The philosophical context.

If it is true, as has been suggested, that even John Locke began with his conclusions, then worked out arguments to support them, it would not be surprising if lesser thinkers did the same. The fact that some of Filmer's theories had been refuted by Locke, and some of Locke's by Hume, was irrelevant to men who sought philosophical arguments to support their political convictions. The reasons men held the convictions they did depended more upon the intellectual and social experiences and backgrounds of individuals than any rigorous or logical thought. It is more likely to be explained by some process of intellectual prosopography than one of philosophical analysis. Yet part of any individual intellectual biography was the current intellectual climate, the bag and baggage of ideas. In this period, as in most others, few ideas in current popular use were new, though men were aware of the new way of thinking and questioning in Enlightenment France. The traditional British debate ranging between patriarchalist and contractarian justifications of government remained an important source from which arguments, supporting whatever prejudices a man held, could be selected. It is, finally, impossible to say how far such ideas influenced men's opinions and how far they merely reinforced existing convictions. What is certain is that their influence was neither precise, rigorous nor straightforward, for most men did not think in such ways. Yet, clearly, philosophical ideas did influence men's political thought in broad, general terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]