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descriptions of men than that of so many units is a "horrible usurpation."

He predicts in the following passage in the "Reflec"tions" the inevitable fate of the French Revolutionary system to end in a military despotism :

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'They have levelled and crushed together all the "orders which they found, even under the coarse, "unartificial arrangement of the monarchy. It is

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here, however, that every such classification, if "properly ordered, is good in all forms of government, and composes a strong barrier against the

excesses of despotism, as well as it is the necessary "means of giving effect and permanence to a Republic. "For want of something of this kind, if the present

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'project of a Republic should fail, all securities to a "moderated freedom fail along with it; all the "indirect restraints which mitigate despotism are "removed; insomuch that if monarchy should ever "again obtain an entire ascendancy in France, under "this or any other dynasty, it will probably be, if "not voluntarily tempered at setting out by the wise "and virtuous counsels of the prince, the most com

pletely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on "earth.

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"It is, besides, to be considered whether an

Assembly like yours, even supposing that it was in

'possession of another sort of organ through which "its orders were to pass, is fit for promoting the "obedience and discipline of an army. It is known "that armies have hitherto yielded a very precarious "and uncertain obedience to any senate, or popular authority. The officers must totally lose the "characteristic disposition of military men if they ટ see with perfect submission and due admiration the “dominion of lawyers......whose military policy and "the genius of whose command (if they have any) "must be as uncertain as their duration is transient. "In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in "the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will "remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, "until some popular general who understands the "art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses "the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of "all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on "his personal account. There is no other way of

securing military obedience in this state of things. "But the moment in which that event shall happen, "the person who really commands the army is your

"master; the master (that is little) of your king, the

"master of your Assembly, the master of your whole "Republic."

CHAPTER V.

BURKE ON CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES

BESIDES the speeches and writings from which we have already quoted, there are many other works of Burke which contain valuable teachings, most of which are as applicable to present-day problems as they were to the questions which agitated his own times. There is, for instance, the speech which he delivered at Bristol on November 3rd, 1774, after he had been declared elected for that city, in which he expressed his views as to the position and duty of a member of Parliament, and pointed out the distinction between a representative and a mere delegate with a hard-and-fast "mandate."

The following is the passage referred to :

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It ought to be the happiness and glory of a repre"sentative to live in the strictest union, the closest

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correspondence, and the most unreserved communi"cation with his constituents. Their wishes ought to "have great weight with him; their opinion, high

"respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is "his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his "satisfactions, to theirs; and, above all, ever and in "all cases to prefer their interest to his own. But "his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to

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you, to any man, or to any set of men living. "These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, "nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a "trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is "deeply answerable. Your representative owes you "not his industry only, but his judgment; and he 'betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

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"My worthy colleague says his will ought to be "subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is "innocent. If government were a matter of will "upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be "superior. But government and legislation are "matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclina"tion; and what sort of reason is that in which the "determination precedes the discussion; in which one "set of men deliberate and another decide; and where "those who form the conclusion are perhaps three