The Skeptic's Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790-1990

Author(s): Michael A. Mosher

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Political Theory, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 391-418
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191418 .
Accessed: 21/11/2011 12:38

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory.

http://www.jstor.org
 THE SKEPTIC'S BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790-1990

MICHAELA. MOSHER
Universityof Tulsa

The world of contingencyand political combmationis much largerthanwe are apt to

imagine.

-Edmund Burke

I INTERPRETATIONS:
WASBURKERIGHT?

Two hundredyears since Burke published the Reflections we may still

pose the question:Did Burkewin the debate?One would not have thought
it. His flamboyant rhetoric has been identified as the classic site of a
backward-lookingtraditionalism,eternallywaving MarieAntoinette'salleg-
edly tornsheets at a modernizationand progressusheredin by revolution.'
Burkedid not expect to win. One could almostsay he anticipatedmargin-
alization."If a new orderis coming on," he realized,his "politicalopinions
must pass away as dreams."2He spoke often enough of opponents'views as
"dreams,"but he saw that there was, nevertheless,a choice of orders.The
new ordermay be fosteredby dreamsbut become a new reality:

If a great change Is to be made in humanaffairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it.
The general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Then they who persist in
opposing this mighty currentIn humanaffairswill appearratherto resist the decrees of
Providenceitself.3

AUTHOR'SNOTE: This essay commemoratesthe bicentennialof the publication of Burke's

famous book and also the AmericanPolitical Science Association presidency of the author's
teacher,JudithN. Shklar,whose comments(and also those of David Johnston)found as usual
their mark.

POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 19 No. 3, August 1991 391-418

C 1991 Sage Publications,Inc.
391
392 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

A sea change has brought in new tides of opinion. The dramaticevents

of 1989-90, the collapse of communism in Westerncountries(and also the
Gulf Warwhich marksthe end of the end of history)will no doubt come to
play their role. The changes I want to recordpredatethese events and are
scholarly or addressbroad changes in the Westernintellectualcommunity.
An extension of an amended theory of totalitarianismfrom the Russian to
the FrenchRevolutionanda displacementof the attribute"modernizer"from
the figureof the Jacobinrevolutionaryto a new heterodoxfigure, the ancien
regime bourgeois anstocrat, has sponsored a new hlstoriographyof the
Revolution. These currentsof thought are perversely allied with internal
transformationsalong the right-leftspectrum,which might renew conserva-
tive hostility to Burke (as a hlstoricist skeptic), rehabilitateBurke's old
reputationas a liberalpatriot,and awakenthe left to a peculiarconvergence
of Burke'sand their sympathies.
The revisionist historiansinclude FranCoisFuret,authorof Interpreting
the FrenchRevolution(who is allied loosely with MonaOzouf, KeithBaker,
and others, collaboratorsin The Critical Dictionary of the French Revolu-
tion), Guy Chausslnand-Nogaret,who wrote The French Nobility in the
EighteenthCentury,and Simon Schama, authorof Citizens:A Chronicleof
the French Revolution.4Schama is closer to a Burkean rejection of the
Revolutionen bloc thanFuretwho wants to pit 1789, which he likes, against
1793, which he detests. In his account, the Revolution simply went off the
road, to invoke the automobile metaphoremployed by Furet's one-time
collaborator,Denis Richet.5
Furet and Schama highlight Burkean themes without acknowledging
Burke as a specific source. Furet's central point is non-Burkeanand even
progressivein the old manner,but it leads to a Burkeantheme. 1789 confer-
red a special privilege, Furetthinks, on his native country:"Francewas the
country that, through the Revolution, invented democratic culture."6The
Revolution's "historical importance lies in the one trait that was unique
to it, since this 'unique' trait was to become universal: it was the first
expenment with democracy."This discovery is unconnectedto economy or
class: "Neithercapitalismnor the bourgeoisie needed revolutionsto appear
in and dominatethe historyof the majorEuropeannationsin the nineteenth
century."7
Yet,Furetargues,the democraticculturediscoveredin the Revolutionwas
an ambivalent heritage. In expressing the trouble with this heritage, he
reachestowardBurke'sstartlingclaims aboutthe novelty of Jacobinpolitics.
The Revolutiondiscoveredand legitimized in its political factions a form of
egalitarianassociation, unconnected to interestor institutionand sustained
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 393

by talk alone. Radicaldemocratictalk, strainingagainstthe paradoxof its

own egalitarianismto legitimate leadership, created power without the
embarrassmentof electoral proceduresto connect the talk to an electorate,
that is to say, to a people. Jacobimnsm
was a mechanism,Furetargues,which
in the "guiseof the 'People'took the place of bothcivil society andthe state."
In the culturefosteredby this "mythicalidentity"of the people with power,
one finds "the matrixof totalitarianism."8
Furetseparatesthe Enlightenment,in particular,Rousseau,fromJacobin
readerslike Robespierre:"The Jacobinswere an unforseenproductof the
course of Revolution."9Furet'suse of the Arendtianphrase,totalitaranism,
was intended,however,to reconnecttwo revolutions,1789 and 1917, but to
erase from the connection a positive valency supplied by Marxism. In
socialist thought,the French Revolution became a promise, not merely a
conclusion, a promise redeemedin 1917. Pitting 1789 and its own promise
of rights and representativegovernmentagainst a Jacobin 1793 was also a
way to sever 1917 from 1789. By contrast, 1793 looked backwardand
forward,back to the heritageof absolutism(now assuminga democratized
form) andforwardto a totalitarian1917: "By way of BolshevismtheJacobin
partyenjoyedan illustrioustwentiethcentury."'0ForFuret,the politicalgood
of democracy,sustainedby rights,elections, and constitutionalprocedures,
is locateddangerouslyclose to the evil of totalitarianism,which hidesbehind
democraticforms to underminedemocraticcontent.
Schamaagreeswith this portraitof Jacobinlsmandpushesthe debateinto
two further controversies." It is one thing to accept that revolutionary
violence and the Jacobin Terrorwere not merely "circumstantial"(i.e.,
legitimateresponsesto anarchyandto internalandexternalthreats)butbasic
to the functioningof the revolution from the beginning.12It is still quite
anotherto suggest thatthe Revolutioncould andoughtto havebeen avoided.
Schamacondemns 1789. He has unlkndthings to say abouteven the liberal
aristocraticrevolutionaries,especially aboutthem,becauseit was people like
the foolish Lafayettewho let mattersget out of hand.'3The Burkeanthemes
implicit in these discussions are the question of reformshort of revolution
and the questionof Rousseauism.
Francewas reformable;Schamathinksit was financialpolicy, not finan-
cial structure,that failed. Before and after 1787-89, Frenchfinancialprob-
lems were greater,but Frenchgovernmentsmanagedto finesse them.i4The
problem with the French monarchycontinued to be the problemwith the
Revolution(and with Franceuntil 1870). They failed to develop representa-
tive institutionsto correspondto a democraticculture.'5Burke'slamentwas
similar.Francehad an ancientconstitutionwhich was reformable,thoughit
394 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

had almost been destroyedby absolute government.(Burkewas already,so

to speak, Tocquevillian.)Burkeapprovedof the Revolutionup to the calling
of the EstatesGeneralandwished it had enactedthe recommendationsof the
cahters Insteadof pursuinga futile debate about sovereignty that made the
representativegovernmentit legitimatelysought Impossibleto achieve.16
RepresentaL,,. governmentwas not only a practical reform eminently
necessaryto an arbitraryrulethatwished to legitimateItself(a pointon which
Burkeand Schamaconcur);'7representationwas renderedboth more neces-
sary and moredifficultby the cult of romanticsensibilitythathad takenhold
in France. Rousseau expressed this cult perfectly (Burke and Schama be-
lieve), and thereforeit is to RousseauismthatSchamareturnsfollowing the
tracksof Burke'spamphletwars in the 1790s.'8
The new historiographyof the Revolutionreturnsto the old themes of the
Reflections and Burke's other writings: (1) Jacobinismas a novel kind of
despotism, today called totalitarianism;(2) the Revolution as unnecessary
and reformas plausible;and (3) Rousseauistsensibility and its contribution
to revolutionaryevents.
Not only have historiansdiscovered a revolution that looks more like
Burke's revolution,internaldebates within political and social theory have
focused on new themes that enter Into a reassessmentof Burke. Conserva-
tives who were close readershave always distrustedBurke. The issue that
frames theirattentionIs precisely that highlightedby new forms of modem
skepticism. Deconstructionist,post-Nietzschean,postmodernphilosophies
seek to expose the absence of sure foundationsfor dearly held moral and
political beliefs. It seems likely that Burke did not believe in foundations
either,thoughthe "decentdrapery"of his well-wroughttraditionalistrhetoric
helps to veil this particularkinshipwith thephilosopheandthe post-Lockean
skeptic. Burke is implicitly Lockean and Humeanin his epistemology and
psychology. Consequentlythe foundationsof political ordercan lie in noth-
ing strongerthan the memoryand habitsof its adherents.
Burke puts peculiar pressure on the very idea of a distinction between
natureand habitsor contingencies. "Artis man's nature,"he claims, raising
questions about the grounds for an appeal from convention to nature and
about the relationshipbetween the contingencies that make up our history
and identity.'9Burkeobserves that "a common soldier, a child, a girl at the
door of an Inn, have changed the face of fortune,and,"he adds, "almostof
nature."20 The "almost"shields the timid readerfrom a radicalclaim: There
is no telos in history; it exposes no naturalend, progressiveor otherwise.
Lives may be Integratedby traditions,but traditionslack inner necessity.
Nature is what we have contingently inherited.Its future,the futureof our
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 395

