"If I cannot reform with equity," said Burke, "I will not reform at all"; and equity seems here to mean a sacrifice of the present and its passionate demands to the selfish errors of past policy.
Burke, indeed, was never a democrat, and that is the real root of his philosophy.

He saw the value of the party-system, and he admitted the necessity of some degree of popular representation.

But he was entirely satisfied with current Whig principles, could they but be purged of their grosser deformities.

He knew too well how little reason is wont to enter into the formation of political opinion to make the sacrifice of innovation to its power.

He saw so much of virtue in the old order, that he insisted upon the equation of virtue with quintessence.