QUOTES: Story of Civilization, Will Durant, Vol.1, 1935, Ch.4, Section I

     https://archive.org/stream/TheStoryOfCivilizationcomplete/Durant_Will_-_The_story_of_civilization_1#page/n101/mode/2up/search/one+life

Pg.132

"The first task of those customs that constitute the moral code of a group is to regulate the relations of the sexes, for these are a perennial source of discord, violence, and possible degeneration. The basic form of this sexual regulation is marriage, which may be defined as the association of mates for the care of offspring. It is a variable and fluctuating institution, which has passed through almost every conceivable form and experiment in the course of its history, from the primitive care or offspring without the association of mates to the modern association of mates without the care of offspring."

Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.4, Section I, 1935

"[Charles Jean Marie Letourbeau, French anthropologist] said of marriage that 'every possible experiment compatible with the duration of savage or barbarian societies has been tried, or is still practiced, among various races, without the least thought of the moral ideas generally prevailing in Europe.' In addition to experiments in permanence there were experiments in relationship. In a few cases we find 'group marriage,' by which a number of men belonging to one group married collectively a number of women belonging to another group. In Tibet, for example, it was the custom for a group of brothers to marry a group of sisters, and for the two groups to practice sexual communism between them, each of the men cohabiting with each of the women. Caesar reported a similar custom in ancient Britain. Survivals of it appear in the 'levirate,' custom existing among the early Jews and other ancient peoples, by which a man was obligated to marry his brother's widow; this was the rule that so irked Onan."
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.4, Section I, 1935

"What was it that led men to replace the semi-promiscuity of primitive society with individual marriage? Since, in a great majority of nature peoples, there are few, if any, restraints on premarital relations, it is obvious that physical desire does not give rise to the institution of marriage. For marriage, with its restrictions and psychological irritations, could not possibly compete with sexual communism as a mode of satisfying the erotic propensities of men. Nor could the individual establishment offer at the outset any mode of rearing children that would be obviously superior to their rearing by the mother, her family, and the clan. Some powerful economic motives must have favored the evolution of marriage. In all probability (for again we must remind ourselves how little we really know of origins) these motives were connected with the rising institution of property.

   Individual marriage came through the desire of the male to have cheap slaves, and to avoid bequeathing his property to other men's children. [...] But monogamy, like letters and the state, is artificial, and belongs to the history, not to the origins, of civilization."

Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.4, Section I, 1935

"Whatever form the union might take, marriage was obligatory among nearly all primitive people. The unmarried male had no standing in the community, or was considered only half a man. Exogamy, too, was compulsory: that is to say, a man was expected to secure a wife from another clan than his own. Whether this custom arose because the primitive mind suspected the evil effects of close inbreeding, or because such intergroup marriages created or cemented useful political alliances, promoted social organization, and lessened the danger of war, or because the capture of a wife from another tribe had become the fashionable mark of male maturity, or because familiarity breeds contempt and distance lends enchantment to the view -- we do not know. In any case the restriction was well-nigh universal in early society; and though it was successfully violated by the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Incas, who all favored the marriage of brother and sister, it survived into Roman and modern aw and consciously or unconsciously moulds our behavior to this day."

Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.4, Section I, 1935

"In all these forms and varieties of marriage there is hardly a trace of romantic love. We find a few cases of love-marriages among the Papuans of New Guinea; among other primitive peoples we come upon instances of love (in the sense of mutual devotion rather than mutual need), but usually these attachments have nothing to do with marriage. In simple days men married for cheap labor, profitable parentage, and regular meals. "In Yariba," says Lander, "marriage is celebrated by the natives as unconcernedly as possible; a man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting an ear of corn -- affection is altogether out of the question." Since premarital relations are abundant in primitive society, passion is not damned up by denial, and seldom affects the choice of a wife. For the same reason -- the absence of delay between desire and fulfillment -- no time is given for the brooding introversion of frustrated, and therefore idealizing, passion which is usually the source of youthful romantic love. Such love is reserved for developed civilizations, in which morals have raised barriers against desire, and the growth of wealth has enabled some men to afford, and some women to provide, the luxuries and delicacies of romance; primitive people are too poor to be romantic. [...]"

Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.4, Section I, 1935

"[...] The primitive male looked upon marriage in terms not of sexual license but of economic cooperation. He expected the woman -- and the woman expected herself -- to be not so much gracious and beautiful (though he appreciated these qualities in her) as useful and industrious; she was to be an economic asset rather than a total loss; otherwise the matter-of-fact "savage" would never have thought of marriage at all. Marriage was a profitable partnership, not a private debauch; it was a way whereby a man and a woman, working together, might be more prosperous than if each worked alone. Wherever, in the history of civilization, woman has ceased to be an economic asset in marriage, marriage has decayed; and sometimes civilization has decayed with it."
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.4, Section I, 1935

QUOTES: Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, 1814, Vol.1, Ch.11

  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5998/5998-h/5998-h.htm

"The nonjuring clergyman was a pensive and interesting old man, with much of the air of a sufferer for conscience' sake. He was one of those

  Who, undeprived, their benefice forsook.
For this whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the nicety of his scruples. Indeed, it must be owned, that he himself, though at heart a keen partisan of the exiled family, had kept pretty fair with all the different turns of state in his time; so that Davie Gellatley once described him as a particularly good man, who had a very quiet and peaceful conscience, THAT NEVER DID HIM ANY HARM."

Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, Vol.1, Ch.11, 1814

"When the dinner was removed, the Baron announced the health of the King, politely leaving to the consciences of his guests to drink to the sovereign de facto or de jure, as their politics inclined. [...]

Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, Vol.1, Ch.11, 1814

"It was soon plain that what crumbs of reason the Bear had not devoured were to be picked up by the Hen; but the confusion which appeared to prevail favoured Edward's resolution to evade the gaily circling glass. The others began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own part in the conversation without the least respect to his neighbour. The Baron of Bradwardine sung French chansons-a-boire, and spouted pieces of Latin; Killancureit talked, in a steady unalterable dull key, of top-dressing and bottom-dressing, [Footnote: This has been censured as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years Since.] and year-olds, and gimmers, and dinmonts, and stots, and runts, and kyloes, and a proposed turnpike-act; while Balmawhapple, in notes exalted above both, extolled his horse, his hawks, and a greyhound called Whistler. In the middle of this din, the Baron repeatedly implored silence; and when at length the instinct of polite discipline so far prevailed that for a moment he obtained it, he hastened to beseech their attention 'unto a military ariette, which was a particular favourite of the Marechal Duc de Berwick'; then, imitating, as well as he could, the manner and tone of a French musquetaire, he immediately commenced,—

    Mon coeur volage, dit elle,
      N'est pas pour vous, garcon;
    Est pour un homme de guerre,
      Qui a barbe au menton.
                 Lon, Lon, Laridon.

    Qui port chapeau a plume,
      Soulier a rouge talon,
    Qui joue de la flute,
      Aussi du violon.
                 Lon, Lon, Laridon.

								 

Balmawhapple could hold no longer, but broke in with what he called a d—d good song, composed by Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the piper of Cupar; and, without wasting more time, struck up,—

    It's up Glenbarchan's braes I gaed,
    And o'er the bent of Killiebraid,
    And mony a weary cast I made,
      To cuittle the moor-fowl's tail.

[Footnote: Suum cuique. This snatch of a ballad was composed by Andrew MacDonald, the ingenious and unfortunate author of Vimonda.]

The Baron, whose voice was drowned in the louder and more obstreperous strains of Balmawhapple, now dropped the competition, but continued to hum 'Lon, Lon, Laridon,' and to regard the successful candidate for the attention of the company with an eye of disdain, while Balmawhapple proceeded,—

    If up a bonny black-cock should spring,
    To whistle him down wi' a slug in his wing,
    And strap him on to my lunzie string,
    Right seldom would I fail.

After an ineffectual attempt to recover the second verse, he sung the first over again; and, in prosecution of his triumph, declared there was 'more sense in that than in all the derry-dongs of France, and Fifeshire to the boot of it.' The Baron only answered with a long pinch of snuff and a glance of infinite contempt. But those noble allies, the Bear and the Hen, had emancipated the young laird from the habitual reverence in which he held Bradwardine at other times. He pronounced the claret shilpit, and demanded brandy with great vociferation. It was brought; and now the Demon of Politics envied even the harmony arising from this Dutch concert, merely because there was not a wrathful note in the strange compound of sounds which it produced. Inspired by her, the Laird of Balmawhapple, now superior to the nods and winks with which the Baron of Bradwardine, in delicacy to Edward, had hitherto checked his entering upon political discussion, demanded a bumper, with the lungs of a Stentor, 'to the little gentleman in black velvet who did such service in 1702, and may the white horse break his neck over a mound of his making!'

Edward was not at that moment clear-headed enough to remember that King William's fall, which occasioned his death, was said to be owing to his horse stumbling at a mole-hill; yet felt inclined to take umbrage at a toast which seemed, from the glance of Balmawhapple's eye, to have a peculiar and uncivil reference to the Government which he served. But, ere he could interfere, the Baron of Bradwardine had taken up the quarrel. 'Sir,' he said, 'whatever my sentiments tanquam privatus may be in such matters, I shall not tamely endure your saying anything that may impinge upon the honourable feelings of a gentleman under my roof. Sir, if you have no respect for the laws of urbanity, do ye not respect the military oath, the sacramentum militare, by which every officer is bound to the standards under which he is enrolled? Look at Titus Livius, what he says of those Roman soldiers who were so unhappy as exuere sacramentum, to renounce their legionary oath; but you are ignorant, sir, alike of ancient history and modern courtesy.'

