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Conservative's Consolations

famous sentence of Burke's concerning innovations that are not necessarily reforms, "They shake the public security, they menace private enjoyment," shows the alliance between temperament and valuation. It was Burke's passionate delight in life's expression, rather than in life's adventure, that made him alive to its values. He was not averse to change: change is the law of the universe; but he changed in order to preserve. The constructive forces of the world persistently won his deference and support.

The intensely British desire to have a moral, and, if possible, a religious foundation for a political creed would command our deepest respect, were the human mind capable of accommodating its convictions to morality and religion, instead of accommodating morality and religion to its convictions. Cecil, a stern individualist, weighted with a heavy sense of personal responsibility, and dis-

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