acteristic, not merely in its depreciation of reason, but in its
ultimate reliance upon a mystic explanation of social facts. Nothing was
more alien from Burke's temper than deductive thinking in politics. The
only safeguard he could find was in empiricism.

This hatred of abstraction is, of course, the basis of his earliest
publication; but it remained with him to the end. He would not discuss
America in terms of right. "I do not enter into these metaphysical
distinctions," he said in the _Speech on American Taxation_, "I hate the
very sound of them." "One sure symptom of an ill-conducted state," he
wrote in the _Reflections_, "is the propensity of the people to resort
to theories." "It is always to be lamented," he said in a _Speech on the
Duration of Parliament_, "when men are driven to search into the
foundations of the commonwealth." The theory of a social contract he
declared "at best a confusion of judicial with civil principles," and he
found no sense in the doctrine of popular sovereignty. "The lines of
morality," he said in the _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_ (1791),
"are not like ideal lines of mathematics. They are broad and deep as
well as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These
exceptions and modifications are made, not by the process of logic but
by the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only first in rank of the
virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the
standard of them all." Nor did he hesitate to draw the obvious
conclusion. "This," he said, "is the true touchstone of all theories
which regard man and the affairs of men--does it suit his nature in
general, does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?"

Of the truth of this general attitude it is difficult to make denial.
But when Burke came to apply it to the British Constitution the "rules
of prudence" he was willing to admit are narrow enough to cause
surprised enquiry. He did not doubt that the true end of a legislature
was "to give a direction, a form, a technical dress ... to the general
sense of the community"; he admitted that popular revolt is so much the
outcome of suffering that in any dispute between government and people,
the presumption is at least equal in the latter's favor. He urged the
acceptance of Grenville's bill for improving the method of decision upon
disputed elections. He made a magnificent defence of the popular cause
in the Middlesex election. He was in favo