Understanding history requires a variety of human capacities. Memory helps us to recognise a lapse of time and shape our own life, or personal history. The capacity to listen to and understand what other people say leads us to acquire knowledge and recall memories from the past. The ability to read, that had been historically gained only by some people, enables us to access written language and ideas of history created by someone in the past. The act of speaking, writing and communicating with others further helps in developing historical knowledge to create a more acute awareness of society, events and human conduct of the past.
These acts are by no means unusual human capacities and behaviours, which have continued to exist since the distant past. In this sense, Edmund Burke was only one of the individuals who used these capacities effectively to advance his career and his understanding of the world. As an eighteenth-century European intellectual, he regarded his own age as āenlightenedā while being conscious of the confusions and tragedies of previous centuries, which took place primarily in Europe but also spread to other parts of the world. Nevertheless, he was not optimistic as he believed that the enlightened society of his age might possibly be drawn back into disorder again at some point in the future. Burke, who died in 1797, is now part of history, and the present monograph is an inquiry into the historical views, knowledge and awareness of this historical figure, which the present author regards as worthy of substantial investigation.
1 Historiography, Scope and Aims
Burke is one of the most widely read and most influential figures among eighteenth-century British political intellectuals. For the last several decades, scholarship has been developed substantially, and various interpretations, both theoretical and historical, have been offered by commentators. On the one hand, theoretically oriented commentators have often read Burke from various perspectives of political theory and ideology. One of the most famous of such readings is ānatural lawā interpretations. In the context of the ideological conflicts of the Cold War after 1945, American conservatives regarded Burke as a great thinker indebted to the traditions of classical and Catholic natural law. They considered him to be the one who had advocated the values of the eighteenth-century European world, and whose political thought could be deployed later against communist nations, which were as revolutionary and atheistic as Jacobinism in the late eighteenth century.1 Burke has also been regarded as a utilitarian since the nineteenth century, and there was once an intense debate between those who supported this view and the ānatural lawā school.2 A Marxist commentator has disagreed with both these interpretations and has presented Burke as a ābourgeoisā politician who advocated both traditional and capitalist orders of society.3 Behind this interpretation was another tradition of regarding Burke as a ālaissez-faire economistā whose economic thought was essentially identical to that of Adam Smith.4 Furthermore, scholars of literature and philosophy attempted boldly to link Burkeās aesthetics and his political thought,5 and some commentators of international relations stressed Burkeās contributions to thought on international order and relations.6
In comparison to theoretical approaches, a historical approach has been produced rather slowly, but it seems to have become more influential in the current scholarship on Burke.7 At present, many scholars agree that Burkeās political thought needs to be understood in the intellectual arena of early modern Britain and Europe and that most of his political ideas, including his response to the French Revolution, were not reactionary, but rather often a variant of the Enlightenment ideas of his age. Well-informed about eighteenth-century British politics and society, such commentators have adopted historically nuanced interpretations which succeeded in uncovering the details of his political life and the historical contexts of his thought, from which various ideas of his on politics and civilisation sprang.8
The present book also adopts a historical approach, yet it is applied to the theme which has not been profoundly explored by commentators, that is, Edmund Burkeās views of history. This is a theme whose importance has been recognised for a long period of time, but that has nevertheless remained under-researched. While Burkeās obvious intelligence was recognised and admired by his contemporaries, this admiration at times included a commendation of his historical knowledge. For instance, one of his contemporaries, Henry Grattan, once remarked, āHis [Burkeās] knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretellingā.9 What was, actually, impressive to his contemporaries was the way in which Burke used history; that is to say, his historical ideas often appeared philosophical, imaginative and hence inspiring. In Samuel Taylor Coleridgeās words, no one āever read history so philosophically as he [Burke] seems to have doneā, although his speeches and writings include āso many half truthsā.10 Burkeās literary executors, Walker King and French Laurence , correctly recognised the notion of continuity-in-change in Burkeās thought:
