The British Parliament
Paine was a well know, vociferous and astute critic of every aspect of monarchial governance. He cast a particularly creative critical eye toward the conventional wisdom that Parliament existed as a control mechanism for the abuses of a tyrant.
“The Parliament, imperfectly and capriciously elected as it is, is nevertheless supposed to hold the national purse in trust for the nation; but in the manner in which an English Parliament is constructed it is like a man being both mortgagor and mortgagee, and in the case of misapplication of trust it is the criminal sitting in judgment upon himself.”
Wisdom
On a more philosophical note, Paine addresses the issue of from whence wisdom originates with the suggestion that it is a commodity not created anew, but already existing and which must be found.
“Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced.”
Edmund Burke
Paine was moved to compose The Rights of Man as a written argument of the fundamental defenses of the French Revolution to counter the blistering attacks upon that revolution made by British conservative Edmund Burke. Paine proceeds from a thesis that Burke’s entire reasoning is ideologically unsound because it is based on the unsupportable hypothesis of the legitimacy monarchy as a rational form of governance.
“As to Mr. Burke, he is a stickler for monarchy, not altogether as a pensioner, if he is one, which I believe, but as a political man. He has taken up a contemptible opinion of mankind, who, in their turn, are taking up the same of him. He considers them as a herd of beings that must be governed by fraud, effigy, and show; and an idol would be as good a figure of monarchy with him”
The Purpose of Monarchy
Lest it remain less than clear that Paine is less than impressed with the conventional wisdom toward the institution of monarchy as a system looking out for the best interests of its subjects, Paine paints a portrait in metaphor that cannot be misinterpreted.
“That monarchy is all a bubble, a mere court artifice to procure money, is evident (at least to me) in every character in which it can be viewed.”
Evolving Views toward Aristocracy
Considering Paine’s own views the fundamental illegitimacy of the monarchy, there can be little wonder that he was so drawn to the revolutionary fervor exploding across France. It may be difficult, in fact, to determine whether he is actually describing the views of the French or himself when he adopts this metaphorical description of an evolving perspective:
“They began to consider the Aristocracy as a kind of fungus growing out of the corruption of society, that could not be admitted even as a branch of it”
