It is easy to show that his picture of the British Constitution was remote from the facts even when he wrote.

Every change that he opposed was essential to the security of the next generation; and there followed none of the disastrous consequences he had foreshadowed.

Such criticism would be at almost every point just; and yet it would fail to touch the heart of Burke's position.

What is mainly needed is analysis at once of his omissions and of the underlying assumptions of what he wrote.

Burke came to his maturity upon the eve of the Industrial Revolution; and we have it upon the authority of Adam Smith himself that no one had so clearly apprehended his own economic principles.