本文选自陆建德：《伯克的遗产》，见《麻雀啁啾：文学与社会》，生活·读书·新知三联书店，2017年版，第37页。
1791年1月19日，伯克（另译为柏克）在致一位法国国民议会成员的长信里重述了自由的前提：
“人们能够享受自由的程度取决于他们是否愿意对自己的欲望套上道德的枷锁；取决于他们对正义之爱是否胜过他们的贪婪；取决于他们正常周全的判断力是否胜过他们的虚荣和放肆；取决于他们要听取的是智者和仁者的忠告而不是奸佞的谄媚。除非有一种对意志和欲望的约束力，社会就无法存在。内在的约束力越弱，外在的约束力就必须越强。事物命定的性质就是如此，不知克制者不得自由。他们的激情铸就了他们的镣铐。”
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, —in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, —in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” (Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly)


▍延伸阅读
柏克：礼俗乃国家的恒久的智慧
柏克：不确定性是一切伟大事物的本质
柏克与潘恩：对自由与社会的两种不同理解
阿克顿勋爵：柏克的预言已经成为法律
致敬柏克：没有哪个国家，能逃脱掉“柏克定律”
柏克：邪恶之所以得逞，是因为善良之人无所作为
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