the whole or the favoured parts may have in the secret dispensations of Providence it is impossible to tell; but, humanly speaking, they are all prescriptive religions.' He infers that Catholicism should not be discountenanced in Ireland; for, like all other forms of Christianity, it rests upon prescription, and the alternative is not Protestantism, but the infidelity which, in attacking prescription, attacks the vital principle of all the creeds.

103. This doctrine of prescription is susceptible of, and received in the hands of Burke, two very different interpretations. Stated crudely, it resembles but too closely the doctrine of all obstructive politicians. It is a version of the saying, 'Whatever is, is right;' the consecration of the absolute immobility, and the antithesis of a belief in progress. Burke too often inclines to this version of his theory. The doctrine that religion rests upon prescription may simply mean that, as a matter of fact, the overwhelming majority of mankind takes its creed upon trust; but Burke seems to infer that, because men believe without reasoning, their creeds should not be tested by reason. His firm conviction that the stability of the social fabric depended on the vitality of the national religion made him look askance upon the freethinkers. We Englishmen, he says, 'know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.' The statement justifies an eloquent defence of the Established Church; and he seems almost to think that the truth of the doctrines preached by so useful a body should never be questioned. Exulting over the fall of the deists, he pronounces it to be the disgrace, not the glory, of the age, that 'everything is to be discussed.' We should beware how we scrutinised too closely claims sanctioned by so long a prescription. Tolerant as Burke was in spirit, he draws very distinct limits even to the principle of toleration; he would invoke the majesty of the laws to cut up the very root of atheism ;' and though all dissenting churches should be fully tolerated, he would not relax the subscriptions to meet their wishes. Truth,' he said, in speaking on the petition of the Feathers Tavern, may be Ib. v. 175, ib.

3

Burke, ix. 403, 'To W. Smith.' 2 Ib. v. 173, 'Reflections.'

2

Ib. x. 37, 'Protestant Dissenters.'

far better than peace; 'but as we have scarcely ever that same certainty in the one that we have in the other, I would, unless the truth were evident indeed, hold fast to peace, which has in her company charity, the highest of the virtues.'1 Peace will be disturbed if you once set fanaticism free by needlessly reopening settled questions. In such case Burke's reverence for prescription leads him into doubtful alliance with the bigots and the cynics. He would strengthen faith by stifling the free play of opinion; and forgets that a religion supported by a dread of awkward discussions must crumble when assailed by active opponents.

104. Even with this, the weaker side of Burke's teaching, there is blended much wisdom and eloquence, which distinguishes him from the allies who could boast of so able an advocate. But the doctrine of prescription admits of another and a far nobler meaning. Burke had fully grasped the conception of a nation as a living organism of complex structure and historical continuity. It is precisely the absence of any such conception which vitiates all the contemporary political speculation. He had emancipated himself from the purely mechanical and the purely mathematical conceptions of politics. The methods of the constitution-mongers and of the abstract theorists were equally beneath his notice; and the word 'prescription'-not free from an unfortunate ambiguity—evidences his recognition of that element which they equally neglected. Prescription, taken absolutely, may of course sanction anything-the English tyranny in America as well as English liberty at home. But, in appealing to 'prescription,' Burke is recognising the fact that ninety-nine hundredths of men's thoughts and instincts are those which they have inherited from their fathers, and of the corresponding doctrine, that reform is impracticable in the sense of an abrupt reconstruction of society, and can only be understood as the gradual modification of a complex structure. Prescription in this sense is based on the presumption that every existing social arrangement has been developed by certain needs, and is the mode in which certain forces operate; and that, therefore, to cut it away abruptly is possibly to inflict a vital injury, and at any rate implies rash and unscientific surgery. A sound

Burke, x. 37, 'Protestant Dissenters.'

political constitution must be the growth of generations; it must be worked into the whole fabric of society; it must give play for the harmonious action of all the private relations by which men are bound together; and if it requires the utmost watchfulness to prevent parts from becoming obsolete, it is the height of rashness to hack and hew such a system in obedience to some preconceived theory. Prescription, then, is but a legal phrase for that continuity of past and present, and that solidarity between all parts of the political order, the perception of which is the essential condition of sound political reasoning. A combination of respect for existing facts, and of a regard to new requirements, underlies Burke's practical teaching, as a balanced regard for general principles and for special applications governs his philosophy. When the reason of old establishments is gone,' he says, 'it is absurd to preserve nothing but the burden of them. This is superstitiously to embalm a carcase not worth an ounce of the grains that are used to preserve it.' He adds in the same speech, 'If I cannot reform with equity, I will not reform at all.' Those two views are combined in the 'Reflections.' 'All the reformations we have hitherto made,' he says, 'have proceeded upon the principle of reference to antiquity.'3 We have received our liberties as an entailed inheritance,' to be transmitted unimpaired to our descendants; and thus 'a disposition to preserve and an ability to improve taken together would be' his 'standard of a statesman.' 5

