Vindication of Natural Society Hogeye Condensed Version
page 8
  • Burke now moves on to the interior (domestic) behavior of the State. He gives several reasons the State is deficient.


  • First, he points out how power corrupts. He refers to Machiavelli, who wrote the classic book on political expediency and Realpolitik - The Prince (1532.)









  • Governments frequently "infringe the Rules of Justice to support themselves," and lie to support "the reigning Interest." This is rationalized or covered up in the name of "reasons of State" or national security.







  • There is a contradiction. The State cannot protect Man's Rights by abrogating individual men's rights; it cannot enforce justice by violating justice.
This natural unpremediated Effect of Policy on the unpossessed Passions of Mankind, appears on other Occasions. The very Name of a Politician, a Statesman, is sure to cause Terror and Hatred; it has always connected with it the Ideas of Treachery, Cruelty, Fraud and Tyranny; and those Writers who have faithfully unveiled the Mysteries of State-freemasonry, have ever been held in general Detestation, for even knowing so perfectly a Theory so detestable. The Case of Machiavelli seems at first sight something hard in that Respect. He is obliged to bear the Iniquities of those whose Maxims and Rules of Government he published. His Speculation is more abhorred than their Practice.

But if there were no other Arguments against artificial Society than this I am going to mention, methinks it ought to fall by this one only. All Writers on the Science of Policy are agreed, and they agree with Experience, that all Governments must frequently infringe the Rules of Justice to support themselves; that Truth must give way to Dissimulation; Honesty to Convenience; and Humanity itself to the reigning Interest. The Whole of this Mystery of Iniquity is called the Reason of State.

It is a Reason, which I own I cannot penetrate. What Sort of a Protection is this of the general Right, that is maintained by infringing the Rights of Particulars? What sort of Justice is this, which is inforced by Breaches of its own Laws? These Paradoxes I leave to be solved by the able heads of Legislators and Politicians. For my part, I say what a plain Man would say on such an Occasion. I can never believe, that any Institution agreeable to Nature, and proper for Mankind, could find it necessary, or even expedient in any Case whatsoever to do, what the best and worthiest Instincts of Mankind warn us to avoid. But no wonder, that what is set up in Opposition to the State of Nature, should preserve itself by trampling upon the Law of Nature.

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