races can be regarded as a commercial transaction.
Its problem was not to secure dividends but to accomplish moral benefit.
He abhorred the politics of prestige. He knew the difficulties involved
in administering distant territories, the ignorance and apathy of the
public, the consequent erosion of responsibility, the chance that wrong
will fail of discovery. But he did not shrink from his conclusion. "Let
us do what we please," he said, "to put India from our thoughts, we can
do nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national
reputation." That is a general truth not less in Africa and China than
in India itself. The main thought in Burke's mind was the danger lest
colonial dominion become the breeding-ground of arbitrary ideas. That
his own safeguards were inadequate is clear enough at the present time.
He knew that the need was good government. He did not nor could he
realize how intimately that ideal was connected with self-government.
Yet the latest lesson is no more than the final outcome of his teaching.

IV

A background so consistent as this in the inflexible determination to
moralize political action resulted in a noble edifice. Yet, through it
all, the principles of policy are rather implied than admitted. It was
when he came to deal with domestic problems and the French Revolution
that Burke most clearly showed the real trend of his thought. That trend
is unmistakable. Burke was a utilitarian who was convinced that what was
old was valuable by the mere fact of its arrival at maturity. The State
appeared to him an organic compound that came but slowly to its full
splendour. It was easy to destroy; creation was impossible. Political
philosophy was nothing for him but accurate generalization from
experience; and he held the presumption to be against novelty. While he
did not belittle the value of reason, he was always impressed by the
immense part played by prejudice in the determination of policy. He had
no doubt that property was a rightful index to power; and to disturb
prescription seemed to him the opening of the flood gates. Nor must we
miss the religious aspect of his philosophy. He never doubted that
religion was the foundation of the English State. "Englishmen," he said
in the _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790), "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 utterance is
char