“I thought ten thousand swords must have leapt from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.” – Edmund Burke, from his Reflections on the Revolution in France
The Right Honorable Edmund Burke deserves a place in the philosophical canon for the early modern period because of the enormous impact of his ideas and the beauty of his writing. As a Traditionalist Conservative and the Father of Modern Conservatism, Burke is radically at odds with the innovators, revolutionaries, skeptics, heretics, materialists, and liberals of the early modern period. He defended chivalry, nobility, hierarchies, patriotism, customs, traditions, reverence, natural law ethics, inductive reasoning, and the indispensability of religious faith to a good society. If you want to understand the philosophical foundations of the modern conservative movement, you must look to this most eloquent of orators and staunchest guardians of tradition to ever live.