But, says Burke, "we must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the mans perhaps of its conservation. All we can do, and that human wisdom can do, is to provide that the change shall proceed by insensible degrees . . . " And then says Kirk, "All this is radically different from the "natural rights" of Locke, whose phraseology Burke sometimes adopts; and Burke's concept of natural right, obviously, is descended from sources quite separate from Rousseaus's. Rousseau deduces natural right from a mythical primeval condition of freedom and a psychology drawn chiefly from Locke; Burke's natural right is the Ciceronian jus naturale [Have you read Frederick's Wilhelmsen's Christianity and Political Philosophy? He treats Cicero on natural law--Voegelin dismisses Cicero] reinforced by Chrisitan dogma and English common-law doctrine. Now hume, from a third point of view, maintains that natural right is a matter of convention; and Bentham, from yet another, declares that natural right is an illusory tag. Burke, detesting both these rationalists, says that natural right is a human custom conforming to Divine intent
I suppose we could take Kirk's word for that.