ABSTRACT
To vary the metaphor: conservatism is a social and cultural cement, holding together what western man has built and by that very fact providing a base for orderly change and improvement. In times of shallow prosperity, the conservative function is to insist on distinguishing value from price; wisdom from cleverness; happiness from hedonism; reverence from success-worship. The conservative lays the greatest possible stress on the necessity and sanctity of law. Conservatism is betrayed when it becomes the exclusive property of a single social or economic minority. Since the industrial revolution, conservatism is neither justifiable nor effective unless it has roots in the factories and trade unions. Conservatism, which is for politics what classicism is for literature, is in turn the political secularization of the doctrine of original sin. Conservatism belongs to society as a whole, for its purpose is to conserve the values needed by society as a whole.