nature,is adumbratedin anothersuggestion:"Theworldof contingencyand

political combinationis much largerthanwe are apt to imagine."2'Pinning
our natureon unimaginedcontingencies,Burkegoes furtherthanhis radical
rivals, which is why he draws back from their social projects,lest we "be
obliged to pass . . 'throughgreat varieties of untriedbeing,' " a process
likely to be accompaniedby "fireand blood."22
I wouldguess thatLeo Strauss'sandalso HarveyMansfield,Jr.'sanxieties
about Burkeare motivatedby these considerations.23 Both are ambivalent
about a thinkerwhose conservative credentialsare unchallengedby those
who look only at his masteryof the rhetoricof naturallaw andAnglicansocial
theory.24Strauss's chapter on Burke is strategicallyplaced at the end of
Natural Right and History, which is a degenerative history of political
philosophy,with the worst coming last. In this chapter,Burkeis praisedas a
conservative, but as in the psychobiographies,Burke is twinned with his
fellow philosopheand enemy, Rousseau.Burkewas, Straussconcludes,too
concernedwith "individuality"in all its forms,thoughhappily,"thespiritof
'sound antiquity'" presentin Burke'swritingssaved him(or is it his reader9)
from a modern naturalright almost indistinguishablefrom a histoncism
which deniesthe groundsof right.25Mansfieldcomes to a similarconclusion:
"Propertyby prescriptionimplies governmentwithout a founding. .. The
best claim to rulecomes by securingthe abandonmentof rival claims."26
It is possible to affirm as well as reject a "deconstructionist"Burke.
Conservatives are eloquent about the need for transcendentfoundations
withoutbeing able to locate any,and it may be thatfoundationssufficientfor
our endeavorscan be found (and chosen or rejected)preciselywhere Burke
claimed to find them in that"narrowscheme of relationscalled ourcountry"
or in "inheritance"variously defined ratherthan In a shaky universalism,
which Burke once describedas the experience of being "lost in the waste
expanse and boundless barrenocean of homicide philanthropy."I take it
anyway that David Bromwich's A Choice of Inheritance plants itself on
the otherside of the political fence from Straussand yet attemptsto affirm
on behalf of liberalism Strauss's understandingof Burkeanskepticism.27
Bromwich'sBurkeis preoccupiedby the"displacement"of peopleof various
descriptionswho are forcedout of theirinheritanceby detachedcosmopoli-
tans. Inheritanceexpresses our nature.We have, nevertheless,"a choice of
inheritance,"Bromwich says, quoting the magisterialpassages from the
Reflections.This means thatinheritanceand naturemustbe chosen in order
to be operational.28
One argumentfor a liberalappropriationof Burkedoes no creditto either
and is, I think,false. Burkeand the liberal,it has been suggested,exemplify
396 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

bad faith. Their positions are compromises between the alternatives of

traditionalismand radicalism.On the conservatives' own account above,
Burkecannotbe a conservative.MacPherson'slittle book on Burkeexplores
the otheralternative.Burke'sargumentsfor distributivesharescan be aligned
to Rawlsianarguments,MacPhersonthinks,but theircommonjustifications
for inequalitygive them a bad conscience and an illegitimate politics. To
quote MacPhersonon the reasons for this is to explode the myth of liberal
compromiseand to demonstratethe differencesbetween thenandnow- "The
egalitarianprincipleis the official ideology of the communistworld and the
Third World,and their acceptance of it lies uneasily on the conscience of
liberalsin the WesternWorld."29 Soviets who accept liberalformsof inequal-
ity and the despotic egalitarian rhetoric of Middle Easterndespots reaffirm
the coherence of liberalpositions.
In any event, many radicals have forsaken Marx for Nietzsche. Their
politics are less inspiredby threatsto equality than by threatsto diversity.
They have theirown groundsfor makinganti-Jacobinarguments.If by way
of the FrankfurtSchool and Foucault,it is modernityitself which reveals a
quasi-totalitarianface, why should not Burke, the marginalizedprophetof
counterrevolution,and hence of countermodernity,become a plausiblesage
for this species of radicalism?
One reasonwhy not is that Burkecan just as easily be positionedas the
championof the modernizers.His sympathyfor the bourgeoisaristocratsof
the ancien redgime was not based on the belief that they were the victims of
revolutionarymodernization.He believed they madebettermodernizersthan
the Jacobins.Thereare, alas, many descriptionsof modernity.A left politics
thatrejects a universalizingJacobin state but accepts commercialexchange
and capitalist productionwithin a complex constitutionalorder could call
itself Burkean,for it was fromthisstancethatBurkeextendedhis sympathies,
often to political underdogs,the CatholicIrish,Indiansexploited by the East
Indiacompany,the Americanrebels.30
lain Hampsher-Monkhints at a Burkeanleft when he says that Burke's
politics are "still a challenge to today's heirs of enlightenmentrationalism,"
a rationalismwhich he thinks lies behind a "communismand capitalism"as
"immenselydestructiveagentsof modernization."He assuresus that"Burke
was no socialist,"and yet he seems to thinkthatthe socialist andBurkehave
much to communicateabout.31
Socialism as punishment for the sins of rationalism is not to my taste.
I opt for the liberal Burke. Nevertheless, in a world defined in terms of a
predatoryadministrativerationalityandits threatto our"inheritance" broadly
understood,Burke is not the most implausiblepolitical philosopherfor the
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 397

left. He mustbe at least as plausibleas Nietzsche, who is moreconservative

aboutinequalityand representativegovernmentand lacks Burke'ssympathy
for the underdog.
My views on Burkeare informedby threedistinctinterpretations of him.
As these interpretationsappearto shareonly a -.w' of Burkeas modernor
quasi-modern,it may be useful to comment briefly on them and their
interconnections.I have alreadysaid quiteenoughabouta school of thought
that brings together conservatives and liberals (Strauss, Mansfield, and
Bromwich)to look at the philosophicalgroundsof Burke'sbeliefs, and so I
will pass on to the othertwo schools of thought,those interestedin Burke's
biographyand those concernedwith his views on politicaleconomy.
Commentatorsfascinatedwith Burke'spersonality,or persona,discover
counterintuitiveclaims about Burke's allegiances. Conor Cruise O'Bnen
begins this line of speculationby writing sensibly about Burke as an Irish
Catholicoutsiderto the Anglican Englishestablishment.32 Burke'scareeras
a double agent receives a new twist in Isaac Kramnick'sbiography,which
discovers surplusor unjustified"rage"in the philosopherand accountsfor it
as issuing from sexual and class ambivalence. Burke was a bourgeois re-
quiredby his position and ambitionto defenda feudal orderagainstcultural
radicalsin Englandand Franceto whom he felt a secret affinity,perhapsin
more thanone sense.3 Bruce Smith drops, happily,the sexual speculation,
but he finds in Burke's personaa way to attackconservatismas neurosis.
Burke cannot acknowledge the ambition in himself and projects it on to
Jacobin,andother,opponents."Burkeanconservatismwas a plea for forget-
ting";this it was, but it was never Burke,I argue,who forgot.34
A thirdgroup of interpretersfocuses on the substanceof Burke'stheory
of society, especially as this touches on property,political economy,and its
relationto authority.Forthese commentators,landedpropertyandbourgeois
commerce are not mutuallyexclusive terms,and both enter Intoa complex
relationshipwith unpropertiedpersonsof "ability"subordinatedbutessential
to the propertiedestablishment.This is the modernizing Burke. J.G.A.
Pocock is at one with C. B. MacPhersonin arguingthat on the questionof
the promotionof commercein a liberalregime,"Burkewas to the last a man
of his moder age, with little nostalgiain his make-up."35
Thoughanexponentof a leftBurkeancritiqueof modernity,lainHampsher-
Monk similarlybases his interpretation of Burkeon the philosopher'satten-
tiveness to the "politicaleconomy of empire."Ireland,Amerca, India,and
free trade-"there runs the theme of empireand how to accommodateit to
domesticpolitics."36This is an interestingsuggestion.The FrenchRevolution
is not even, as the authorthinks,an exception to this claim for a career-long
398 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