'Not so ignorant as ye would pronounce me,' roared Balmawhapple. 'I ken weel that you mean the Solemn League and Covenant; but if a' the Whigs in hell had taken the—'

Here the Baron and Waverley both spoke at once, the former calling out, 'Be silent, sir! ye not only show your ignorance, but disgrace your native country before a stranger and an Englishman'; and Waverley, at the same moment, entreating Mr. Bradwardine to permit him to reply to an affront which seemed levelled at him personally. But the Baron was exalted by wine, wrath, and scorn above all sublunary considerations.

'I crave you to be hushed, Captain Waverley; you are elsewhere, peradventure, sui juris,—foris-familiated, that is, and entitled, it may be, to think and resent for yourself; but in my domain, in this poor Barony of Bradwardine, and under this roof, which is quasi mine, being held by tacit relocation by a tenant at will, I am in loco parentis to you, and bound to see you scathless. And for you, Mr. Falconer of Balmawhapple, I warn ye, let me see no more aberrations from the paths of good manners.'

'And I tell you, Mr. Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine of Bradwardine and Tully-Veolan,' retorted the sportsman in huge disdain, 'that I'll make a moor-cock of the man that refuses my toast, whether it be a crop-eared English Whig wi' a black ribband at his lug, or ane wha deserts his ain friends to claw favour wi' the rats of Hanover.'

In an instant both rapiers were brandished, and some desperate passes exchanged. Balmawhapple was young, stout, and active; but the Baron, infinitely more master of his weapon, would, like Sir Toby Belch, have tickled his opponent other gates than he did had he not been under the influence of Ursa Major.

Edward rushed forward to interfere between the combatants, but the prostrate bulk of the Laird of Killancureit, over which he stumbled, intercepted his passage. How Killancureit happened to be in this recumbent posture at so interesting a moment was never accurately known. Some thought he was about to insconce himself under the table; he himself alleged that he stumbled in the act of lifting a joint-stool, to prevent mischief, by knocking down Balmawhapple. Be that as it may, if readier aid than either his or Waverley's had not interposed, there would certainly have been bloodshed. But the well-known clash of swords, which was no stranger to her dwelling, aroused Luckie Macleary as she sat quietly beyond the hallan, or earthen partition of the cottage, with eyes employed on Boston's 'Crook the Lot,' while her ideas were engaged in summing up the reckoning. She boldly rushed in, with the shrill expostulation, 'Wad their honours slay ane another there, and bring discredit on an honest widow-woman's house, when there was a' the lee-land in the country to fight upon?' a remonstrance which she seconded by flinging her plaid with great dexterity over the weapons of the combatants. The servants by this time rushed in, and being, by great chance, tolerably sober, separated the incensed opponents, with the assistance of Edward and Killancureit. The latter led off Balmawhapple, cursing, swearing, and vowing revenge against every Whig, Presbyterian, and fanatic in England and Scotland, from John-o'-Groat's to the Land's End, and with difficulty got him to horse. Our hero, with the assistance of Saunders Saunderson, escorted the Baron of Bradwardine to his own dwelling, but could not prevail upon him to retire to bed until he had made a long and learned apology for the events of the evening, of which, however, there was not a word intelligible, except something about the Centaurs and the Lapithae." 

Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, Vol.1, Ch.11, 1814 (italics added)

QUOTES: Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, 1814, Vol.1, Ch.10

  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5998/5998-h/5998-h.htm

"[...] the appearance of the Baron of Bradwardine in person, who, summoned by David Gellatley, now appeared, 'on hospitable thoughts intent,' clearing the ground at a prodigious rate with swift and long strides, which reminded Waverley of the seven-league boots of the nursery fable. He was a tall, thin, athletic figure, old indeed and grey-haired, but with every muscle rendered as tough as whip-cord by constant exercise. He was dressed carelessly, and more like a Frenchman than an Englishman of the period, while, from his hard features and perpendicular rigidity of stature, he bore some resemblance to a Swiss officer of the guards, who had resided some time at Paris, and caught the costume, but not the ease or manner, of its inhabitants. The truth was, that his language and habits were as heterogeneous as his external appearance.