the clear and penetrating sight of his [Burkeās] mind comprehended in one view all the parts of the immense whole, which varying from moment to moment, yet continuing through centuries essentially the same, extends around and above to every civilized people in every age, and unites and incorporates the present with the generations which are past.11
Walter Bagehot was one of Burkeās admirers in the high Victorian era, and according to him, āBurke first taught the world at largeā¦ that politics are made of time and placeāthat institutions are shifting things, to be tried by and adjusted to the shifting conditions of a mutable worldā.12 Burkeās idea of political order was linked to his idea of metaphysical order, and, in particular, his masterly depictions of the essence of society such as āthe partnership between the dead, the living and the future generationsā enabled his thought to continue to be influential. As Thomas B. Macaulay remarked, Burke āhad, in the highest degree, that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future, in the distant and in the unrealā.13
Even more remarkable is an association between his thought and āhistoricismā or āhistorical prudenceā, which was expressed as being opposed to the abstract reasoning of the French revolutionaries. According to William Graham , Burkeās Reflections on the Revolution in France adopted āthe new Historical Method of inquiry and explanationā.14 Leslie Stephen declared that āhis whole political doctrine from first to last, implies the profound conviction of the truth of the principles embodied in a thorough historical methodā.15 In the nineteenth century, the Burkean image of the British constitution as a great mansion which had been slowly shaped over time prevailed among both Victorian liberals and conservatives , although Burkeās influence on them was often hidden rather than explicitly recognised.16 As Morley once stated, it was, however, clear that his historical thought fitted well with the social and intellectual climate of the day.17
Burkeās political thought has frequently been identified as a notable example of the historical approach to politics . While modern history has seen a sharp rise in normative, deductive and theoretical political science, there has also existed a strong tradition of historical analysis of politics, exemplified by writers including Montesquieu , Hegel , Marx and Weber . The inclusion of Burke into this tradition seems correct in a broad, though somewhat loose, sense, and he may be of particular interest to modern readers because, unlike many other thinkers within this category, he was actively engaged in real politics as a parliamentarian.18 According to Carl Menger , Burke ātaught that what existed and had stood the test, what had developed historically, was again to be respected, in contrast to the projects of immature desire for innovationā. For him, Burkeās idea of social institutions as āthe unintended result of historical developmentā was inspiring and seemed to have some implications even for the economics of his age.19
In the context of the intellectual tensions in the debate over theory and practice, Burkeās āhistoricismā was, nonetheless, sometimes regarded as problematic rather than commendable. This was not because his historical thought was expressed in the Reflections with his own passionate language and peculiar rhetoric, which some commentators disliked. The problem lay in the interrelationship between history, theory and judgement of politics. That is to say, how could the appeal to history be reconciled with the general ideas of political theory and judgement? Since the publication of the Reflections , critics have at various times raised this question, and some of them clearly expressed their criticisms and disappointments. Among such later critics were Lord Acton and Leo Strauss . Acton was initially a great supporter of Burkeās thought, yet eventually changed to become one of those critical of Burkeās āhistoricismā. Ultimately, for Acton, Burke was ātoo historicā and his ideas on history prevented him from being āan entire liberalā.20 According to Strauss, in Burkeās thought, a sound social order may historically arise from a variety of accidents. While Burke prepared the way for āthe historical schoolā and for Hegel , he tended to deny human capacity to shape the political order.21 Chiefly focusing on the implications of some ideas in Burkeās historical thought, however, these critics did not attempt to work out a more comprehensive analysis of it.
Burkeās views on history were substantially explored for the first time in two American Ph.D. dissertations submitted in 1956.22 Both John C. Westonās and Walter D. Loveās theses surveyed Burkeās works comprehensively and chiefly concentrated on Burkeās general ideas on history. The main argument of Westonās dissertation was that Burkeās politics had chiefly been characterised by his understanding of history, yet, according to him, the French Revolution had presumably compelled Burke to revise his views of history late in his life.23 Westonās thesis was also excellent for its survey of the sources of Burkeās historical thought.24 On the other hand, according to Love, whereas history was a source of various āmodels and patternsā of societies for Burke, what he had in min...