preoccupationwith economy and empire.The Jacobinconfiscationsdid not

bankruptFrancebutsecuredit a basis for conquest.The Revolutionwas also
a continuationby othermeans,Burkecame to think,of the Frenchstateelites'
ambition for external hegemony, now released from traditionalconstraints
of a propertiedestablishment.
The biographersare not wrong to concentrateon Burke's"doubles,"but
they are misled when they conclude that Burkewas himself unawareof his
complicity in them. The outsider who masters languages of power and
authoritycorrespondsto the philosopherwho doubtsthese languagescan be
anchoredoutside themselves. A person well aware of the boundariesof the
languageof power,andof the colonies anddistinctlanguagesthatlie beyond
these boundaries,will be disposedto an almostMontesqueandreadof empire
because he will lack confidence in any universallanguagethe empire must
invoke to rule. He will not be, however,a romanticaboutcolonies, whether
Irelandand India or the uniquenessof anyone's inheritance,for he knows
that the sons of Irelandwish to emigrateand thatthereare ways of stepping
into a language of power from outside that suggested that languages are
commensurableand not wholly alien.
Even the language of the Jacobins was not alien, as Burke well knew.
Burkecarefullysituatedhimself as an exemplarymanof talentinto a theory
of a complex play of forces in which ambitioustalent was either tempered
by the sluggishness of the propertied,who could not be "electrified"into
action by mere talk, or triumphedover uncommunicativeproperty and
created a "monstrous"regime but also, possibly, a new order.Burke was
perfectly awareof his kinshipto the Jacobins,but this does not mean he was
one. The double life that Burkecould not affirm publicly had little relation
to class or sexual ambivalenceor to politicalcompromisesbutwas motivated
by a Lockeanskepticism.The fragilitieshe wished to veil were foundational.
The languages in which we express our deepest commitmentswere not well
anchored,he thought.
A personwho believed therewere truthsof religion andtruthsof political
orderwould be less troubledby theirdenial, for a providentialhistorycould
scarcely be defeatedby humanillusions and an orderwritteninto the nature
of thingswould reassertitself despitehumanerror.Burke'sconservatismwas
not motivatedby transcendentbeliefs but by their denial. For him, a way of
life abandonedwas trulylost.
Burkethoughthe lived in a world where every opinionwas closely linked
to every other. Maintainingthose opinions, beginning with the religious,
meantthatlife was an anxiousgame of dominos. Opinionsall stood together
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 399

or all fell together.He got this image of the linked characterof social life
from an interpretationof Montesquieu's"espirit";though,for Montesquieu,
opinions and spheres of life were often delinked and stood or fell on their
own. If Burkewas a liberal,he was an anxious one for whom the opinions
which sustain an ethos exhibit a fragile interdependency.Only when he
despairedof Englishresistanceto the Frenchin the last yearsof his life could
he write in a way that implied that men and women were individuals
unconnectedto a decayingregimebutcapableof sustainingit now fromtheir
own internallygeneratedresources.By then, Burke was ready to explore
other similaritiesto the political theoryof his rivals thanone which merely
extractedindividualsfromtheirembeddednessin an ancientconstitution(see
the conclusion).
It may be useful to say a few words aboutthe generalpresuppositionsof
the political theory that Burkeconfronts.NeitherBurkenor his opponentis
more modernthan the other.Burke'stheorylegitimatesintermediarystruc-
tureswhich relatecitizens to each otherin ways that differentiatethem;the
opponentlooks pastinstitutionsto focus on thesimilaritiesof isolatedagents.
An agent-centeredperspectiveadoptsthe languageof contractwhich under-
writes the notion of the intellectualdetachmentof agents from one another
and the presentinsufficiencyof reasonsthey have for obeying one another.
Also revealed throughcontractis the urgency of negotiation. Contractors
mustcommunicate.This contrastswith Burkeancautionaboutthe occasions
for empowering talk and the occasions for ignoring talk. The languageof
contractreinforcesthe idea of the normalcyof personswhose opinions are
unconnectedto institutionsand of situations in which culturalinheritance
does not have a presumptiveclaim on an agent.
This is a world describedby a line of thinkersthat goes from Paine to
Habermas.In it, the relativelyplasticcapacityof agentsto communicateand
to combineand recombinedepends,a Burkeanpolitics suggests, on untested
metaphysicalpresumptionsabout the predispositionsof men and women
strippedof, or weaned away from,theirinheritance.Burkefearsthe absence
of restrainton unattachedmen and women (whereas we worry more about
their passivity and indifference).Ambition has outlets in every society, but
these act as constraintsas well. Burkefearsthe ambitionof the unpropertied
more than that of the propertied,since the latterwere relativelyimmuneto
talk and thereforenot prone to change their opinions. Outside the normal
conventions, it will be harderfor the talkativeand ambitiousto sustainany
intuitivesense of what is rightfor the very good reasonthatthese intuitions
are operativeonly within the boundariesof these conventions.
400 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

II. THEREFLECTIONS,1790-1990

Burke'sclassic work,Reflectionson theRevolutionin France, has for two

hundredyears highlightedthe great events from its peculiarangle of vision,
offering its dissent from the prevailingorthodoxyof revolutionas the telos
through which democratic modernity emerges. It was not Burke's sole
response to the Revolution.A torrentof words spilled from Burke's pen in
the last decade of his life in the form of reportson Parliamentarydebates,
book-lengthletters,prefacesand memorials,includingthe "Debateon Army
Estimates"(1790); "Letterto a Member of the National Assembly," "An
Appeal from New to Old Whigs,"and "Thoughtson FrenchAffairs"(1791);
"Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with Respect to France" (1793);
"Brissot's Address to His Constituents"(1794); "Thoughtsand Details on
Scarcity"(1795); "Letterto a Noble Lord"(1796); and the fourmassive"Let-
terson a Regicide Peace"(1796-97)- LetterI: "Onthe Overturesof Peace,"
Letter II: "Geniusand Characterof the French Revolution"(1796), Letter
III: "Ruptureof the Negotiation,"and LetterIVV"To the Earl Fitzwilliam"
(1796-97, unfinished).
The events In Franceforced Burketo articulatemore fully thanhe might
otherwise have done those views which now make up his political philoso-
phy.While the elementsof this philosophyareto be found in the Reflections,
the later writings often provide instructivetwists on the argument.More
interestingare the tensions in his assembledopinions and the shifts discern-
ible in his assessmentof the Revolution, as it becomes a more stable force
on the Continentand as the will of the English to resistweakens.
It should always be stressed how early in the Revolution Burkecame to
his views about it. The book was published in November 1790, with the
compositionbegun in Januaryor Februaryof thatyear.37Thatis to say, Burke
wrote the Reflectionsduringthe peaceful year of the Revolution,before the
rise and fall of GirondinsandJacobins,before the Frenchwars on European
neighbors(on republicsand monarchiesalike), before the September(1792)
Massacresand (almost) all the otherbloodyjournees, before the civil war in
the Vendee, before the abolitionof the monarchy,the execution of the royal
family, the paradeof constitutions,and the cycles of anarchyand repression,
before the terror,before Thermidor,and before Napoleon and his wars in
Europe.Burke'sReflectionswas intendedto warn and, therefore,to predict.
No other philosophicalwriting on politics succeeded in predictingso accu-
rately and with such relevant specificity the course of subsequentevents.
Certainly,Marxdid not succeed to this degree.
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 401

Burke'strainingIn philosophyand historywere not sufficient to explain

his prescience.He knew he was addressingsomethingnew, and the pastwas
no guide:"Prudencein new cases canoffernothingon groundsof retrospect."38
Surprisingly,his first recordedsentimentson the revolt registera note of
mild affirmation.The news of the fall of the Bastille provoked In him the
thought,"Thespirit [of] it Is impossiblenot to admire."39 That Burkecould
have utteredsuch a remarkstartles;at least It helps to explain why Thomas
Paine and AnarcharsisCloots could have writtento Burkeas late as January
and April 1790 to inform him of what Thomas Jefferson and others had
witnessed in Paris,with the idea thatBurkewould be sympatheticto all he
heard.40
Burke himself plainly declares in the army debate (1790) that even his
consideredlaterpreferencescontinuedto supportthe early activities of the
EstatesGeneral.Its membersshould have redressedthe grievancesstatedin
the cahiers,which they failed to do.4'
What had already occurredin November and December 1789 was the
nationalizationof churchpropertyas the solution to the problemof French
debts and the introductionof a currency,the assignats, backed by these
confiscations.Inone blow the revolutionariesattackedreligionandproperty,
andIt is commonly thoughtthattheseevents arousedBurke'ssense of horror
and pushed him in his last decade into a career of counterrevolutionary
agitator.
It would seem to follow from these events thathe was promptedto look
moreclosely at what in the characterof the revolutionaryelites could inspire
them with the Idea of churchconfiscation.He then developed his thesis of
parallelgroupsof atheistic intellectualoutsiders,hostile to churchandstate,
and financialspeculators,whose dealing and mobile preoccupationsdid not
Instill in them the sense of proprietyof those who merely produced or
exchanged. Both groups shareda common delight in abstraction-the ab-
stractionof ideas and of money which permittedthem to regardlife at the
horizonsof their feelings, to Invokea Burkeanimage, and to considertheir
conditionas an occasion for experimentand innovation.42
Brilliantand innovativethoughthis theoryof revolutionaryelites was (as
innovativeas the elites it described),I do not thinkthattheconfiscationwhich
occasioned it was the prmary considerationthatmade Burke hostile to the
Revolution.His mind was alreadydecisively made up by September1789
The confiscation and the attackon the Churchonly confirmedviews which
he hadconceived earlierconcerningthepolitical characterof the Revolution.
This politicalcritique,formedin JulyandAugust 1789, is discussedat length
402 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