   Owing to his natural disposition to study, or perhaps to a very general Scottish fashion of giving young men of rank a legal education, he had been bred with a view to the bar. But the politics of his family precluding the hope of his rising in that profession, Mr. Bradwardine travelled with high reputation for several years, and made some campaigns in foreign service. After his demele with the law of high treason in 1715, he had lived in retirement, conversing almost entirely with those of his own principles in the vicinage. The pedantry of the lawyer, superinduced upon the military pride of the soldier, might remind a modern of the days of the zealous volunteer service, when the bar-gown of our pleaders was often flung over a blazing uniform. To this must be added the prejudices of ancient birth and Jacobite politics, greatly strengthened by habits of solitary and secluded authority, which, though exercised only within the bounds of his half-cultivated estate, was there indisputable and undisputed. For, as he used to observe, 'the lands of Bradwardine, Tully-Veolan, and others, had been erected into a free barony by a charter from David the First, cum liberali potest. habendi curias et justicias, cum fossa et furca (LIE, pit and gallows) et saka et soka, et thol et theam, et infang-thief et outfang-thief, sive hand-habend, sive bak-barand.' The peculiar meaning of all these cabalistical words few or none could explain; but they implied, upon the whole, that the Baron of Bradwardine might, in case of delinquency, imprison, try, and execute his vassals at his pleasure. Like James the First, however, the present possessor of this authority was more pleased in talking about prerogative than in exercising it; and excepting that he imprisoned two poachers in the dungeon of the old tower of Tully-Veolan, where they were sorely frightened by ghosts, and almost eaten by rats, and that he set an old woman in the jougs (or Scottish pillory) for saying' there were mair fules in the laird's ha' house than Davie Gellatley,' I do not learn that he was accused of abusing his high powers. Still, however, the conscious pride of possessing them gave additional importance to his language and deportment."

Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, Vol.1, Ch.10, 1814

"[...] Rank and ancestry, sir, should be the last words in the mouths of us of unblemished race[.]"
Spoken by Baron of Bradwardine, Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, Vol.1, Ch.10, 1814

QUOTES: Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, 1814, Vol.1, Ch.9

  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5998/5998-h/5998-h.htm

"But Rose Bradwardine deserves better of her unworthy historian than to be introduced at the end of a chapter."

Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, Vol.1, Ch.9, 1814

QUOTES: Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke, 1790, Pt.6B

 Listened to audiobook through Hoopla app.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15679/15679-h/15679-h.htm#REFLECTIONS

In this post, in order to hopefully fortify my own understanding, I have organized the quotes which I copied into categories, rather than preserving the order in which they are read in the original book. Please bear with me.

THE NATURE OF REVOLUTION

"When men of rank sacrifice all ideas of dignity to an ambition without a distinct object, and work with low instruments and for low ends, the whole composition becomes low and base. Does not something like this now appear in France? Does it not produce something ignoble and inglorious: a kind of meanness in all the prevalent policy; a tendency in all that is done to lower along with individuals all the dignity and importance of the state? Other revolutions have been conducted by persons who, whilst they attempted or affected changes in the commonwealth, sanctified their ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose peace they troubled. They had long views. They aimed at the rule, not at the destruction of their country. They were men of great civil and great military talents, and if the terror, the ornament of their age. They were not like Jew brokers contending with each other who could best remedy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated paper the wretchedness and ruin brought on their country by their degenerate councils.[...]

   These disturbers were not so much like men usurping power as asserting their natural place in society. Their rising was to illuminate and beautify the world. Their conquest over their competitors was by outshining them. The hand, that, like a destroying angel, smote the country, communicated to it the force and energy under which it suffered. I do not say, (God forbid!) I do not say that the virtues of such men were to be taken as a balance to their crimes; but they were some corrective to their effects. [...]

   [...] It is a thing to be wondered at, to see how very soon France, when she had a moment to respire, recovered and emerged from the longest and most dreadful civil war [I think called today the French Wars of Religion, 1562-1598] that ever was known in any nation. Why? Because, among all their massacres, they had not slain the mind in their country. A conscious dignity, a noble pride, a generous sense of glory and emulation, was not extinguished. On the contrary, it was kindled and inflamed. The organs also of the state, however shattered, existed. All the prizes of honor and virtue, all the rewards, all the distinctions, remained.

   But your present confusion, like a palsy, has attacked the fountain of life itself. Every person in your country, in a situation to be actuated by a principle of honor, is disgraced and degraded, and can entertain no sensation of life, except in a mortified and humiliated indignation. But this generation will quickly pass away. The next generation of the nobility will resemble the artificers and clowns, and money-jobbers, usurers, [...], who will be always their fellows, sometimes their masters. Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level never equalize.[...]"

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (formatting added)

[The great and spacious building standing in the air]

MAN AGAINST NATURE

"Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. The levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things: they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. The associations of tailors and carpenters, of which the republic (of Paris, for instance) is composed, cannot be equal to the situation into which, by the worst of usurpations, an usurpation on the prerogatives of Nature, you attempt to force them."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (formatting added)

