Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Written as a letter to a young Frenchman: against the revolution’s “rights of man” Burke defends inheritance, religion, property and “prejudice” as the accumulated wisdom of generations, and predicts that the revolution will end in violence and military rule.
Introduction
Burke published “Reflections on the Revolution in France” in London in November 1790, written as a letter to a young Frenchman, Charles-Jean-François Depont. Prompted by a sermon of the Dissenting minister Richard Price praising the revolution, it attacks the idea of abstract rights of man and defends inheritance, religion, property and established institutions as the accumulated wisdom of generations; it also predicts that the revolution would end in violence and military rule. The book sold widely, provoked replies from Wollstonecraft, Paine and many others, and split the Whig party. It became the founding text of modern conservatism; Friedrich Gentz translated it into German in 1793.
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Connections
Builds on
- The Spirit of the Laws1748 · Montesquieu
Answered in
- Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution in France1790 · Catharine Macaulay
More works by Edmund Burke
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