in the Reflections and other writings and should remain uppermostin the
minds of Burke's readers.
On September27, 1789, Burkewrote to his friendWilliamWindhamthat
the people of Francehad "alongwith theirpolitical servitude .. thrownoff
the Yoke of law and Morals."The National Assembly had evidently pre-
cludedsuccessful reformbecauseof its "subversionof all orders,distinctions,
privileges, impositions,Tythes,and rents."He addedthatthoughthey appear
"omnipotent,"he doubtedthat they had any more "deliberativecapacity"or
"freejudgment"thanthe haplessking, "as thereis a Mob of theirconstituents
ready to Hang them if They should deviate into moderation,or in the least
departfrom the Spiritof those they represent."43
The mergingof the threeestates was followed in August by the suppres-
sion of the segneurial regime. He barely mentioned the latter. It was the
experimentwith constitutionalform,which renderedany subsequentreform
arbitrary,that agitated him. The end of segneurialismwas largely cosmetic,
as thesocial change hadalreadytakenplace in manypartsof France.44 Feudal
dues were well done away with. It was not this reformbut the arbitraryact
of legitimation- discardingthe ancientconstitution- thatput in questionthe
legitimacy of any subsequent rulers and crystallized Burke's sense of the
shape of things to come: "The improvementsof the national assembly are
superficial,theirerrorsfundamental."45
He had expected thatthe Frenchmightrecovertheirliberties in a form of
representativegovernmentthatevolved out of the legitimatingmodel of the
EstatesGeneral. He regardeddeparturesfrom this model as justification to
depart from any model. The Revolution had destabilized itself and no
metaphysicalargumentabout"naturalrights"could get it back on track.The
degree of political strength actually obtainedby the Third Estate within a
reformedEstates Generalwould have been a matterof relative indifference
to Burke. The path to representativegovernment lies with preservationof
form, not with the discardingof it.
One of Burke'saims in the Reflectionsis to warn his countrymenagainst
false analogies. English radicals believe that the French have adopted a
Lockeanmodel of revolt fromthe Whig Revolutionof 1688. If a French1789
fulfills the promise of an English 1688, it is time to re-importthe model.
Burke thinks that, in breakingwith the forms of established authority,the
Frenchhave alreadygone beyondanythingthatwas attemptedin 1688, when,
to invoke a Burkeanimage, the nakednessof the revolutionaryrupturewas
veiled In a narrativeof political continuity.The name, Locke, thattheoristof
discontinuity,does not appearin this account.The falseness of the analogy
is best described in the army debate: "With us it was the case of a legal
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 403

monarchattemptingarbitrarypower-in Franceit is the case of an arbitrary

monarchbeginning,from whatevercause, to legalise his authority."46
The "fromwhatever cause" provides a Burkeannarrativeof continuity
for the French.The ruptureof authoritymust be explained as a restoration
of the king's legitimate authority.Burke agrees that the Frenchking lacks
legitimacy:"Yourconstitution,it is true,whilstyou were outof possession,suf-
feredwaste and dilapidation;but... you might have repairedthose walls."47
The representationthatwould legitimizethegovernmentin Francecould not
be introducedwithout the forms of authorityrepresentedin the king. The
"leading[of] the king in triumph"from Versailleto Pans in August 1789 (a
repeatedmotif in the Reflections)had already,Burkecalculated,destroyed
thatauthority.48
Burke also intends to demonstratethat the reforms pursued in France
could not have improved on English liberties. The argumentexplores a
contrastbetweenan ancientconstitution,whose virtueis thatit was designed
by no one person,group,or generation,and the new model Frenchconstitu-
tion, dependenton a single groupof legislators.Whatthe revolutionarymind
sees as thevirtueof being able to begin anew,withoutirrationalencumbrance
from the past, Burke sees as the vice of having to depend on the limited
Imaginationof one group (or one generation),a group that is, moreover,
alienated from its past and from its fellow citizens, since the institutions
throughwhich the latterspoke have been eradicated.
Burke's invocationof an "ancientconstitution"is an appeal to maintain
continuity,so far as possible, with the precedentsof legal procedure,but it
should also be broadly understoodas the whole cultural inheritanceof a
people, as this bearson a public life with representativeinstitutions.Reform
is always relevant:"A state withoutmeansof change is without meansof its
conservation."49 Improvementdependson attendingto inhertance:"A peo-
ple will not look forward. who never look backward."50
Why not? Burkehas two explanationswhich press from the two sides of
the question. One one hand, the reformerrequiresdignity. A people who
reject their past cannot help having a low opinion of those formed by that
past, namely,themselves: "You began ill, because you began by despising
everythingthatbelonged to you." By contrast,"respectingyour fathers,you
would have been taught to respect yourselves."5'On the other hand, the
ambitious sometimes respect only themselves. They need a past whose
gravity imposes itself on them: "Always acting as if in the presence of
canonized forefathers,the spiritof freedom,leading in itself to misruleand
excess, is temperedwith an awful gravity."52
404 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

For Burke,traditionis not a prison.The rationalizinginnovatorcreates a

narrowerworld. Dispensing with the awkwardcomplexity of the past, the
innovatorappearsto have infinite horizonsat her disposal but finds herself
in a worldof herown creation,thatis to say, a world markedby the inevitable
narrownessof the imaginationof a single personor group.
Respectinginheritancemeans respectingthe diversityof interestswithin
it. Institutionalizedas a separationof powers,this play of interestsis the pro-
ceduralsafeguardof political liberty.The play of Interestsis also a substan-
tive pictureof liberty.A citizen informedby and able to maneuverwithin the
differentiatedand variegatedlives of othercitizens receives daily lessons in
the meaning of liberty and a model for his own pursuits.Addressing the
Frenchand drawingon Montesquieu'sNewtonian imagery,Burke laments:

You hadall thatcombination,and all thatoppositionof interests,you had thatactionand

counteraction. These opposed and conflicting interests,which you consider so great
a blemish in your old and in our presentconstitution,interposesa salutarycheck to all
precipitateresolution. Throughthat diversity of members and tinterests,general
libertyhad as manysecurities as there wereseparate views in the several orders.3

Incontrastto this pictureof Englishpluralism,the French"haveattempted

to confoundall sortsof citizens, as well as they could, intoone homogeneous
mass."The revolutionarieshave madethemselvesvulnerableto the confined
intelligence of a single assembly.

III.A CHOICEOF CONSTITUTIONS

Let us pause to look at these argumentsfrom the perspectiveof Burke's

rights-orientedadversary.It has been my assumption(argued In section I)
thatBurkeand his opponentare both indebtedto Enlightenmentskepticism.
Skepticism (about moral foundationsand so on) is not only a discovery of
post-Nietzscheanphilosophy,it is a decisive element as well in seventeenth-
and eighteenth-centuryFrench and English thought. It leads to two oddly
opposed political understandings.Burke'sopponentsbelieve thatskepticism
helps them see throughtraditions.Burkebelieves that the skeptics will see
new reasons to cling to tradition. In Burke's understanding,a people's
inheritancefosters a Montesquean"esprit,"or ethos, through which they
think and act. Living in alienation from this informing spint may lead to
"truths"of speculation,but it will also assurepoliticalruin.If thereis nothing
definite to appeal to beyond what we already have (and hence no further
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 405

foundationto possession), then all such appeals fall in a political void of

boundlessspeculation.
Burke's opponents, on the other hand, have directed their skepticism
precisely at the institutionsto which he clings, because they see a figure on
the horizon, obscured and oppressed by traditionand institution,a figure
which is, so to speak, a pureresidueof theirskepticism,the imaginarypoint
on which the skeptics themselves stand.This is the self bearingthe rightsof
its isolated individuality,bound initially to no one but with the capacity to
talk, and hence to negotiate,with otherselves with similarrights.
In other words, the radical Enlightenmentdiscovered "man,"to invoke
the eighteenth-centuryarchaism,a "man"whose identifying markwas his
belief thatall institutionswere eitherprovisionalor illegitimate,thatlife and
society were constitutedby talk and could be reconstitutedby more talk
(thoughtalk, "man"added, which was "rational.")If Burkedid not wholly
despise these ideas, he certainlywantedto subordinatetheirtypicalcarriers,
unpropertiedmen of talent, to those whose habits of mind would not so
readily dispose them to look past or see throughthe veils of custom and
Institution.Fromthe perspectiveof a twentieth-centuryphilosophywe could
say thatBurkewas amongthe first to challengethe existence of "man."Men
andwomen informedby inheritancehe understood,but"man"andthe arcane
rulesof his behavior,supposedlyfoundedon skepticism,Burkethoughtwas
an illusion and a phantom.
Fromthe point of view of the heirs of the radicalenlightenment,Burke's
defenseof the Englishconstitutioncould be criticizedon threegrounds.First,
individualshave a rightto the neutralityof theirgovernment.Theirinterests
are to be treatedfairly,and careful planning,not the haphazardtraditionsof
a landedaristocracy,guaranteesthat.Second, Burkeantraditioninhibitsthe
range of freedoms and ways of life that individualscould peaceablyenjoy.
Only a political life less dependenton the crustof conventionand more on
the imaginationof men and women assembledto debate their possibilities
can make a full range of freedoms available. ("Sous le pave, la plage," as
Parisianstudentssaid in 1968.) Third,thoughcomfortmay lie in attachment
to tradition,this simply obscures the aim of radicalindividualism:personal
liberty.
It is sometimes said that Burkeanconservatismconstitutesan alternative
paradigm,and within this alien culture,the precedingclaims have no mean-
ing. This is not at all the case. Burke defends the English constitutionon
preciselythe groundsof neutrality,diversity,andpersonalliberty.In "Onthe
Genius and Characterof the French Revolution," Burke returns to the
contrastof two types of constitution.Because the nonrevolutionary,unsys-
406 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

