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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Part I.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Burke, why is procreation pleasurable?
(a) To incite people to engage in it, since it is necessary to survival.
(b) Because without some form of pleasure, society would devolve into warfare.
(c) To connect humans and animals in the realm of the senses.
(d) Because the rest of life is terrible, and there must be at least one pleasurable thing in life.

2. What example does Burke use to demonstrate that differing tastes stem from the same basic root?
(a) The comparison of two historical moments.
(b) A comparison of two breeds of a horse.
(c) Two different types of poetry.
(d) The description of pretty ladies in a drawing room.

3. Which two ideas does Burke often find confused with one another?
(a) Sublime and beauty.
(b) Liberty and patriotism.
(c) Picturesque and picaresque.
(d) Fear and terror.

4. What is Burke's argument for the existence of the passion of ambition?
(a) Ambition incites in people the drive to improve and excel so society will not stagnate.
(b) Ambition is the manifestation of the natural hierarchy of low humans to high humans.
(c) Ambition forces people to look within and question their inner selves.
(d) Ambition incites jealousy and envy, which drive people to become violent.

5. Into which two classes does Burke group the passions of society?
(a) The liberal society and the conservative society.
(b) The societies of the educated and of the ignorant.
(c) General society and the society of the sexes.
(d) High- and low-society, based upon the class into which one is born.

Short Answer Questions

1. What attracts people to one another, argues Burke?

2. Why, as Burke argues, are humans "more inclined to belief than to incredulity?"

3. How does Burke define pain and pleasure?

4. What is the general reason Burke wrote the book, as stated in the First Preface?

5. What, according to Burke, is responsible for common deviations in natural taste?

(see the answer key)

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