Father Francis P. Canavan, S.J., with the publication of this his second book on Edmund Burke, clearly establishes himself as one of the most—if not the most—able interpreter of Burke’s political philosophy. Here Canavan focuses upon topics of enormous import for fathoming Burke’s political philosophy, including theological influences on Burke, his religious faith, the relationship of the doctrine of creation to Burke’s politics, and the doctrines of prescription and providence, especially as they concern the question of Burke’s historicism and relativism.

The last two themes mentioned are the shadow themes which haunt Burke’s doctrine of prescription and providence. Canavan’s response to attempts to reduce Burke to a historical relativist results in a work that transcends narrow professional concerns, even while it meets foursquare both recently revived and lingering problems in Burke scholarship.

Canavan sets out to support the claim that Burke’s political philosophy is developed within the framework of a realist metaphysics shaped by the biblical doctrine of creation, and influenced by Burke’s reading of Christian theology. Canavan accomplishes this rather tall order in the first two chapters, consulting a formidable list of theologians, Anglican divines and dissenters alike, who most likely formed Burke’s world view. This list includes Richard Hooker, Joseph Butler, Edward Stillingfleet, John Tillotson, and James Foster. Though Protestant, these theologians are neither voluntarists nor nominalists. They hold to creation ex nihilo, according to a divine plan, emphasizing the radical contingency of things, and a universe which is essentially intelligible and accessible in its structure to human reason. From this emerges a natural law which is normative for human actions and morality.

The Anglicans held to a teleological view of the universe and history, that man was social by nature, that reason had precedence over will, and man could comprehend, within limits, an ordered, intelligible universe. When this view is related to politics and the swirl of revolutionary claims to natural rights, certain conclusions must follow. The French philosophes came forward with radical democratic theses, championing individual natural rights and popular sovereignty. Burke’s politics came into relief as opposed to such radical views. He rejected out of hand the claims to popular sovereignty, and denied it as an inalienable right. He proclaimed man’s place in the continuous unfolding of the nation of which he is a part, and recognized the developmental role history plays in the emergence of society, while affirming a “Human Nature . . . which is always the same,” itself the touchstone of morality and politics.

Canavan clarifies as few have done the main focus of Burke’s attack on democratic theory, which is its claim to arbitrary will. “In Burke’s thought,” Canavan argues, “arbitrary will was never legitimate, because will was never superior to reason, not even in the sovereign Lord of the Universe.”

It becomes the task of Canavan’s last two chapters to demonstrate that in basing so much of his politics on prescription and providence Burke is not succumbing to historicism and relativism. While Burke argues in one place that the “sole authority” of the British constitution is that it has existed “time out of mind,” it does not follow that there are no transcendent standards upon which to judge the present order of any society. Prescription cannot turn inherently evil actions that contravene human nature into morally good acts. The historical epoch in which we live in itself is not sufficient to justify acts against nature, as Burke clearly stated in his argument against the bogus “geometrical morality” exercised by Hastings in India.

Burke writes in his Correspondence (concerning the apparent success of the French Revolution) that to continue resisting a revolution that providence has permitted to succeed appears to be “perverse and obstinate.” For some scholars this amounts to justifying the revolution and giving approval to a new moral order, thus condemning Burke to relativism.

Canavan answers by first clarifying what Burke’s teaching on providence is, revealing that divine providence is ultimately mysterious; it is reasonable, not arbitrary and irrational; and the “ordinary march of providence” provides the basis for the rules of prudence, which, for Burke, is the first among virtues both political and moral. Canavan argues that for Burke the success of the French Revolution does not indicate God’s will that evil should prevail; unknown to the human mind, the revolution’s success may play a role in God’s design which remains to be revealed. All that Burke may have meant by his remark was that revolution was now a fait accompli.

Canavan’s researches reveal a Burke who is more than a practical politician—practical, yes; a politician, inescapably; but one whose practical politics is self-consciously nourished by and rooted in a realist metaphysics, a Christian metaphysics.

Of course there are Burke’s frequent remarks which disparage metaphysics. After all, can the Burke who informs us that “I never govern myself, no rational man ever did govern himself, by abstractions and universals,” embrace a metaphysics? Can he who claims that “Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations,” actually avoid relativism? Or he who purports that “Metaphysics cannot live without definition; but Prudence is cautious how she defines,” be a friend of Aristotle or Aquinas?

It is obvious to any attentive reader of Burke that the metaphysics and metaphysicians Burke rails against are rationalists, or empiricists utilizing deductive arguments, both epitomized by the French philosophes who arbitrarily imposed their deductive reasoning upon a complex and recalcitrant reality. In fact, he grounds his refutation of them on the metaphysics of Aristotle, as Burke pointedly remarks in the Reflections: “The troll of their categorical table might have informed them [the French philosophes and levellers] that there was something else besides substance and quantity. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that there were eight heads more in every complex deliberation which they have never thought of . . . ” This should not be surprising from one who refers to Aristotle as the “great master of reasoning.”

[Edmund Burke: Prescription & Providence, by Francis P. Canavan; Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press and the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statemanship and Political Philosophy]