tematicconstitutionshave evolved "in a great length of time and by a great

variety of accidents they have not been directed to any peculiar end,
eminently distinguished and supercedingevery other."This is the goal of
state neutrality.The "state,"he says, "hasbeen made to the people, and not
the people to the state."54
Diversity is also the result:"Everystate has pursuednot only every sort
of social advantage,but It has cultivatedthe welfareof every individual.His
wants, his wishes, and even his tastes have been consulted."In a momentof
democraticimagination,Burkeclaims: "Governmentsformedwithout sys-
tem are confused with the multitude and with the complexity of their
pursuits."By contrast, government which "has unity and consistency in
perfection" is restricted in its pursuit of neutrality and diversity to the
politically correct definitions of those terms possible at one time and one
place.
These latter governments are rational despotisms. The rulers see past
custom and abstractfrom traditiononly too readily-"To them the will, the
wish, the want, the liberty,the toil, the blood of individualsis as nothing."
This detachmentfromtraditionleads to a view of society as merely a relation
of forces: "The state is all in all. Everythingis referredto the productionof
force: after,everything is trustedto the use of it."
As for the ideal of personal liberty, its lively appeal in Europe is the
happy,but unintended,effect of institutionsthat have been requiredto be
responsive to the "complexity"of the social order. "This has produced a
degree of personal liberty in the forms most adverse to it" (an obvious
allusion to prerevolutionaryFrance). If in other countries personal liberty
was an accident sustained by "the system of mannersand the habitudesof
life than by the laws of the state . in England[it] has been a direct object
of government."55
Propertyis the mainbearerof this culturalinheritance.For Burke'srivals,
propertyopposes publicculture,especially democraticculture;Burkethinks
propertyembodies it. In its haphazardandunequalforms,propertyexpresses
diversityandserves as a labyrinthof complexitythatopposes any one group's
endeavorto remodel.This could be ruefullyadmittedby Burke'srivals who
fear a diversity that includes exploitation and a complexity that prohibits
reform.By contrast,Burkefears "thedreadfulenergyof a state, in which the
propertyhas nothing to do with the government."The consequence will be
that"nothingrules but the mind of desperatemen."56
But whatif one were to say "nothingrulesbutthe mindof well-intentioned
democraticmen and women"9This does not change the argument.It is not
the moral qualities of the membersof the assembly to which Burke objects
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 407

but the fact thatthereis only one assembly,and no intermediaryinstitutions,

governing France.It is not the reformbut the reformer'stool, an absolutist
state handedover to an arbitraryassembly thatBurkefears.The searchlight
of reformmay cast a brightlight on an exploitationthatwould be otherwise
obscuredby the interpositionsof intermediaryassociations,buta searchlight
cast on one exploitationrequiresthat everythingelse is cast into darkness,
includingotherformsof exploitation.
The argumentis recognizablyMontesquean,as was muchelse in Burke's
attackon the Revolution.Burkewas surethatMontesquieuwould have been
among the first of the emlgres.57(Montesquieu'scorpse was, in fact, dese-
crated by revolutionarygrave robbers.58)Montesquleuwas one of the few
French authors Burke respected (although he did not always agree with
him).59Burke thoughthe saw the impact of Rousseauon the rebels; but if
they readMontesquleu,Burkewas surethey had not understoodhim.6 Sick
anddistraughtover the deathof his son, Burkewent out of his way to receive
the grandsonof Montesquleuwho had emigratedto England.6'
Montesquieu'sargumentabout the complexity and political liberty sus-
tained by England'sseparationof powers was a perfectfoil for his implicit
argumentaboutFrenchabsolutism.Burkemadethe same points.The admin-
istrativerationalityof an absolutist king was little differentfrom that of a
revolutionaryassembly.The moral qualities,desperateor well intentioned,
of the Courtand the RevolutionaryAssembly were not the main issue. The
isolatedsingularityof each was. The contrastbetweenthe isolated,distorted
rationalityof a unified administrationand the rationalityof many minds
expressing diverse sentimentsof public collaborationthroughthe conflict
engenderedby a separationof powers was the centralidea in Montesquieu's
political thought.Burke adaptedit to brillianteffect in his writings on the
Revolution.
Burkesometime opposed Montesquleu.62 Burke'sdescriptionof the En-
glish constitution is only superficially similar to Montesquieu's portrait.
Theirunderstandingsof the role of "esprit"differed.One differencebetween
Montesquieuand Burke is crucial to understandingBurke'sproject. Burke
defended IndiaagainstMontesquieu'sviews on despotism. He also refash-
ioned the idea of orientaldespotism. Montesquieu'sdistinctionbetween the
freedom carved out In Europe and the despotism of the East pushes too
readilyinto a dichotomyof the free and the unfree,an Ideologyby which the
Europeanconquerorjustifies his displacementof, In this case, the Indian
people. Burkewants to show thatthe customarylife of the Indianpeople is
not despotic. A people could be embeddedin their social practiceswithout
being unfree. (He made much the same argumentabout English practice
408 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

when confrontedby the rationalizingdemandsof English and Frenchradi-

cals.) About despotismin India,he said; "I mean to show the directcontrary
of everythingthathas been said on the subject. . I mean to prove thatevery
word which Montesquieuhas taken from idle and Inconsideratetravelersis
false."63
Burkereformulatesthe idea of despotismas an extra-Europeanthreatand
turnsit into an intra-Europeanphenomenon.Despotismbecomes the "mon-
strous,"an only too Europeanphenomenon:theJacobinrepublic.64 The move
from the extra-European"despot" to an intra-European"monster"only
makesexplicit, however,Montesquieu'simplicitwarningsaboutFrenchand
Spanishabsolutism.Orientaldespotismwas neverconfined to the East.The
despotismof Indiais caused, Montesquieuthinks,by an absence of enlight-
enment and by the feverish imagination that otherwise prevails in a hot
climate.65For Burke,the monstrousnessof the Jacobinrepublicis an indict-
mentof the very enlightenmentthattook shapeon its soil. Both Montesquieu
and Burkeare ambivalentabout a figure they studiedclosely: the detached,
ambitious intellectual. (One must study the figure of Usbek to understand
Montesquieu'sviews on the subject.) The balance is tipped in Burke's case
furtheraway from the virtues of an enlightenmentthat Montesquieufound
in its net effects admirable.
Burke also did not forget that Montesquieu legitimated two radically
distinctformsof governmentandthatone of them,the republic,was defended
by revolutionarieswho had studied Montesquieu as closely on virtuous
republicsas Burkehad studiedEnglish monarchyand representativegovern-
ment. Robespierrequoted Montesquieu,not Rousseau, when he discussed
virtue.RousseauhadadoptedMontesquieu'smodelof the republicto his own
purposes.Burke thinks that the Frenchstate elite, both before and after the
Revolution"hadcontinuallyin theirhandsthe observationsof Machiavelon
Livy. They had Montesquleu's Grandeur et decadence des romains as a
manual."66
Montesquieuis a more ambivalentfigure for Burkethan is usually made
out. By the time, however,Burkehadutteredthese remarks,In 1796, his own
thinkingwas more focused on the advantagesof republicsand the disadvan-
tages of complex monarchicalstates.

