In the _Thoughts on French Affairs_ (1791) he saw that the essence of the Revolution was its foundation in theoretic dogma.

It was like nothing else in the history of the world except the Reformation; which last event it especially resembles in its genius for self-propagation.

Herein he has already envisaged the importance of that "_patrie intellectuelle_" which Tocqueville emphasized as born of the Revolution.

That led Burke once again to insist upon the peculiar genius of each separate state, the difficulties of a change, the danger of grafting novelties upon an ancient fabric.

He saw the certainty that in adhering to an abstract metaphysical scheme the French were in truth omitting human nature from their political equation; for general ideas can find embodiment in institutional forms only after they have been moulded by a thousand varieties of circumstance.