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It is also illustrative to note that Hayek explores the dichotomy between the American Revolution, whose approach to liberty derived from its English antecedents, and the French Revolution, whose radical egalitarianism spawned a system far more sanguine than the one it overthrew, although one nominally more "equal."

Kirk insists that the difference arose out of the English respect for tradition and order, while the French are blinded by ideological zeal. Conservation of order and a reverence for tradition kept the American Revolution from decaying into the murderous revolt of the Jacobins, and marked a departure from the mythical Divine Right of Kings but an acknowledgement of Man's inherent unworthiness to rule himself. In denying those caveats, the French rushed headlong into an orgy of self-destruction that many argue continues to this day.

It would seem Hayek is in agreement with the premise that tradition and custom bind rights more than any inherent sense of liberty.

In all of the Whiggish thinkers, we see a respect for Order as the initiator of true Liberty.

Kirk like the terms "custom, convention and continuity" claiming that: "Order and justice and freedom, they believe , are the artifical products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice."

I think, the thing I have noted and studied about the French Revolution was the dieifing of Individual Will -- with the State then meant to be the extension of that Will. This false road leads forever onward, even to Marx and others.

I have some links at the first of the thread to a couple of old threads where various thinkers we are mentioning are discussed on a thoughtful level. As I recall, Burke and Hayek are compared on one fine one that was posted by Cornelis.

In my post at 85, we get the sense that Hayek, in Chapter Four is moving on from just simple tradition versus rationality and on into the roots of ethics and morals themselves and the uses of rationality in general. He is as we shall see in the next sub-chapters.

But here, in 6 and 7 he is suggesting the role of "individual intelligence" is a poor substitute for rules "evolved by (a right functioning) society". It is really interesting to see a non-religous thinker begin to illustrate that fixed moral virtues, by-and-large religiously based, is the true modifier and source the storehouse of knowledge that must be used instead of individual rationality.

This Chapter, as I hope is evident by the time I have added the last three subchapters, is a masterwork of explaining the basis of general conservative principles.