IV WAR-INDUCED
REVISIONSIN BURKE'SARGUMENT

Burke's restatementof themes from the Reflectionssuggests shifts in his

views andalso suggests the pressureon his argumentinducedby the warwith
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 409

France:(1) He seizes on a word that seems to him appropriateto what he

wants to say. It was to have a twentieth-centuryhistory.The revolution is
"total."(2) The Revolutionis not, however,wholly new andwithout histor-
ical precedent.(3) The Revolutionbecomes a decidedly classless affair.Its
elite is far less connected to any propertiedinterestthan he claims in the
Reflections. (4) He furtherdevelops the theme of the Revolution as the
consummationof a peculiarly urban style of communication.(5) Burke
comes to admirethe "energy"of his Jacobinenemies and to perceive more
clearly the disadvantagesof the English alliance of ability and property.
These restatementsare more fully discussed in turn.
1. In "Thoughtson FrenchAffairs,"Burkeclaims thatthe events in France
"announceda total revolution."67 He laterthinksof it as a "completerevolu-
tion." It is complete because it "seems to have extendedeven to the consti-
tution of the mind of man."68He also uses the phrase"totalrevolution"to
describeBritishas well as Frenchintentions;a "totalrevolution"precipitates
a totalwar:"Whenour politicks leadus to enterprizea great,andalmosttotal
political revolutionin Europe, we ought to look seriously into the conse-
quences of what we are about to do."69 This is the first hint that Jacobin
energy,in politicizingeverything,forces its enemies to follow in its footsteps.
The ancientconstitutionis not immuneto the energyof its opponents.
2. Initially claiming that the Revolution was without precedent,Burke
discoveredtwo models for it by 1791. the events of the Reformationand the
republics of classical antiquity.As it was a "revolutionof doctrine" he
contemplated(one which wanted to universalize itself and refused to be
"governedby circumstancesany more thanby places"),his mindwas drawn
to religion and the model of the Reformation:"It would be to repeat the
historyof the last two centuriesto exemplify the effect of this revolution."
The Reformationfosteredreligious fanaticism,but the Frenchwere fanatics
withoutreligion.Not since Antiquityhadthe "modemworld"witnessed"the
spiritof generalpoliticalfaction separatedfrom religion."70
His discussion of republicanfactions seems to borrowfrom an earlier
treatmentof the theme. Both treatmentssubvertthe doctrineof the relation-
ship of ability and property.In a republic,the two leading factions seek to
rule not throughinterestbut through"politicaldogma."This "choice is not
unwise." Opinions are the strongest interestsand seem to "supercedeany
other."71In theReflections,opinionsoutweighinterests,butthey do not super-
sede Interests.Propertyhas interests,not opinions, or rather,its opinionsare
attachedto its interests.The claim that opinion rules in the long run seems
to suggest that history is always on the side of unpropertiedability, which
has only opinions.
410 POLITICALTHEORY/August 1991

A young Burke linked republicanfactionalism with freedom, a move

which Burke understandablymight want to obscure in his essays on the
Revolution. He says in the early text, "Whilst these parties disagreed in a
choice of a master,by contendingfor a choice in theirsubjection,they grew
impercepttiblyinto freedom,and passed throughthe mediumof faction and
anarchyintoregularcommonwealth."72 No defenderof the long-runintegrity
of the FrenchRevolutioncould have expressedhis or herexpectationsmore
eloquently.
3. Burke'sviews on class relationshipschangesin thecourseof the 1790s.
In the Reflections, propertynormally plays a conserving role. It provides
channelsof opportunityfor the unpropertiedambitiousand an inertialsense
of gravity,a moral weight, for these ambitions:"Ability is a vigorous and
active principle,and propertyis sluggish, inert,andtimid."73 But a certain
of
type propertyholder, the "monied defies
Interest," the standardmodel and
manifestsqualitiesthatbring it into alliance with ability.74
One must also note the special stress on the public life of property.If one
asks whetherBurkeis really committedto nakedoligarchy,as one plausible
interpretationof the role of landed wealth In English affairsmight suggest,
one could say that for him, prvate interest,qua private,has no role to play
in public life. The Reflections is filled with objectionsto "privatereason"or
"privateinterest"."Weareafraidto put men to live and tradeeach on his own
private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is
small, and thatIndividualswould do betterto avail themselvesof the general
bank."75 This passage is especially interestingbecause it countersthe image
of the ruleof nakedprivateinterestwith an imageof a bankas an appropriate
site of public collaboration,thus apparentlyextendingpublic legitimacy to
the monied interest.
Burke also says it is a "barbarousphilosophy"that supposes laws are
supportedonly by "privatespeculation"and "privateinterests."76Though
Burkeis not foolish enough to ignorethe nakedself-interestof the propertied,
he is equally serious about the educative effect played by the manners
associatedwith property.The ethos of propertyas well as that of ability is
what Burkecalls the "spiritof the gentlemenand the spiritof religion the
nobility and the clergy."77The two types do not representto Burke, as they
do to us, the legal prvileging of self-interest In the public realm. They
representtwo types of manners, two ways of checking and transforming
self-interestedbrutesinto collaborativecitizens. They are, as with all opin-
ions, "pleasing illusions," but we may wish to hold onto these longer than
others for they "madepower gentle, and obedience liberal ... harmonized
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 411

the differentshades of life [and] incorporatedinto politics the sentiments

which beautifyand soften privatesociety."78
What happensto this theory in Burke'ssubsequentwritings? By 1791,
Burkewas willing to dropthe exclusive emphasison the "moniedinterest"
and to spreadthe blame for revolutionmore broadly to include the "mer-
chants[and]principaltradesmen"as well. Perhapsmoreimportant,he ceased
to distinguishso sharplybetween the kinds of urbancommercialinterests
and the landedinterests:

I once thoughtthatthe low estimationin which commercewas held in Francemightbe

reckonedamongthe causes of the late revolution... But I foundlong since, thatpersons
in tradeand business were by no means despised in Francein the mannerI had been
taughtto believe.79

Farfrom resistingbusiness, nobilityand the prestigeof landwas the reward

of success in it: "Nobilitywas of so easy an acquisitionthat it was the fault
of all [in business]who did not obtainits privileges."This reinterpretationis
moreconsistentwith Burke'sgeneralview (and recentlythatof Schamaand
Nogaret-Chausslnand).Whateverstatustensions existed betweenbusiness-
men who became noble and those who did not, both togetherconstitutea
modernizing elite and provide support for the view that reform was an
alternativeto revolutionin France.
These revisionsin his view of Franceseem to incline Burketo cast a more
suspiciouseye at his own country.His gloomy appraisalis thatthecirculation
of elites from business(and "ability")to nobilityworks less well in England
than in France:

At no periodin the historyof Englandhave so few Peersbeen takenout of tradeor from

families newly created by commerce. In no period has so small a numberof noble
families enteredinto the counting-house.80

Englandhas a narrowerelite than Burke once thought.Prerevolutinary

France had a more open elite. All the commercial interests, not just the
monied interests,were implicatedin the Revolution.Does this meanthatthe
FrenchRevolutionis the workof a modernizingbourgeoiscommercialelite?
Burkeis just one step away from this Marxianpictureof the Revolution.He
turns dramaticallyaway from this view, however. Whichevercommercial
interestplayed a role early In the Revolution,none can now be seen in the
governance of France:"Thepolitical and civil power of France is wholly
separatedfrom its propertyof every description(Burke'semphasis).8'
412 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

The Revolution has become classless and also purely political. Burke's
initial insight into the Revolutionin the summerof 1789 has sustainedhim.
The fundamentalproblemwith the Revolutionis not its class basis but that,
having opened up the foundationalproblem by exposing the nakedness of
authority(a referenceto MarieAntoinetteis not completely irrelevant!),no
class, however ambitiousor self-interested,could survive a challenge to its
authority.Only the politicalclass remains,thatis to say, those who represent
no interestbut themselvesandcan keep up with a runningdialogue in search
of elusive foundations,a dialoguein which a missedcue meanstheguillotine.
It is not the bloodiness of the Terroror the numberof its victims that so
capturesthe imaginationof readersbut, rather,thatit presentsa spectacle of
a fatal game of self-referentialtalk, in which the provisionalwinner is the
personwho can evade the paradoxof simultaneouslyspeakingfor everyone
while remainingself-referential.The losers are those from whom the veil of
universality has been lifted. In the Reflections, Burke linked the monied
interest,the urbaninterest,and the militaryinterest.82The first two interests
are eliminatedby the fatalgame of talk,permittingthose who could stop the
game, the militaryinterest,to pick up the pieces.83This is Furet'sanalysis of
Jacobinism,whose twentieth-centuryBolshevik careerhe notes. Burkealso
attached this name to the phenomenon: "Jacobinismis the revolt of the
enterprnzngtalentsof a countryagainst its property."4
4. The Revolution representsthe triumphof the city over the country,
even when the urbaninterestscease to play a role in the governanceof the
Jacobin Republic, an urbanspirit, a special style, continuesto characterize
the Revolution.
The "sluggish"propertymentionedin theReflectionsevokes the rhythms
of the countrysideand of the landed elite. Burkethinks that the Revolution
has declaredwar on the countryside:"It is the great drift of [revolutionary]
regulations, to reduce that descrption of men to a mere peasantry."The
rhythmsof the city, which are the rhythmsof a general"circulation"replace
the sluggishness of property."Money increases and circulates. . The
circulationof news becomes more and more diffused,"and all who partici-
pate in this general"circulation"are more readily"electrified"and made"to
lose the naturalspiritof theirsituation."85
5. Underthe pressureof the war with France,Burkeappearsto revise his
views of the two constitutions.He was irritatedwith the Englishelite because
they did not learn to imitate the French. "Sluggish, inert, timid" property
could not awaken to the threat:It was too readyto conclude an early peace
with the "RegicideRepublic."Due to the "complexity"of interestsprotected
by the English constitution,Englandcould not mobilize its resourceseffec-
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 413

