Burke first taught the world at large … that politics are made of time and place – that institutions are shifting things, to be tried by and adjusted to the shifting conditions of a mutable world – that, in fact, politics are but a piece of business – to be determined in every case by the exact exigencies of that case: in plain English – by sense and circumstances.

It is, indeed, a peculiarity of our times that we must instruct so many persons … Even if we had a profound and far-seeing statesman, his deep ideas and long-reaching vision would be useless to us, unless we could impart a confidence in them to the mass of influential persons, to the unelected Commons, the unchosen Council, who assist at the deliberations of the nation … It is of no use addressing him with the forms of science, or the rigour of accuracy, or the tedium of exhaustive discussion. The multitude are impatient of system, desirous of brevity, puzzled by formality. They agree with Sydney Smith: ‘Political economy has become, in the hands of Malthus and Ricardo, a school of metaphysics. All seem agreed what is to be done: the contention is, how the subject is to be divided and defined. Meddle with no such matters’ … Such is the taste of mankind.