But the peace of the Tudors was the death-bed of the Stuarts; and it was the stagnant optimism of the early eighteenth century which made possible the birth of democratic England.
The atmosphere of the time, in fact, is deep-rooted in the conditions of the past.

Locke could not have written had not Hobbes and Filmer defended in set terms the ideal of despotic government.

He announced the advent of the modern system of parliamentary government; and from his time the debate has been rather of the conditions under which it is to work, than of the foundations upon which it is based.

Burke, for example, wrote what constitutes the supreme analysis of the statesman's art.

Adam Smith discussed in what fashion the prosperity of peoples could be best advanced.