EQUALITY

"The Chancellor of France, at the opening of the States, said, in a tone of oratorial flourish, that all occupations were honorable. If he meant only that no honest employment was disgraceful, he would not have gone beyond the truth. But in asserting that anything is honorable, we imply some distinction in its favor. The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honor to any person,—to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with Nature.
   I do not, my dear Sir, conceive you to be of that sophistical, captious spirit, or of that uncandid dullness, as to require, for every general observation or sentiment, an explicit detail of the correctives and exceptions which reason will presume to be included in all the general propositions which come from reasonable men. You do not imagine that I wish to confine power, authority, and distinction to blood and names and titles. No, Sir. There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. Wherever they are actually found, they have, in whatever state, condition, profession, or trade, the passport of Heaven to human place and honor. Woe to the country which would madly and impiously reject the service of the talents and virtues, civil, military, or religious, that are given to grace and to serve it; and would condemn to obscurity everything formed to diffuse lustre and glory around a state! Woe to that country, too, that, passing into the opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean, contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a preferable title to command! Everything ought to be open,—but not indifferently to every man. No rotation, no appointment by lot, no mode of election operating in the spirit of sortition or rotation, can be generally good in a government conversant in extensive objects; because they have no tendency, direct or indirect, to select the man with a view to the duty, or to accommodate the one to the other. I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all rare things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be opened through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 

"It is said that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for its second: to men who may reason calmly it is ridiculous The will of the many, and their interest, must very often differ; and great will be the difference when they make an evil choice. A government of five hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is not good for twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen by eight-and-forty millions; nor is it the better for being guided by a dozen of persons of quality who have betrayed their trust in order to obtain that power. [...]"

REPRESENTATION OF ABILITY AS WELL AS PROPERTY, TWO SEPARATE INTERESTS

"Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state, that does not represent its ability, as well as its property. But as ability is a vigorous and active principle, and as property is sluggish, inert, and timid, it never can be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it be, out of all proportion, predominant in the representation. It must be represented, too, in great masses of accumulation, or it is not rightly protected. The characteristic essence of property, formed out of the combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be unequal. The great masses, therefore, which excite envy, and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations. The same quantity of property which is by the natural course of things divided among many has not the same operation. Its defensive power is weakened as it is diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of the few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably small in the distribution to the many. But the many are not capable of making this calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend this distribution."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

"[...] Of course property is destroyed, and rational liberty has no existence. [...]"

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

INHERITANCE

"The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends hereditary possession, (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission. [...] Let those large proprietors be what they will, (and they have their chance of being amongst the best,) they are, at the very worst, the ballast in the vessel of the commonwealth. For though hereditary wealth, and the rank which goes with it, are too much idolized by creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated preëminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

CONSOLIDATION OF POWER, TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY, MOBOCRACY

"[...] as to the future, do you seriously think that the territory of France, upon the republican system of eighty-three independent municipalities, (to say nothing of the parts that compose them,) can ever be governed as one body, or can ever be set in motion by the impulse of one mind? When the National Assembly has completed its work, it will have accomplished its ruin. These commonwealths will not long bear a state of subjection to the republic of Paris. They will not bear that this one body should monopolize the captivity of the king, and the dominion over the assembly calling itself national. Each will keep its own portion of the spoil of the Church to itself; and it will not suffer either that spoil, or the more just fruits of their industry, or the natural produce of their soil, to be sent to swell the insolence or pamper the luxury of the mechanics of Paris. In this they will see none of the equality, under the pretence of which they have been tempted to throw off their allegiance to their sovereign, as well as the ancient constitution of their country.

   There can be no capital city in such a constitution as they have lately made. They have forgot, that, when they framed democratic governments, they had virtually dismembered their country. The person whom they persevere in calling king has not power left to him by the hundredth part sufficient to hold together this collection of republics. The republic of Paris will endeavor, indeed, to complete the debauchery of the army, and illegally to perpetuate the Assembly, without resort to its constituents, as the means of continuing its despotism. It will make efforts, by becoming the heart of a boundless paper circulation, to draw everything to itself: but in vain. All this policy in the end will appear as feeble as it is now violent."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

Remember that [you were told], that, in calling the states together, [you] had nothing to fear but the prodigal excess of their zeal in providing for the support of the throne. It is right that these men should hide their heads. It is right that they should bear their part in the ruin which their counsel has brought on their sovereign and their country. Such sanguine declarations tend to lull authority asleep,—to encourage it rashly to engage in perilous adventures of untried policy,—to neglect those provisions, preparations, and precautions which distinguish benevolence from imbecility, and without which no man can answer for the salutary effect of any abstract plan of government or of freedom.

----

"Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primæval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force; but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow."

QUOTES: Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke, 1790, Pt.6A

Listened to audiobook through Hoopla app.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15679/15679-h/15679-h.htm#REFLECTIONS

In this post, in order to hopefully fortify my own understanding, I have organized the quotes which I copied into categories, rather than preserving the order in which they are read in the original book. Please bear with me.

[The converse of "a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet"]

"[...] If we were to know nothing of this assembly but by its title and function, no colors could paint to the imagination anything more venerable. In that light, the mind of an inquirer, subdued by such an awful image as that of the virtue and wisdom of a whole people collected into one focus, would pause and hesitate in condemning things even of the very worst aspect. Instead of blamable, they would appear only mysterious. [...]"

