Early in the Reflections, Burke writes, “But I cannot […] give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns […] in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction […] Circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.” In keeping with his emphasis on the importance of history and the natural order, Burke believes that government is particular and specific, not general and theoretical. In saying this, Burke does not suggest that the French appeal to “natural rights” is fundamentally wrong, but that such an abstract appeal is not an adequate basis for governing a country. By showing how talk of abstract “rights” is insufficiently rooted in practical solutions, Burke argues that an excessively theoretical basis for governance is ultimately self-destructive.
In Burke’s view, an insistence on abstract “natural rights” is not a sustainable basis for governance. Burke quotes a law in which “parliament says to the king, ‘Your subjects have inherited this freedom,’ claiming their franchises, not on abstract principles as the ‘rights of men,’ but as the rights of Englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers.” Such a “patrimony” can be traced all the way from the Magna Charta to the more recent Declaration of Right: “We have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and an house of commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors.” In other words, English government has traditionally been rooted in the particular history of a particular people, and their pattern of governance is derived from that history—not from a philosophical articulation of rights, like that espoused in the French Revolution.
Emphasis on abstract theory leads to the elevation of lawmakers who are ill-equipped to deal with concrete questions of governance. Burke argues that France’s new National Assembly is packed with inferior lawyers, doctors, and traders—"all of these from whom […] little knowledge of or attention to the interests of a great state was to be expected […] men formed to be instruments, not controls.” In other words, these men were chosen in the interests of supposed equality; however, because they have no prior experience in legislation, they are really just cogs in a mechanical structure of governance that might make sense in theory, but has little grounding in the specific problems of running a complex nation.
Though Burke does not deny the existence of natural human rights, he holds that these are too abstract to form a basis for governance. “Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it; […] Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.” He elaborates, “What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or to medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.'' In other words, a general argument for human rights is not the work of government. Instead, government is about the practical application of such rights, something which is rarely addressed by mere theorists.
An overemphasis on theory over an application of principles tends toward a destructive approach to governance. The practicality Burke stresses earlier helps explain why historical precedents and models are necessary: “The science of government being therefore so practical in itself […] [it is a] matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be.” Because of this, “it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society […] without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.” In Burke’s view, revolution tends to be more concerned with tearing down than with building up, usually by means of blanket denunciation rather than informed, cautious societal change. Thus, most people who are abstractly focused on revolution have not given sufficient thought to the practicalities of sustainable governance.
Moreover, such a theoretical mindset is not conducive to creating a society deserving of people’s affection: “Mechanic philosophy” cannot “create in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is incapable of tilling their place. […] To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” In other words, abstract philosophy teaches people what to reject, but it doesn’t build worthwhile alternatives in place of what’s rejected. Burke suggests that people ultimately can’t love ideas; they love tangible, human-scale things, and revolutionaries ignore these at their peril.
Burke expands on the above idea when he writes, “By hating vices too much, [philosophers] come to love men too little. It is therefore not wonderful, that they should be indisposed and unable to serve them.” When agitating for revolution, in other words, it’s natural for leaders to focus on what is broken and lacking in society. But however pressing those deficiencies might be, an excessive focus on them does not produce leaders who know how to address the daily needs of human beings. He suggests, therefore, that the French Revolution is in the process of undermining itself.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Theory vs. Practicality ThemeTracker
Theory vs. Practicality Quotes in Reflections on the Revolution in France
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?
It is no wonder therefore, that with these ideas of every thing in their constitution and government at home, either in church or state, as illegitimate and usurped, or, at best as a vain mockery, they look abroad with an eager and passionate enthusiasm. Whilst they are possessed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a constitution, whose merits are confirmed by the solid test of long experience, and an increasing public strength and national prosperity. They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the rest, they have wrought under-ground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have ‘the rights of men.’
Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it; and exist in much greater clearness, and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection: but their abstract perfection is their practical defect. By having a right to every thing they want every thing. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom. […] [Government] requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or obstruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanism of civil institutions. […] What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or to medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.
The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes. […] The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man’s nature, or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade, or totally negligent of their duty.
A brave people will certainly prefer liberty, accompanied with a virtuous poverty, to a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to be pretty sure it is real liberty which is purchased, and that she is to be purchased at no other price. I shall always, however, consider that liberty as very equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom and justice for her companions; and does not lead prosperity and plenty in her train.
It is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which has obliged the arbitrary assembly of France to commence their schemes of reform with abolition and total destruction. But is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? Your mob can do this as well at least as your assemblies. The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task. Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred years. The errors and defects of old establishments are visible and palpable. It calls for little ability to point them out; and where absolute power is given, it requires but a word wholly to abolish the vice and the establishment together. […] At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing.
