Their resolution, their constancy, their high sense of the national need, were precisely the qualities Burke demanded in his governing class; and the States-General did not move from the straight path he laid down until they met with intrigue from those of whom Burke became the licensed champion.
Nor is it in the least clear that his emphasis upon expediency is, in any real way, a release from metaphysical inquiry.

Rather may it be urged that what was needed in Burke's philosophy was the clear avowal of the metaphysic it implied.

Nothing is more greatly wanted in political inquiry than discovery of that "intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise" which, as Mr.Justice Holmes has said, is the true foundation of so many of our political judgments.

The theory of natural rights upon which Burke heaped such contempt was wrong rather in its form than in its substance.

It clearly suffered from its mistaken effort to trace to an imaginary state of nature what was due to a complex experience.