tively in war."Wemustwalk in new ways," BurkeInsists,"orwe can never

encounterour enemy."86
Burke carries this irritabilitywith sluggish property into his diatribe
againstthe Duke of Bedford,a man, Burkethinks,who behindhis unearned
wealth ignorantlycasts aspersionson men of talent, such as Burke. Many
commentatorshave seen in this essay the emergence of Burke'sdouble, a
Jacobin with a grudge, exposing the injustice and moral obtuseness of
aristocraticsociety. It is hardto resistthis move, butthe themesarenot really
new. One can find similarsentimentsin the Reflecttons.There,he asks why
we "tolerate"the "petit maison and petit soupers . all the innumerable
fopperiesandfollies inwhich opulencesports"9His answeris thatwe tolerate
them "not from love of them, but for fear of worse"-not exactly the most
convincing defense of wealth.87
Burke repeatsthe sentimentin the "Letterto a Noble Lord,"but thereis
now a new edginess. The Englishconstitution"shinesalike on the useful and
the worthless."88By "worthless"he means the "Noble Lord"'"I have done
all I could to discountenance inquiriesintothe fortunesof thosewho hold
largeportionsof wealthwithoutany apparentmeritof theirown." He wants
the Duketo knowthathe hasalwaysrecognizedthatunearnedwealth"alone"
has made the Duke of Bedford his superior.89The Duke's ignoranceand
indolenceis a sorrysightcomparedto the "alwaysvigilant,active, enterpnz-
ing" Jacobin,a figurewho now acquiresmore heroic stature.90 The Jacobin
would carve the Duke intomeatwere it not for the menof talentlike Burke.91
I know their kind, he admits."I can form a tolerableestimate,"he says,
"of what is likely to happenfroma characterchiefly dependentfor fame and
fortune on knowledge and talent."92It is this sort of line that inclines the
readerto speculate about what Burke saw of himself in the mirrorof his
Jacobinrivals. It has been my contentionthatwhen he looked in this mirror
he saw a fellow philosophicalskeptic, not an enrage.
Even by 1793, the Jacobin,or as Burkeabstractlysays, his "energy,"had
emergedas an admirablefigure:"In France . no man comes forwardbut
by his spiritof enterpriseand the vigour of his mind."English indolence is
no match for this:

If we meet this energywith poorcommonplaceproceedings,with trivialmaxims,paltry

old saws, with doubts, fearsand suspicions,with a languid,uncertainhesitation,with a
formalofficial spirit down we go to the bottomof the abyss.93

No enthusiastof the new could have betterdescribedall thathe foundwrong

with the Burkeandefense of tradition.By 1796, insteadof praisingthevirtues
of sluggish property,Burkecomplainsabout "reptileprudence."Insteadof
414 POLITICALTHEORY/August 1991

celebratingthe complex balance of differentcategories of wealth that pre-

vents the assault on any one of them, Burke declares, "If we commandour
wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor
indeed."Risk has replacedthe virtue of moderation:"Often a man lost his
all because he would not submit to hazard all in defending it." Having
predicted the bankruptcyof France, Burke reverses himself and praises
higherEnglish public debt with which to finance the war.94
"Letus not deceive ourselves,we areat the beginningof greattroubles."95
The constitution itself is in decline. England is at war with a people of
immense energy. "Nothinglooks more awful and imposing than an ancient
fortification,"he says. This was the perspectiveon the Englandhe defended
in the Reflections. Now he claims that "besides the debility and false[!]
principles of [its] construction,to resist the present modes of attack, the
fortressitself is in ruinousrepair."His only hope is that "miserableworks
have been defendedby the constancyof the garrison."96
Burke's views have come full circle. Unattachedability is enlisted to
remind irresponsibleheirs of their duties to inheritance.Resistance to the
"electrified"and "circulating"citizens of the JacobinRepublic requiresthat
risk replace moderationand thatcitizens look soberly at the defects of their
own constitution.Its defense dependsonly on their "constancy,"not on the
structureof ancientbalance. In fighting a statewhich representsthe triumph
of the political, public life in Englandmust demonstratethat it knows how
to "commandwealth" and be free of it.
Burke blamed Rousseau for sponsoringselfish individualism,but when
that individualism seized a great state and filled it with energy, Burke
addressedthe English as citizens distinguishablefrom their embeddedness
in institutions.He appealedto them as individuals in order to find in them
not selfishness but "constancy."He addressedcitizens whom he now pre-
sumedknew they had a "choice of inheritance"and who also knew thatthey
must pay a price "in blood and fire"for now choosing it.97

NOTES

1. The famous purplepassage reads:"A bandof cruel ruffiansand assassins, reekingwith

blood, burstinto the chamber,and piercedwith a hundredstrokesof bayonetsand poinardsthe
bed from when this persecutedwoman had butJusttime to fly almost naked."I cite from three
readily availableeditions of the Reflections.The first is TwoClassics of the French Revolution
(no editor),which contains Burke'sReflectionsand Paine's Rightsof Man (New York:Anchor,
1989). The othersare EdmundBurke,Reflectionson the Revolution inFrance, edited by Conor
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 415

CruiseO'Brien(London:Penguin,1968), and EdmundBurke,Reflectionson the Revolutionin

France,editedby J.G.A.Pocock(Indianapolis:Hackett,1987).Theseareabbreviatedas follows,
citing the above passage:Reflections,(A), 84; (O), 164; (P), 62.
2. I have relied on two standardeditions of Burke's writings, Worksof EdmundBurke,
Beaconsfield ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1901), 12 vols. (This appearsto be the same as the
Little, Brown 1869 ed.), and EdmundBurke, Works,Bohn's BritishClassic (London:George
Bell & Sons, 1893), 8 vols. The formerwill be cited as the Boston, the latteras the London
edition as follows: "An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," 1791, Works,Boston4:215,
London3:115.
3. For Burke'sminorwritingson the FrenchRevolutiondunng the period 1790-94, 1 cite
vol. 8 of a new editionof Burkethatwill eventuallysupersedethe aformentionededitions:Paul
Langford,general ed., Writingsand Speeches of EdmundBurke (Oxford:Clarendon,1981-,
to be completed in 12 vols.), L. G. Mitchell, ed. vol. 8, The French Revolution,1790-1794
(Oxford: Clarendon,1989). This work will be referredto as follows: "Thoughtson French
Affairs,"Writings8:386.
4. FrancolsFuret,Interpretingthe Revolution(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,
1981); Furetand MonaOzouf,A CriticalDictionaryof the FrenchRevolution(Cambridge,MA:
Belknap, 1989); Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret,The French Nobility in the EighteenthCentury:
FromFeudalismto Enlightenment(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1985);and Simon
Schama,Citizens:A Chronicleof the FrenchRevolution(New York:AlfredA. Knopf, 1989).
5. Franqois Furet and Denis Richet, La Revolution Frangatse (Paris: Fayard, 1973),
reprintedfrom Hachette1965-66 ed. They wrote alternatechapters,and this now well-known
phrase,"le derapagede la Revolution,"was writtenby Richet,pp. 125-58. Forrecentsummaries
of the interpretivecontroversiesoccasionedby thebicentennial,see OlivierBetourn6andAglaia
I. Hartig,Penser I'histoirede la Revolution(Paris:EditionsLa Decouverte,1989), andGeoffrey
Best, ed., The Permanent Revolution: The French Revolution and Its Legacy, 1789-1989
(London:Fontana,1988).
6. Furet,Interpretingthe FrenchRevolution,24.
7. Ibid.79, 24.
8. Ibid. 180. See Burke,"Jacobinismis the revolt of the enterprisingtalentsof a country
againstits property"("RegicidePeace,"LetterI), Works,Boston 5:309, London5:207.
9. Interpreting,204.
10. Furet,"Jacobinism,"in Critical Dictionary,715.
11. For Schamaon the Jacobins,see esp. Citizens,623, 725, 785, 787, 804.
12. For Fureton the problemof "circumstances"and the relatednotion of an "aristocratic
plot," see Interpreting,61-72, 53-58; Schama,"Violencewas the motor of the revolution,"in
Citizens,859, also 447.
13. For summaryjudgmentsof Lafayette,see Citizens,24-29, 870-73.
14. For Burkeon financialpolicy, see Reflections,(A) 132, (0) 220, (P) 103; for Schamaon
financial policy, see Citizens, 60-71, 881. The issue of reformabilityis also connected with
revisionist assumptionsaboutaristocraticmodernizationand Jacobinanticapitalism.See Citi-
zens, i16-1 17, 184-85, 785, 787, 853-54, 884. Also see Chaussinand-Nogaret, FrenchNobility,
84-116.
15. Citizens,857.
16. Reflections,(A) 47-49, (0) 121-23, (P) 31-33.
17. Works,Boston3:226, London8:279 ("Debateon the Army Estimates,"1790).
18. Burkediscusses Rousseauin "Letterto a Memberof the NationalAssembly,"in Writings
8:312-19. For Schamaon romanticsensibilityandRousseauism,see Citizens,153, 156, 161-62,
170-71, 861, 873-75, 885-86.
416 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