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

"To observing men it must have appeared from the beginning, that the majority of the third estate, in conjunction with such a deputation from the clergy as I have described, whilst it pursued the destruction of the nobility, would inevitably become subservient to the worst designs of individuals in that class. In the spoil and humiliation of their own order these individuals would possess a sure fund for the pay of their new followers. To squander away the objects which made the happiness of their fellows would be to them no sacrifice at all. Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order. One of the first symptoms they discover of a selfish and mischievous ambition is a profligate disregard of a dignity which they partake with others. To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (italics added)

CHARACTER OF THE ASSEMBLY OBSERVED AT THAT TIME

"This unforced choice, this fond election of evil, would appear perfectly unaccountable, if we did not consider the composition of the National Assembly: I do not mean its formal constitution, which, as it now stands, is exceptionable enough, but the materials [i.e., the people, the participants, the representatives] of which in a great measure it is composed, which is of ten thousand times greater consequence than all the formalities in the world. [...]"

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (italics added)

"[...] But no name, no power, no function, no artificial institution whatsoever, can make the men, of whom any system of authority is composed, any other than God, and Nature, and education, and their habits of life have made them. Capacities beyond these the people have not to give. Virtue and wisdom may be the objects of their choice; but their choice confers neither the one nor the other on those upon whom they lay their ordaining hands. They have not the engagement of Nature, they have not the promise of Revelation for any such powers."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

[I remember deciding a long time ago, having developing a firm enough understanding of the human ear, and letting sufficient experience distill that understanding, I decided that nothing a patient could report to me would surprise me. Not being surprised is not the same as possessing all knowledge on the topic, but at the same, it is also not the same as not knowing what a diagnostically relevant.]

"[...] After I had read over the list of the persons and descriptions elected into the Tiers État, nothing which they afterwards did could appear astonishing. Among them, indeed, I saw some of known rank, some of shining talents; but of any practical experience in the state not one man was to be found. The best were only men of theory. But whatever the distinguished few may have been, it is the substance and mass of the body which constitutes its character, and must finally determine its direction.

    But whatever the distinguished few may have been, it is the substance and mass of the body which constitutes its character, and must finally determine its direction. In all bodies, those who will lead must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talents disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects. If, what is the more likely event, instead of that unusual degree of virtue, they should be actuated by sinister ambition and a lust of meretricious glory, then the feeble part of the assembly, to whom at first they conform, becomes, in its turn, the dupe and instrument of their designs. In this political traffic, the leaders will be obliged to bow to the ignorance of their followers, and the followers to become subservient to the worst designs of their leaders.

   To secure any degree of sobriety in the propositions made by the leaders in any public assembly, they ought to respect, in some degree perhaps to fear, those whom they conduct. To be led any otherwise than blindly, the followers must be qualified, if not for actors, at least for judges; they must also be judges of natural weight and authority. Nothing can secure a steady and moderate conduct in such assemblies, but that the body of them should be respectably composed, in point of condition in life, of permanent property, of education, and of such habits as enlarge and liberalize the understanding."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (italics added)

CONSTITUTIONAL (that is, STRUCTURAL) OBSERVATIONS

"In the calling of the States-General of France, the first thing that struck me was a great departure from the ancient course. I found the representation for the third estate composed of six hundred persons. They were equal in number to the representatives of both the other orders. If the orders were to act separately, the number would not, beyond the consideration of the expense, be of much moment. But when it became apparent that the three orders were to be melted down into one, the policy and necessary effect of this numerous representation became obvious. A very small desertion from either of the other two orders must throw the power of both into the hands of the third. In fact, the whole power of the state was soon resolved into that body. Its due composition became, therefore, of infinitely the greater importance."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

"[...]  The power, however, of the House of Commons, when least diminished, is as a drop of water in the ocean, compared to that residing in a settled majority of your National Assembly. That assembly, since the destruction of the orders, has no fundamental law, no strict convention, no respected usage to restrain it. Instead of finding themselves obliged to conform to a fixed constitution, they have a power to make a constitution which shall conform to their designs. Nothing in heaven or upon earth can serve as a control on them. What ought to be the heads, the hearts, the dispositions, that are qualified, or that dare, not only to make laws under a fixed constitution, but at one heat to strike out a totally new constitution for a great kingdom, and in every part of it, from the monarch on the throne to the vestry of a parish? But 

   "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

In such a state of unbounded power, for undefined and undefinable purposes, the evil of a moral and almost physical inaptitude of the man to the function must be the greatest we can conceive to happen in the management of human affairs."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

QUALIFICATIONS (i.e., BEYOND BEING AN INTEREST)

"[...] But whilst I revere men in the functions which belong to them, and would do as much as one man can do to prevent their exclusion from any, I cannot, to flatter them, give the lie to Nature. They are good and useful in the composition; they must be mischievous, if they preponderate so as virtually to become the whole. Their very excellence in their peculiar functions may be far from a qualification for others. It cannot escape observation, that, when men are too much confined to professional and faculty habits, and, as it were, inveterate in the recurrent employment of that narrow circle, they are rather disabled than qualified for whatever depends on the knowledge of mankind, on experience in mixed affairs, on a comprehensive, connected view of the various, complicated, external, and internal interests which go to the formation of that multifarious thing called a State."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE ASSEMBLY

