his “uneasiness” upon studying the published proceedings of the Revolution Club , including a sermon given by Dr. Price; all of these were designed not only...
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Section 2
In his sermon, Price tells the Revolution Society that a king is only a lawful king if he “[owes] his crown to the...
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...take the throne according to that same law, without regard for the opinions of the Revolution Society .
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...a government for ourselves.” Burke argues that this “unheard-of bill of rights” belongs to the Revolution Club alone, not to the English people, who are bound by the laws set down at...
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Burke argues that the gentlemen of the Revolution Club are so preoccupied with the Glorious Revolution, the Great Rebellion and Commonwealth of 40 years...
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Section 3
Burke sums up this part of his argument by saying that the radicals of the Revolution Society “see nothing [in the Glorious Revolution] but the deviation from the constitution; and they take...
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Section 4
The Revolution Society ’s second claim is that people have “a right of cashiering their governors for misconduct.”...
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Section 7
...favor, to which the example of France is so singularly auspicious?” The members of the Revolution Society seem to look with contempt on those aspects of English governance which Burke has supposed...
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Given the Revolution Society ’s contempt for Britain’s own constitution and government, it’s not surprising that they now look...
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Section 8
...“Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars?” He assures Depont that, while the Revolution Society might applaud these events, most people in England do not. Burke says that although “this...
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Section 9
Burke supposes that “not one in a hundred” English people shares the views of the Revolution Society . The English, he says, “know that we have made no discoveries […] in morality...
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