The distinction between nature and artifice belongs to the philosophy of the Enlightenment... Burke recognised this point, and met it head on by insisting that artifice was human nature. "We have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms. We fear God; we look up with awe to kings, with affection to parliaments, with duty to magistrates, with reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected..." Indeed, in prefacing these rhetorical remarks with "We preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity" he attempted to reverse the criteria of nature and artifice, so that it was the revolutionaries who appeared corrupt and artificial.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The distinction between nature and artifice belongs to the philosophy of the Enlightenment... Burke recognised this point, and met it head on by insisting that artifice was human nature. "We have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms. We fear God; we look up with awe to kings, with affection to parliaments, with duty to magistrates, with reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected..." Indeed, in prefacing these rhetorical remarks with "We preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity" he attempted to reverse the criteria of nature and artifice, so that it was the revolutionaries who appeared corrupt and artificial." in the context of "Kenneth Minogue, 'Revolution, Tradition and Political Continuity', in Preston King and B. C. Parekh (eds.), Politics and Experience: Essays Presented to Professor Michael Oakeshott on the Occasion of His Retirement (1968), p. 298" to mean that wisdom is timeless.