Reflections On The Revolution In France

In the next section, Burke describes how the National Assembly slowly disbands or destroys each of its institutions. To equalize their country, the Assembly razes its political landscape. Their first step is to disband the monarchy. However, the monarchy, Burke believes, is a standing institution that offers dignity and inspires loyalty in France. He believes the monarchy embodies a chivalry that gives European natures character, but argues that those left out of that power (those in power now in the Assembly) might have long desired the bitter fall of such an institution. Burke laments, “I knew, indeed, that the sufferings of monarchs make a delicious repast to some sort of palates” (72). He uses this as an example of the Assembly pursuing a selfish desire over what is best for their country.

Without a central figure or a moralizing figure like a king or other institution, like a church, Burke predicts that morals of a more serious nature will fall out of fashion as well. Once civility is gone, law and order are not far behind. Under institutions, men behave well because society is based on reciprocal rights and social responsibilities. Under an absence of such direction, men will behave out of private interest. Burke warns again of a society where men act out for their own gain:

[o]n the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom, as it is destitute of all task and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern, which each individual may find in them, from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests (77).

Here, Burke suggests that man attained his better self when he fell under the rule of a guiding institution; under this system, he sinks to the lowest ranks of social responsibility.

Burke instead feels that man is better for sharing in part of a greater social structure. Burke notes, in England “[w]e are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect this stock in each man is small, and that individuals would be better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of national, and of ages” (87). Here, he is not afraid to express himself in opposition to the popular theories of the Enlightenment because he takes refuge in the most lasting power: the long duration of time-proven establishments in England.

Another establishment Burke finds under attack is religion. Burke criticizes the Enlightenment’s propaganda in regard to pro-atheism and the denigration of the church. Again, belittling the thinkers of the Enlightenment, he states, “If our religious tenets should even want a further elucidation, we shall not call on atheism to explain them. We shall not light up our temple from that unhallowed fire” (90). He goes on to address how institutions like the church are not fads, and, if ever England came into conflict with such an institution of import, “We found these old institutions, on the whole, favorable to morality and discipline; and we thought they were susceptible to amendment, without altering the ground” (100). Burke believes the church provides the moral backbone of English society.

Burke also discusses the influence that writers of the Enlightenment had on the diminishment of institutions. When banding together, “Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the publick mind; the alliance therefore of these writers with the monied interest had no small effect of removing the popular odium and envy which attended that species of wealth” (112).