shapeType75fBehindDocument1pWrapPolygonVertices8;4;(21491,0);(0,0);(0,21499);(21491,21499)posrelh0posrelv0pib
shapeType75fBehindDocument1pWrapPolygonVertices8;32;(21493,0);(10140,0);(10140,1803);(7154,1803);(7154,2591);(10140,2591);(10140,4997);(12535,4997);(12535,7666);(8958,7666);(8958,8306);(8336,8306);(8336,9320);(10731,9320);(10731,11612);(4759,11612);(4759,12441);(7154,12441);(7154,15222);(4759,15222);(4759,15974);(0,15974);(0,16726);(6563,16726);(6563,18754);(8336,18754);(8336,20559);(5972,20559);(5972,20861);(7745,20861);(7745,21499);(21493,21499)posrelh0posrelv0pib

.. 

6 	THE GREAT DEBATE 

of society, and even dangerous when applied to it. Burke would 
of, and contend with, this force for the rest of his life. 

The Vindication had displayed Burke's early tendency to . 
about philosophically serious subjects with political and social' 
cations and yet to do so at some remove from daily politics. 
was all the more evident the following year, 1757, when Burke 
lished his most expressly theoretical work and his only real book 
Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublim 
the Beautiful. It was an insightful if quirky work of aesthetics=-r 
study of the human experience of beauty. Burke sought to explain 
distinction between the beautiful (or well formed) and the sub 
(or compelling) as grounded in the difference between love and .: 
It was a surprisingly original contribution to a long-running de 
among British philosophical thinkers about the sources of h 
perception and experience, and it opens a door to the young B 
emerging political sensibilities. Burke argues that human nature r 
on emotional, not only rational, edification and instruction-an 
that would become crucial to his insistence that government 
function in accordance with the forms and traditions of a societe's 
and not only abstract principles of justice. "The influence of re 
producing our passions is nothing near so extensive as it is comm 
believed," Burke writes.i We are moved by more than logic, an 
politics must answer to more than cold arguments. 

Both of Burke's works enjoyed moderate success and helpe 
make a name for himself in London's literary world. He was an 
member of SamuelJohnson's lively circle-which included the 
painter Joshua Reynolds, Edward Gibbon, the actor David 
the novelist Oliver Goldsmith, James Boswell (who later farn 
wrote a biography of Johnson), and other prominent intellectua... .: 
ures of the era-and he thought of himself above all as a writer 
than a political thinker, though his writings always tended towar 
litical and philosophical questions. The author and politician H 
Walpole ran across the still-precocious Burke at a dinner p:u-:;- 
1761 and offered a telling description. Among the guests, v;,- 
wrote in his private diary, was "a young Mr. Burke, who wrote a