Introduction

Summary

What sort of thinker was Edmund Burke? His mind was equal to a wide range of concerns – theology, aesthetics, moral philosophy, history, political theory and public affairs – a range which seems bewilderingly diverse to the cautious eyes of a later day. In fact, these interests were intimately connected. Burke's theoretical writings suggested that the world was patterned unequally, whilst his practical works explored the possibilities of political inequality and, in the case of Reflections on the Revolution in France, defended it. The object of this introduction is to show the steps by which Burke moved to these positions.

When Burke was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin, he and his friends founded a society devoted, like many such before and since, to improving themselves and the world. We discover from the club's minute book and from the writings which Burke published at the same period that he concerned himself especially about three matters: the revealed word and its effectiveness; aesthetics and virtue; and the possibilities of power and wealth for the good of society.

The first concern was expressed in ‘an extempore commonplace of the Sermon of Our Saviour on the Mount’ and was amplified when Burke asserted ‘the superior Power of Religion towards a Moral Life’.