Attempts a comprehensive critique of Burke’s view of radical theory and revolution, considering the parliamentarian’s work from the philosophic perspectives of metaphysics, epistemology, sociopolitical theory, and so on. The effort is enlightening but ultimately fails: Burke sought practical results not theoretic coherence. He saw that although public evil might stem from rulers or their agents, you cannot cure it by abolishing power, and that revolution always leads from anarchy to tyranny (i.e., restored order).
            Burke held the political universe is orderly because it is a component of nature, so to revolt is to oppose nature. Reason is sovereign, but divorced from experience it’s dangerous. Therefore Burke’s metaphysics belongs to classical (rationalist) natural law but his epistemology is empiricist, Freeman says, adding that for Burke experience tended to prevail over prescription and further his metaphysics ‘collapsed’ as the French Revolution persisted. But: strictly scientific experience leads to bad politics, since social knowledge does not operate and proceed as scientific knowledge.

            Diving deeper into sociology, Burke differed from Locke, who thought society’s purpose is to protect natural rights, in thinking that it is to improve social knowledge, wealth, and morality. His means of enforcement were Hobbesian and gravitated to aristocratic (i.e., meritocratic) order, accepting the possibility of pathologies because the alternative (revolution dispensing with circumstances of social advantages) was worse. Such sociology is said to contend with metaphysics, the latter seeing ideas and society forming over time, the former shaped by circumstance. The more important point is incrementalism versus sudden change: skepticism undermines order, fanaticism (to principle) kills it. The intellectual, Burke said, tends to land on solutions too big for the problem because there are no practical consequences, on principles in a vacuum.

            The real rights of man are to live in freedom under the law, and a give law should be reformed iff it is working against its ends, not solely because outcomes are unequal. Again, ideology corrodes historical, socially understood, imperfect rights. In a cost-benefit analysis, present conditions outweighs speculation on future effects precisely because they already exists, just as natural morality surpasses dry reason.

Burke distinguishes between reform and revolution as well as change and progress. He foresees the ongoing need for adjustments. Radicalism aims at ideals which can never accommodate all circumstances; rebellion attacks constitutions outright, creating anarchy then tyranny. However, revolution is justified by tyranny and necessity (due to burdens imposed by tyranny), a point at which the people’s rights supersede the state’s interest in order. Revolution may be caused by weak, overly strong, or unwise government, and an interventionist state is more susceptible to revolt because it has put itself in a position to be held responsible for social problems. Conspiracy along is insufficient for a successful revolt. In the French Revolution one sees other necessary conditions: fashionable theory absorbed into the royal court; irresponsible, attenuated ruling classes; and long-term social changes such as economic growth, Enlightenment ideas, and new social classes. (An aside: Freeman several times accuses Burke of fearing social mobility; Burke thought talent should be seasoned.) The monarchy, having depredated the aristocracy, left itself to face the revolutionary will to power, masquerading as good-willed social reform, on its own. That is, when ruling principles are weak, people turn to counter-elites.

            Burke’s theory is sometimes incoherent but superior to modern views, Freeman concludes, in going beyond cause to forecast course and consequences. The central contradiction is between tenets of aristocratic state (i.e., order) and bourgeois civil society (the engine of social change). Yet Freeman overlooks Burke distinction between progress and change. Real problems are solved by limited redress.