Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

A Letter from Mr. Burke to a Member of the National Assembly; In Answer to Some Objections to his Book on French Affairs

Paris and London

Re-printed for J. Dodsley

January 19, 1791

"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

Until you make out practically that great work, a combination of opposing forces, "a work of labour long, and endless praise," the utmost caution ought to have been used in the reduction of the royal power, which alone was capable of holding together the comparatively heterogeneous mass of your states. But, at this day, all these considerations are unseasonable. To what end should we discuss the limitations of royal power? Your king is in prison. Why speculate on the measure and standard of liberty? I doubt much, very much, indeed, whether France is at all ripe for liberty on any standard. Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
(pp. 68-9)

Mineral::Metal::Forging Fetters

Reading

Text copied online and cursorily corrected against Edmund Burke, A Letter from Mr. Burke to a Member of the National Assembly; In Answer to Some Objections to his Book on French Affairs, 3rd edition (Paris, Printed, and London, Re-printed for J. Dodsley, 1791). <Link to Google Books>

05/07/2013