"Judge, Sir, of my surprise, when I found that a very great proportion of the Assembly (a majority, I believe, of the members who attended) was composed of practitioners in the law. It was composed, not of distinguished magistrates, who had given pledges to their country of their science, prudence, and integrity,—not of leading advocates, the glory of the bar,—not of renowned professors in universities,—but for the far greater part, as it must in such a number, of the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession. There were distinguished exceptions; but the general composition was of obscure provincial advocates, of stewards of petty local jurisdictions, country attorneys, notaries, and the whole train of the ministers of municipal litigation, the fomenters and conductors of the petty war of village vexation. From the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and very nearly as it has happened, all that was to follow."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

"[...] I took a view of the representatives of the clergy. There, too, it appeared that full as little regard was had to the general security of property, or to the aptitude of the deputies for their public purposes, in the principles of their election. That election was so contrived as to send a very large proportion of mere country curates to the great and arduous work of new-modelling a state: men who never had seen the state so much as in a picture; men who knew nothing of the world beyond the bounds of an obscure village; who, immersed in hopeless poverty, could regard all property, whether secular or ecclesiastical, with no other eye than that of envy; among whom must be many who, for the smallest hope of the meanest dividend in plunder, would readily join in any attempts upon a body of wealth in which they could hardly look to have any share, except in a general scramble. Instead of balancing the power of the active chicaners in the other assembly, these curates must necessarily become the active coadjutors, or at best the passive instruments, of those by whom they had been habitually guided in their petty village concerns. They, too, could hardly be the most conscientious of their kind, who, presuming upon their incompetent understanding, could intrigue for a trust which led them from their natural relation to their flocks, and their natural spheres of action, to undertake the regeneration of kingdoms. This preponderating weight, being added to the force of the body of chicane in the Tiers État, completed that momentum of ignorance, rashness, presumption, and lust of plunder, which nothing has been able to resist."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

"To these were joined men of other descriptions, from whom as little knowledge of or attention to the interests of a great state was to be expected, and as little regard to the stability of any institution,—men formed to be instruments, not controls.—Such, in general, was the composition of the Tiers État in the National Assembly; in which was scarcely to be perceived the slightest traces of what we call the natural landed interest of the country."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

CHARACTER OF THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSEMBLY (i.e., You Must Be Prepared to Wield Power)

"The degree of estimation in which any profession is held becomes the standard of the estimation in which the professors hold themselves. [...] Whenever the supreme authority is vested in a body so composed, it must evidently produce the consequences of supreme authority placed in the hands of men not taught habitually to respect themselves,—who had no previous fortune in character at stake,—who could not be expected to bear with moderation or to conduct with discretion a power which they themselves, more than any others, must be surprised to find in their hands. Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness? Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable chicane? Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well? It was not an event depending on chance or contingency. It was inevitable; it was necessary; it was planted in the nature of things. They must join (if their capacity did not permit them to lead) in any project which could procure to them a litigious constitution,—which could lay open to them those innumerable lucrative jobs which follow in the train of all great convulsions and revolutions in the state, and particularly in all great and violent permutations of property. Was it to be expected that they would attend to the stability of property, whose existence had always depended upon whatever rendered property questionable, ambiguous, and insecure? Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (italics added)

"There were, in the time of our civil troubles in England, (I do not know whether you have any such in your Assembly in France,) several persons, like the then Earl of Holland, who by themselves or their families had brought an odium on the throne by the prodigal dispensation of its bounties towards them, who afterwards joined in the rebellions arising from the discontents of which they were themselves the cause: men who helped to subvert that throne to which they owed, some of them, their existence, others all that power which they employed to ruin their benefactor. If any bounds are set to the rapacious demands of that sort of people, or that others are permitted to partake in the objects they would engross, revenge and envy soon fill up the craving void that is left in their avarice. Confounded by the complication of distempered passions, their reason is disturbed; their views become vast and perplexed,—to others inexplicable, to themselves uncertain. They find, on all sides, bounds to their unprincipled ambition in any fixed order of things; but in the fog and haze of confusion all is enlarged, and appears without any limit."

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 (italics added)

FFL Quotes: History of England, David Hume, 1762, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3

  http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10574/pg10574-images.html

NOTE: The chapters in the text of Hume's History of England are not subdivided into Sections, as my posts will be. The Sections will broadly (not always exactly) correspond with the subdivisions of the LibraVox recording of the book to which I am listening.

"After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult to adjust the other differences. [...]"
David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"During the course of these controversies, a synod [Council of London, 1102, called by Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury] was held at Westminster, where the king, intent only on the main dispute, allowed some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote the usurpations of the clergy. The celibacy of priests was enjoined, a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of affinity. By this contrivance the pope augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and likewise those from divorces. For as the art of writing was then rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and any man who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was permitted by the canons.[...]"

