Burke and Hegel 175Burke’s conception of the nature of man is essentially a
Christian view, that man is imperfect and imperfectible. This
brought him into direct conflict with Rousseau and his concept
of the “Noble Savage.” Man in nature, according to Burke,
would be more disposed to evil than to good. There is no such
thing as a noble savage, so much as simply a savage, and all that
the word implies. Civil society, in fact, is the force which brings
some order, peace, security, enlightenment, and progress. Man
is civilized by society, its institutions, laws, traditions, religion,
and rational intercourse. There is a thin line between chaos and
order, and that line is civil society.
Burke is not, however, a rationalist. Man, according to him, is
too complex a being to be considered simply a rational being. He
is much more. Certainly man is reasonable, but probably not so
reasonable as he believes himself to be. There are in men natural
sentiments, faith, inclinations and prejudices— all of which
conspire to make the judgments of individuals suspect. There are
few, if any, absolutes which can be perceived by an individual’s
reason alone. Perhaps the concept that “the individual is foolish;
the species is wise” best conveys his position.
The state, then, is not a social contract in the sense that Locke
and Rousseau consider it to be. Rather it is the evolutionary
outgrowth of man’s natural needs. Civil society, in itself, is a
product of convention. But it is natural to the extent that it is
formed for a natural need and for a natural purpose. Burke would
argue against a social contract, but is committed to what could
be called an “eternal contract,” in that society is a “partnership
not only between those who are living, but between those who
are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be bom.”
Because of his vision of the limits of man’s reason, and the
abstract speculation about man in the state of nature, Burke is
skeptical of theoretical political concepts. The political theories
that men put on paper in the form of new constitutions that deal
with concepts such as “natural rights,” and words like liberty and
equality in the abstract—these are an anathema to Burke. He is
concerned with concrete relationships between men in civil
society, and these relationships grow out of real experiences of
people and institutions. Burke reveres law which has grown out
of religion, tradition, experience, and the successful relation
ships that develop over a long period of time, rather than new law