Among the causes of the tremendous confusion characterising present-day Europe is the transplantation of British institutions to the Continent where they are in complete contradiction to existing conditions, so that their application becomes either illusory or distorted. The so-called "British school" has been the cause of the French Revolution, and the consequences of this revolution, so anti-British in tendency, devastate Europe today. The concepts of freedom and order are so inseparable in the British mind that the last stable-boy would laugh in the face of the reformers if they appeared by preaching his freedom.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Among the causes of the tremendous confusion characterising present-day Europe is the transplantation of British institutions to the Continent where they are in complete contradiction to existing conditions, so that their application becomes either illusory or distorted. The so-called "British school" has been the cause of the French Revolution, and the consequences of this revolution, so anti-British in tendency, devastate Europe today. The concepts of freedom and order are so inseparable in the British mind that the last stable-boy would laugh in the face of the reformers if they appeared by preaching his freedom." in the context of "Statement in later life recorded in Clemens Metternich, Aus Metternich's Nachgelassenen Papieren, Vol. 8, ed. Alfons v. Kinkowstroem (1880), p. 218, quoted in Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–1822 (1957; 1973), pp. 202-203" to mean that wisdom is timeless.