Edmund Burke French Revolution Summary

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During the early stages of the French Revolution, Edmund Burke published the Reflections on the Revolutions in France in which he discusses the meaning and potential consequences of the French Revolution. In doing so, Burke argues in favour of England's social order which utilises a system of inheritance. Burke states that "from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers and to be transmitted to our posterity:" (Burke,34), meaning that it is through inheritance that the liberties of the people are preserved and passed on. In addition to this, Burke critiques the views held by Dr. Richard Price and …show more content…

He states that God, who created humans to be perfected, therefore also willed the means of doing so, that is, the civil state (Burke,102). This connection reveals humans as religious and emotional beings. Ones that can only be perfected over time and through generations. Because of this end, he argues, government is not willed into being by a social or civil order, but is a force greater than human beings that allows them to be civil (Burke,61). Civil society is therefore not a social contract in the sense multiple wills come together at one time. Instead, society is a partnership. One that exists "not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." (Burke, 100). This is because, Burke states, that the contract of a particular state is "a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures.. according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and moral natures" (Burke, 100), meaning that under God, the state is a relationship that is ongoing, throughout history, involving both the social and natural

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