this, in itself, is unexceptionable; and it shows Burke's admirable
grasp of the practical application of attractive theories to the event.
But it is to be read in conjunction with a general hostility to basic
constitutional change which is more dubious. He had no sympathy with the
Radicals. "The bane of the Whigs," he said, "has been the admission
among them of the corps of schemers ... who do us infinite mischief by
persuading many sober and well-meaning people that we have designs
inconsistent with the Constitution left us by our forefathers." "If the
nation at large," he wrote in another letter, "has disposition enough to
oppose all bad principles and all bad men, its form of government is, in
my opinion, fully sufficient for it; but if the general disposition be
against a virtuous and manly line of public conduct, there is no form
into which it can be thrown that will improve its nature or add to its
energy"; and in the same letter he foreshadows a possible retirement
from the House of Commons as a protest against the growth of radical
opinion in his party. He resisted every effort to reduce the suffrage
qualification. He had no sympathy with the effort either to add to the
county representation or to abolish the rotten boroughs. The framework
of the parliamentary system seemed to him excellent. He deplored all
criticism of Parliament, and even the discussion of its essentials. "Our
representation," he said, "is as nearly perfect as the necessary
imperfections of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to
be." It was in the same temper that he resisted all effort at the
political relief of the Protestant dissenters. "The machine itself," he
had said, "is well enough to answer any good purpose, provided the
materials were sound"; and he never moved from that opinion.

Burke's attitude was obsolete even while he wrote; yet the
suggestiveness of his very errors makes examination of their ground
important. Broadly, he was protesting against natural right in the name