ject of his thoughts in all its relations, com. prehended the detail of acts, the existing situations, the display of characters, the established measures of judgment and principles of action, intellectual processes and moral rules. These were the GRAND PREMISES from which he undertook to deduce his conclusion, that the French revolution was, and would be, an enormous evil to mankind. The ingenious and profound author of the Vindicia Gallica, who seems to have made the operations of intellect a peculiar study, speaking of experience, observes that there is an experience of case, and an experience of principle. Both these combined to form the ground-work of Burke's reasoning. He considered the particular proceedings of the French revolutionists: from comparing the variety of particulars, he endeavoured to ascertain their general character; and also to investigate the causes both of the proceedings and the character. In this process of things, history, or the EXPERIENCE OF FACT, was the guide which he

In

endeavoured to follow. He was perfectly acquainted with the constitution and operations of the understanding and affections knew what directions of them were or were not favourable to the accomplishment of their best ends-the discovery of truth, the promotion of virtue, and the performance of duty. He investigated the principles of reasoning and of morality which guided the heads and hearts of the revolutionists. this he rose TO EXPERIENCE OF LAW; to the science of human nature. Solicitous about the happiness of France, but still more anxious about the happiness of Britain, he takes the new system into conside ration, as it affects the one, and may affect both. In the principles of political reasoning, in the canons of philosophy, admitted by the revolutionists, there appeared to him a fundamental defect so important, that no superstructure, raised on such a basis, could stand. This was, in all public concerns, THE TOTAL REJECTION OF EXPERIENCE AS A GUIDE TO JUDGMENT AND TO CONDuct.

'In all regulations for the public good, they

commit the whole to the mercy of untried speculations: they abandon the dearest interests of the public to loose theories: they despise experience, as the wisdom of unlettered men.' Thoroughly master of civil and political history, viewing cause and effect in the modes of reasoning, of conduct, and of government which he had contemplated, he conceived that, in expecting extravagant and absurd inferences, wild and noxious conduct, from THE REJECTION OF EXPERIENCE, he DREW A JUST CONCLUSION. Habituated himself to take experience for his guide in political disquisitions, he at least, in doing so, proceeded CONSISTENTLY. It was not only the adoption in general of untried speculation which he thought pernicious, but the individual speculation which they substituted for experience. They have the rights of man. Against these there can be no proscription, against these no agreement is binding; these admit no temperament and no compromise; any thing withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice. The objections of

these speculatists, if its forms do not quadrate with their theories, are as valid against an old and beneficent government as against the most violent tyranny and the greatest usurpation. This idea of the rights of man, Burke saw, arose partly from confusion of terms, and partly from erroneous speculation. If it was pretended that all men have an equal right to govern, the answer to this is, that government is a matter of convention, an agreement for the purpose of obtaining a specific end, the aggregate advantage of the parties. Prior to convention, (says the profound inquirer into the Principles of Moral and Political Science" *) every one has a right to govern himself, but not to govern any one else. THE GOVERNMENT OF OTHERS, then, prior to convention, IS NOT MATTER OF RIGHT TO ANY ONE, although to have government, and this purged of every person incapable or unworthy of the trust, IS MATTER OF EX·

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* Vol. ii. p. 471, on the exercise of legislative power.

BEDIENCE to every one.' The right is the creature of expediency, in every individual case; and in general classes, it is right that they should govern who are most fit for answering the end of government,-the promotion of the general good of the conventional society. All men are not equally fit for governing: it is, therefore, not equally right that all men should govern. Rejecting the rights of man, as in that abstract unqualified form, and applicable to every possible case, the foundation of just government, he delivers his sentiments on the real rights of men, as ascertained by the principles and circumstances of civil society. I shall quote this part of the work at considerable length, as it collects into one whole his opinions, reasonings, and prin ciples, concerning the foundation, rights, and duties of legitimate government.

Far am I from denying in theory; full as far is my heart from withholding in prac tice, (if I were of power to give or to withhold) the real rights of men. In denying