Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France [Letters on a Regicide Peace]

London

1796

"The eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished."

For One (If They Be Properly Treated) I despair neither of the publick fortune nor of the publick mind. There is much to be done undoubtedly, and much to be retrieved. We must walk in new ways, or we can never encounter our enemy in his devious march. We are not at an end of our struggle, nor near it. Let us not deceive ourselves: we are at the beginning of great troubles. I readily acknowledge that the state of publick affairs is infinitely more unpromising than at the period I have just now alluded to; and the position of all the Powers of Europe, in relation to us, and in relation to each other, is more intricate and critical beyond all comparison. Difficult indeed is our situation. In all situations of difficulty men will be influenced in the part they take, not only by the reason of the case, but by the peculiar turn of their own character. The same ways to safety do not present themselves to all men, nor to the same men in different tempers. There is a courageous wisdom: there is also a false reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear. Under misfortunes it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen. The eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished. An abject distrust of ourselves, an extravagant admiration of the enemy, present us with no hope but in a compromise with his pride, by a submission to his will. This short plan of policy is the only counsel which will obtain a hearing. We plunge into a dark gulph with all the rash precipitation of fear. The nature of courage is, without a question, to be conversant with danger; but in the palpable night of their terrors, men under consternation suppose, not that it is the danger, which, by a sure instinct, calls out the courage to resist it, but that it is the courage which produces the danger. They therefore seek for a refuge from their fears in the fears themselves, and consider a temporizing meanness as the only source of safety.

Body::Eye::Mind's Eye

Reading

At least 14 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1796, 1797).

Text from Select Works of Edmund Burke. A New Imprint of the Payne Edition, Foreword and Biographical Note by Francis Canavan (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999). Vol. 3. <Link to OLL>

See also Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France (London: Printed for F. and C. Rivington, 1796). <Link to Google Books>

05/08/2013