f the fires of hell. Their view is at any rate indicative
of their own position. The extreme opinions need no exposition. They are
represented by the controversy between Burke and Paine. The general
doctrine of the 'Rights of Men'--that all men are by nature free and
equal--covered at least the doctrine that the inequality and despotism
of the existing order was hateful, and people with a taste for abstract
principles accepted this short cut to political wisdom. The 'minor'
premise being obviously true, they took the major for granted. To Burke,
who idealised the traditional element in the British Constitution, and
so attached an excessive importance to historical continuity, the new
doctrine seemed to imply the breaking up of the very foundations of
order and the pulverisation of society. Burke and Paine both assumed too
easily that the dogmas which they defended expressed the real and
ultimate beliefs, and that the belief was the cause, not the
consequence, of the political condition. Without touching upon the logic
of either position, I may notice how the problem presented itself to the
average English politician whose position implied acceptance of
traditional compromises and who yet prided himself on possessing the
liberties which were now being claimed by Frenchmen. The Whig could
heartily sympathise with the French Revolution so long as it appeared to
be an attempt to assimilate British principles. When Fox hailed the
fall of the Bastille as the greatest and best event that had ever
happened, he was expressing a generous enthusiasm shared by all the
ardent and enlightened youth of the time. The French, it seemed, were
abolishing an arbitrary despotism and adopting the principles of Magna
Charta and the 'Habeas Corpus' Act. Difficulties, however, already
suggested themselves to the true Whig. Would the French, as Young asked
just after the same event, 'copy the constitution of England, freed from
its faults, or attempt, from theory, to frame something absolutely
speculative'?[126] On that issue depended the future of the country. It
was soon decided in the sense opposed to Young's wishes. The reign of
terror alienated the average Whig. But though the argument from
atrocities is the popular one, the opposition was really more
fundamental. Burke put the case, savagely and coarsely enough, in his
'Letter to a noble Lord.' How would the duke of Bedford like to be
treated as the revolutionists were treating the nobility