Reflections on the Revolution in France

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Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) by Edmund Burke exemplified the ideology of conservatism. Part I refuted the claim of Dr Richard Price that the French revolutionaries were following the English revolutionaries of 1688, in demanding a right to determine their own constitutional system. On the contrary, the English Whigs had sought to protect the established Anglican constitution from subversion by James II, a Roman catholic. In Part II, Burke enumerated the false principles of the revolutionaries in France, including libertinism, egalitarianism, disrespect for private property, atheism, and, above all, rationalism. He feared that the spirit of Jacobinism, unless challenged, would sweep through Europe undermining all traditional institutions.

Tim S. Gray