The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. | Page 7

of plausibility which accompanies vulgar reasonings and notions,
taken from the beaten circle of ordinary experience, that is admirably

suited to the narrow capacities of some, and to the laziness of others.
But this advantage is in a great measure lost, when a painful,
comprehensive survey of a very complicated matter, and which
requires a great variety of considerations, is to be made; when we must
seek in a profound subject, not only for arguments, but for new
materials of argument, their measures and their method of arrangement;
when we must go out of the sphere of our ordinary ideas, and when we
can never walk surely, but by being sensible of our blindness. And this
we must do, or we do nothing, whenever we examine the result of a
reason which is not our own. Even in matters which are, as it were, just
within our reach, what would become of the world, if the practice of all
moral duties, and the foundations of society, rested upon having their
reasons made clear and demonstrative to every individual?
The editor knows that the subject of this letter is not so fully handled as
obviously it might; it was not his design to say all that could possibly
be said. It had been inexcusable to fill a large volume with the abuse of
reason; nor would such an abuse have been tolerable, even for a few
pages, if some under-plot, of more consequence than the apparent
design, had not been carried on.
Some persons have thought that the advantages of the state of nature
ought to have been more fully displayed. This had undoubtedly been a
very ample subject for declamation; but they do not consider the
character of the piece. The writers against religion, whilst they oppose
every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. If
some inaccuracies in calculation, in reasoning, or in method, be found,
perhaps these will not be looked upon as faults by the admirers of Lord
Bolingbroke; who will, the editor is afraid, observe much more of his
lordship's character in such particulars of the following letter, than they
are likely to find of that rapid torrent of an impetuous and overbearing
eloquence, and the variety of rich imagery for which that writer is justly
admired.

A LETTER TO LORD ****.
Shall I venture to say, my lord, that in our late conversation, you were
inclined to the party which you adopted rather by the feelings of your
good nature, than by the conviction of your judgment? We laid open
the foundations of society; and you feared that the curiosity of this

search might endanger the ruin of the whole fabric. You would readily
have allowed my principle, but you dreaded the consequences; you
thought, that having once entered upon these reasonings, we might be
carried insensibly and irresistibly farther than at first we could either
have imagined or wished. But for my part, my lord, I then thought, and
am still of the same opinion, that error, and not truth of any kind, is
dangerous; that ill conclusions can only flow from false propositions;
and that, to know whether any proposition be true or false, it is a
preposterous method to examine it by its apparent consequences.
These were the reasons which induced me to go so far into that inquiry;
and they are the reasons which direct me in all my inquiries. I had
indeed often reflected on that subject before I could prevail on myself
to communicate my reflections to anybody. They were generally
melancholy enough; as those usually are which carry us beyond the
mere surface of things; and which would undoubtedly make the lives of
all thinking men extremely miserable, if the same philosophy which
caused the grief, did not at the same time administer the comfort.
On considering political societies, their origin, their constitution, and
their effects, I have sometimes been in a good deal more than doubt,
whether the Creator did ever really intend man for a state of happiness.
He has mixed in his cup a number of natural evils, (in spite of the
boasts of stoicism they are evils,) and every endeavor which the art and
policy of mankind has used from the beginning of the world to this day,
in order to alleviate or cure them, has only served to introduce new
mischiefs, or to aggravate and inflame the old. Besides this, the mind of
man itself is too active and restless a principle ever to settle on the true
point of quiet. It discovers every day some craving want in a body,
which really wants but little. It every day invents some new artificial
rule to guide that nature which, if left to itself, were the best and surest
guide.