these, which represent the spirit of
the treatise:--

"Because liberty is to be classed among the blessings of mankind, am I
to felicitate a madman who has escaped from the restraints of his cell?
There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom. Woe be
to that country that would madly reject the service of talents and
virtues. Nothing is an adequate representation of a State that does not
represent its ability as well as property. Men have a right to justice,
and the fruits of industry, and the acquisitions of their parents, and
the improvement of their offspring,--to instruction in life and
consolation in death; but they have no right to what is unreasonable,
and what is not for their benefit. The new professors are so taken up
with rights that they have totally forgotten duties; and without opening
one new avenue to the understanding, they have succeeded in stopping
those that lead to the heart. Those who attempt by outrage and violence
to deprive men of any advantage which they hold under the laws, proclaim
war against society. When, I ask, will such truths become obsolete among
enlightened people; and when will they become stale?"

But with this fierce protest against the madness and violence of the
French Revolution, the wisdom of Burke and of the English nation ended.
The most experienced and sagacious man of his age, with all his wisdom
and prescience, could see only one side of the awful political hurricane
which he was so eloquent in denouncing. His passions and his prejudices
so warped his magnificent intellect, that he could not see the good
which was mingled with the evil; that the doctrine of equality, if false
when applied to the actual condition of men at their birth, is yet a
state to which the institutions of society tend, under the influence of
education and religion; that the common brotherhood of man, mocked by
the tyrants which feudalism produced, is yet to be drawn from the Sermon
on the Mount; that the blood of a plebeian carpenter is as good as that
of an aristocratic captain of artillery; that public burdens which bear
heavily on the poor should also be shared equally by the rich; that all
laws should be abolished which institute unequal privileges; that taxes
should be paid by nobles as well as by peasants; that every man should
be unfettered in the choice of his calling and profession; that there
should be unbounded toleration of religious opinions; that no one should
be arbit