Vindiciae Gallicae

Vindiciae Gallicae is the title of a work published in 1791 by the British Philosophe James Mackintosh (1765 - 1832), in which it expresses the reflections that the events of the French revolution inspire to him.

Mackintosh was very quickly worried by the question of the time: the French revolution. The May 17th 1791, after a long meditation, it published its Vindiciae Gallicae , which constitutes an answer to the Réflexions on the Revolution of France of Edmund Burke, published the previous year. It was the only worthy answer to Burke.

The Vindiciae Gallicae expressed the philosophical point of view of a Libéral on the event of the French revolution until spring 1791. Excesses of the Revolutionists led it a few years later to be opposed to them and to join Burke in its criticism, but its initial defense of the Human rights at that time constitutes a valid testimony from the point of view of a Whig cultivated.

They placed their author at the first rank of the European publicity agents, and gained to him the friendship of some of the men most distinguished from the time, of which Burke itself. The success of the Vindiciae decided finally Mackintosh to give up medicine for the occupation of judge, whom he kissed in 1795, acquiring a considerable reputation quickly, while attempting to preserve a practice of tolerance.

Quotations

“To diffuse knowledge, it is to make oneself immortal”.
“the Common , faithful to their system, remain in wise and masterly inactivity”.
“the authority of a rabble corrupted and tumultuous must rather be regarded a Ochlocratie that a Démocratie, as the Despotisme of the mob, and not the government of the people”.

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