105. In order to do justice, however, to the force of Burke's perceptions, and to measure the doctrine which separated him from his contemporaries, we must descend to some of the applications of these generalities. It is easy to profess an anxiety to strike the judicious mean between revolution and obstruction; and now that Burke has been followed by two generations of able enquirers, it is not difficult to admit the truth of his general conception of the statesman's problem. But the true meaning of his doctrines comes out as he deals with the great questions of the day. Of his writings upon India I shall say nothing; not because they are inferior in

ability or in morality, but because cruelty and corruption, as such, are defended by nobody; and, therefore, the only question at issue was the truth of Burke's allegation, that Hastings was a corrupt tyrant. His other writings fall chiefly into three classes; his writings on the theory of the English Constitution, upon the American War, and upon the French Revolution.

106. In Burke's first writings he appears to be the great prophet of Whig principles. He set forth the philosophy which was, or which ought to have been, introduced in their policy. He was, indeed, alive to the many defects which made the actual very different from the ideal aristocracy. His earliest writings, indeed, protested against the meanness of the great nobles; and, in one of his latest, the 'Letter to a Noble Lord,' the vice of the system which could make a Duke of Bedford a great power, because he was descended from a corrupt courtier, and yet render invidious the scraps of reward thrown to a simple man of genius, is depicted with unrivalled vigour. But Burke always seems to have considered such blemishes as the separable accidents of the constitution not as belonging to its essence. To his eyes the constitution was no makeshift scaffolding, destined to speedy decay, but a venerable edifice of superb architecture, resembling the proud keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers.' It was built round, indeed, with filthy hovels, and too often converted into a mart for degrading intrigue; but the buyers and the sellers might be driven forth, and its true majesty would then be apparent. His glowing imagination heightened all that was really impressive in the old order, its reverent antiquity, the chivalrous honour of its best leaders, and the liberty of speech and action which had grown up under its shelter. He would willingly have passed with averted eyes by its many defects, had it not been necessary to attack with his whole force some of the short-sighted and selfish men who were using its shelter for their own contemptible purposes.

1

107. The ideal aristocracy of his imagination was a body whose privileges rested on the sacred right of prescription ;' 1 Burke, viii. 49.

not in the sense that its existence justified itself, but that it was the spontaneous result of the free play of social forces through many generations. The rulers of the country would be the men who enjoyed the greatest social influence, and whose high cultivation and delicate sense of honour would enable them to wield it in the highest interests of the nation. It would be responsible to public opinion, not in the sense that its power would be dependent on every breath of popular favour, but as being acutely sensitive to every imputation of unfairness or corruption, and too proud to stifle the criticisms of its inferiors. It would be divided into parties; but their bond of union would be a community of political principle, not a common desire for place and profit. To this ideal, he thought, the English constitution approximated in its best moments, though it was constantly tending to degenerate under various uncongenial influences. Our constitution,' he says, in a passage where, for once, he descends towards the Delolme level of thought, 'stands on a nice equipoise, with sharp precipices and deep waters on all sides of it. In removing it from a dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be a danger of oversetting it on the other.'1 The danger, in fact, was twofold, though the imaginary equipoise suggests an inaccurate analogy. The aristocracy might become a close corporation on a large scale, and either develop into an oligarchy or sell itself to the Crown. On the other side was the danger, less perceptible during the early period of Burke's activity, of a democratic revolution. To this tendency, it is sufficient to say here, Burke was opposed as decidedly, though not as vehemently in early years, as during the French Revolution.

108. He consistently protested against all the popular nostrums. In his earliest pamphlet he declares that it would be more in the spirit of our constitution, and more agreeable to the spirit of our best laws, by lessening the number, to add to the weight and independency, of our voters,' 2 than to produce the reverse effects by adding to them. A triennial Parliament, he says in his next pamphlet, would increase the corruption of electors, and the dependence of members of Parliament. A