EDMUND BURKE

Richard Bourke, Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2015) ("Improvement could only proceed on the basis of consensus. For this reason, toleration was a basic constituent of enlightenment. The necessary connection between enlightenment and toleration meant that moral and religious improvement were matters of persuasion. People could only be enlightened on the basis of consent, which was generated by a mixture of rational agreement and customary attachment. As Burke had come to realize by the middle of the 1750s, opinions were sustained by a blend of conviction and veneration. Veneration need not amount to blind attachment or superstition. It arose out of an 'implicit domination' for long-held beliefs that had the practicality of usage in their favour. The 'stable prejudice of time' disposed the mind to maintain its assent in support of habitual assumptions. . . Certainly, Burke concluded, public authority could not supply the place of voluntary agreement. "The coercive authority of the State is limited to what is necessary for its existence.' Force was never sufficient to convince the human mind. For this reason, influence rather than power was the principal means of reforming opinion. But even then, presumption was always 'on the side of possession.' Only encouragement, armed with favours and the prospect of benefit, could hope to shape the world of human judgment and allegiance." Id. at 221-222 (citations omitted).).