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry's ambition; being the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory, which, while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration on the continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source of great inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to impose on his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes, of which all the historians of that age unanimously complain."

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"[...] [Henry I] knew how to defend the rights of his crown with vigour, and yet with dexterity.[...]"

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"[MN 1120. Death of Prince William.] But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a domestic calamity which befel him. His only son, William, had now reached his eighteenth year, and the king, from the facility with which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of that duchy. The king, on his return, set sail from Barfleur, and was soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land. The prince was detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent the interval in drinking, were so flustered, that being in a hurry to follow the king, they heedlessly carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered. William was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship, when, hearing the cries of his natural sister, the Countess of Perche, he ordered the seamen to row back in hopes of saving her; but the numbers who then crowded in soon sunk the boat; and the prince, with all his retinue, perished. Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this occasion. A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped. He clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by fishermen. Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast, but being informed by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that he would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into the sea. Henry entertained hopes for three days, that his son had put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked, that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted cheerfulness."
David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil wars, which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in the kingdom; but it is remarkable, that the young prince had entertained a violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to threaten, that when he should be king, he would make them draw the plough, and would turn them into beasts of burden. These prepossessions he inherited from his father, who, though he was wont, when it might serve his purpose, to value himself on his birth, as a native of England, showed, in the course of his government, an extreme prejudice against that people. All hopes of preferment, to ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities, were denied them during this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless, was sure to have the preference in every competition. As the English had given no disturbance to the government during the course of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much temper as well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of that age were still a rude and barbarous people, even compared to the Normans, and impresses us with no very favourable idea of the Anglo-Saxon manners."
David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"The chief merit of this monarch [Henry I]'s government consists in the profound tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his dominions during the greater part of his reign. The mutinous barons were retained in subjection; and his neighbours, in every attempt which they made upon him, found him so well prepared, that they were discouraged from continung or renewing their enterprises. [...] Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in England, it was judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as the necessity of his affairs would permit. [...]"

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"[...] [Henry I] wanted not attention to the redress of grievances; and historians mention in particular the levying of purveyance, which he endeavoured to moderate and restrain. The tenants in the king's demesne lands were at that time obliged to supply, GRATIS, the court with provisions, and to furnish carriages on the same hard terms, when the king made a progress, as he did frequently, into any of the counties. These exactions were so grievous, and levied in so licentious a manner, that the farmers, when they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted their houses as if an enemy had invaded the country, and sheltered their persons and families in the woods from the insults of the king's retinue. Henry prohibited those enormities, and punished the persons guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members. But the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry was temporary; and the violence itself of this remedy, so far from giving security to the people, was only a proof of the ferocity of the government, and threatened a quick return of like abuses."

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762 (italics added)

"[...] It was a usual maxim with every pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to resume, at a proper juncture, the claim which seemed to be resigned, and to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority only from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff. [...]"

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"This prince was one of the most accomplished that has filled the English throne, and possessed all the great qualities both of body and mind, natural and acquired which could fit him for the high station to which he attained. His person was manly, his countenance engaging, his eyes clear, serene, and penetrating. The affability of his address encouraged those who might be overawed by the sense of his dignity or of his wisdom; and though he often indulged his facetious humour, he knew how to temper it with discretion, and ever kept at a distance from all indecent familiarities with his courtiers. His superior eloquence and judgment would have given him an ascendant, even had he been born in a private station; and his personal bravery would have procured him respect, though it had been less supported by art and policy. By his great progress in literature, he acquired the name of BEAUCLERK, or the Scholar: but his application to those sedentary pursuits abated nothing of the activity and vigilance of his government; and though the learning of that age was better fitted to corrupt than improve the understanding, his natural good sense preserved itself untainted both from the pedantry and superstition which were then so prevalent among men of letters. His temper was susceptible of the sentiments as well of friendship as of resentment; and his ambition though high, might be deemed moderate and reasonable, had not his conduct towards his brother and nephew showed that he was too much disposed to sacrifice to it all the maxims of justice and equity. But the total incapacity of Robert for government afforded his younger brother a reason or pretence for seizing the sceptre both of England and Normandy; and when violence and usurpation are once begun, necessity obliges a prince to continue in the same criminal course, and engages him in measures which his better judgment and sounder principles would otherwise have induced him to reject with warmth and indignation."

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762

"It is said, that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants, changed the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind, into money, which was more easily remitted to the exchequer. But the great scarcity of coin would render that commutation difficult to be executed, while at the same time provisions could not be sent to a distant quarter of the kingdom. This affords a probable reason why the ancient kings of England so frequently changed their place of abode: they carried their court from one place to another, that they might consume upon the spot the revenue of their several demesnes."

David Hume, History of England, Vol.1, Ch.6, Section 3, 1762