19. Works,Boston 4:176, London3:86.

20. Works,Boston 5:236, London5:154 ("RegicidePeace," LetterI).
21. Writings8:264 ("Thoughtson FrenchAffairs").
22. Reflections,(A) 265, (0) 376, (P) 218.
23. Leo Strauss,Natural Right and History (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1953),
294-323; HarveyMansfield,Jr.,Statesmanshipand PartyGovernment(Chicago:Universityof
Chicago Press, 1965), and Selected Lettersof EdmundBurke,edited by Harvey Mansfield,Jr.
(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1984). See also Mansfield's"Burkeand Machiavellion
Principlesin Politics,"in EdmundBurke:TheEnlightenmentand the Modern World,edited by
PeterStanlis (Detroit:Universityof Detroit Press, 1967), 49-80.
24. J.C.D. Clarkbelieves thatBurkeis an "unoriginal"exponentof views within a "tradition
of Anglican political theology,"in English Society, 1688-1832: Ideology,Social Structureand
Political Practice during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1985),
249. C. B. Courtneystresses Burke's indebtednessto the English common law traditionand to
Ciceronianstoic naturallaw in his Montesquieuand Burke(Westport,CT: Greenwood, 1975)
reprint,1963 Blackwell ed., 145. There is no doubt that Burke masteredthese vocabulariesof
political communication,but what did he really thinkof them?
25. Strauss,Natural Right and History 323.
26. Mansfield,"Introduction," Selected Letters,20.
27. David Bromwich, "Burke, Wordsworth,and the Defense of History,"In A Choice of
Inheritance:Self and CommunityfromEdmundBurketo RobertFrost (Cambridge,MA: Harvard
UniversityPress, 1989), 43-78; also note at 296: Burke's"understanding of contingency
can make paragraphsof his writing sound like Nietzsche."
28. Bromwich,A Choice of Inheritance,46-47, 78. The title phraseis found in Reflections,
(A) 46, (0)120, (P) 30.
29. C. B. MacPherson,Burke,Past MastersSeries (New York:Hill & Wang, 1980), 72-73.
30. Bromwich and Conor Cruise O'Brien stress these Burkeansympathies.See O'Bren's
"Introduction"to the Reflections.
31. lain Hampsher-Monk,The Political Philosophyof EdmundBurke(London:Longman,
1987), 42.
32. See O'Bren's "Introduction"to the Reflections,9-81; also his essays in TheSuspecting
Glance (London:Faber& Faber, 1972), 33-50, 67-91.
33. Isaac Kramnick,The Rage of EdmundBurke:Portrait of an AmbivalentConservative
(New York:Basic Books, 1977).
34. Bruce James Smith, Politics and Remembrance:Republican Themes m Machiavelli.
Burkeand Tocqueville(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1985), 151.
35. J.G.A. Pocock, "The Political Economyof Burke'sAnalysis of the FrenchRevolution,"
in Virtue,Commerce,and History (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1985), 209; also
his "Introduction" to theReflections,vii-lvl, and"Burkeandthe AncientConstitution:A Problem
in the Historyof Ideas,"in J.G.A. Pocock,Politics, Language,and Time(New York:Atheneum,
1972).
36. Hampsher-Monk,The Political Philosophyof EdmundBurke, 15.
37. Burkewrote an earlier letter to Depont, the "Gentlemanin Paris"of the dedication,in
November 1789. Two recent accounts of the writing of the Reflections are L. G. Mitchell,
"Introduction"to vol. 8 of The Writingsof Edmund Burke, 1-32; and F. P. Lock, Burke's
Reflectionson the Revolutionin France (London:GeorgeAllen, 1985), 31-61.
38. Writings8:364.
 Mosher/ THE SKEPTIC'SBURKE 417

39. Thomas Copeland, general ed., The Correspondenceof EdmundBurke, vol. 6: July
1789-December 1791, edited by Alfred Cobban and Robert Smith (Cambridge:Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1967), 10.
40. Writings8:12.
41. Works,Boston 3:220-21, London 8:275 ("Debate on the Army Estimate").Also see
Writings8:329 ("Letterto a Memberof the NationalAssembly,"1791).
42. These notionsare furtherarticulatedin the "Letterson a Regicide Peace."See Pocock's
discussion in the "Introduction"to Reflections, xxxvl-xxxviii, and in Virtue,Commerceand
History,205-8, also see my part4.
43. Correspondence6:24-26.
44. Schama,Citizens,853-54.
45. Reflections,(A) 264, (0) 375, (P) 217.
46. Works,Boston3:226, London8:279.
47. Reflections,(A) 47, (0) 121, (P) 31.
48. Reflections,(A) 78-99, (0) 157-81, (P) 57-75. This repeatedmotif defines the crucial
momentin the Revolutionfor Burke;the pages framedby this motif are concernedwith form
and authority.
49. Reflections,(A) 33, (0) 106, (P) 19.
50. Reflections,(A) 45, (0) 119, (P) 29.
51. Reflections,(A) 48, (0) 122-23; (P) 31-32.
52. Reflections,(A) 46, (0) 121, (P) 30.
53. Reflections,(A) 47, (0) 122, (P) 31.
54. Works,Boston 5:373; London5:253-54.
55. Works,Boston5:373-75, London5:254-55.The passagesdiscussedin theprecedingthree
paragraphsof the text are foundon these pages from"RegicidePeace,"LetterII.
56. Works,Boston 5:367-67, London5:256.
57. Correspondence6:81.
58. RobertShackleton, Montesquieu:A Critical Biography (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1961), 398.
59. Correspondence6:80-87 Also see "Appealfrom the New Whigs to the Old,"in Works,
Boston 4:211-12, London3:113. The passage is morecomplex and ambivalentthan it appears.
Burke evidently considered inserting this portraitof Montesquieuinto the Reflections. See
Correspondence6:341n, where a passage that could only be the one now in "The Appeal" is
assumedby FrenchLaurenceto be a partof the Reflections.
60. Correspondence6:80-81.
61. Correspondence9:49, in June 1796.
62. See, for instance, "Abridgmentof English History,"in Works,Boston 7:293, 315-16,
London6:281, 297.
63. Works,Boston 11:207. This passage is not in the London,Bohn edition.
64. Reflections,(A) 21-22, (0) 92, (P) 9. The Revolutionis both "outof nature"and "mon-
strous."This motif in Burkereappearsin MaryShelley'sFrankenstein,which is essentiallyabout
the Revolution.She was fascinatedwith Burke'sdescriptionof the fleeing MarieAntoinette.
65. Montesquieu,Esprit des lots, 14:3 (various editions). For an English translation,see
Montesquieu,TheSpirit of the Laws, edited and translatedby Anne Cohler, Basia Miller,and
HaroldStone (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress), 14:3.
66. Works,Boston 5:367, London5:249. For Robespierreon Montesquieu's"virtue,"see
BernardManin,"Montesquleu,"In TheCriticalDictionary, 730-31.
418 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

67. Writings8:338.
68. Works,Boston 5:175.
69. Writings8:488 ("Remarkson the Policy of the Allies," 1793).
70. Writings8:341-43 ("Thoughtson FrenchAffairs,"1791).
71. Writings8:343.
72. Works,Boston 7:331, London6:308 ("Abridgmentof English History").
73. Reflections,(A) 63, (0) 140, (P) 44.
74. Reflections,(A) 122-24, 170, 210; (0) 209-11, 264, 311; (P) 95-96, 136, 170.
75. Reflections,(A) 100, (0) 183, (P) 76.
76. Reflections,(A) 91, (0) 171, (P) 68. The famous passage follows, as the fruitof private
reasoning:"In the groves of theiracademy you see nothingbut the gallows."
77. Reflections,(A) 92, (0) 173, (P) 69.
78. Reflections,(A) 90, (0) 171, (P) 67.
79. Writings8:346 ("Thoughtson FrenchAffairs"). For Burke'sviews on the monied and
landed interests in the Reflections, (A) 122-23, (0) 209-11, (P) 95-96.
80. Writings8:347.
81. Writings8:365.
82. Reflections,(A) 206, (0) 306, (P) 167.
83. Reflections,(A) 227ff., (0) 331ff., (P) 185. Withyourarmy,"youhavethewolf by theears."
84. See notes 8 and 10.
85. Writings8:344, 346. See the contrast of country and urbanstyles in the Reflections,
(A) 210-11, (0) 311-13, (P) 170-71.
86. Works,Boston 5:240, London5:157.
87. Reflections,(A) 178, (0) 273, (P) 142.
88. Works,Boston 5:209.
89. Ibid., 196-97.
90. Ibid., 213.
91. Ibid., 217.
92. Ibid., 215.
93. Writings8:480 ("Remarkson the Policy of the Allies").
94. Works,Boston5:241,242, 243, 294; London5:158, 159, 196; "RegicidePeace,"LetterI.
95. Works,Boston 5:240, London5:157.
96. Works,Boston 6:100-1, London5:425, "Regicide Peace," LetterIV, 1797.
97. Reflections,(A) 46, 265; (0) 120,376; (P) 30, 218.

MichaelA. Mosher is anAssociate Professorin the Departmentof Political Science and

Assistant to the President for International Programs at the University of Tulsa in
Oklahoma.He has recentlypublisheda studyofRawls, Nozick,Sandel, andParfit in the
June 1991 issue of Political Studies under the title of "BoundaryRevisions: The
Deconstructionof Moral Personality."