That sure insight is, of course, one current only in a greater English stream which reaches back to Hobbes at its source and forward to T.H.Green at perhaps its fullest.

Its value is its denial of politics as a science distinct from other human relations; and that is why Adam Smith can write of moral sentiments no less than of the wealth of nations.

The eighteenth century saw clearly that each aspect of social life must find its place in the political equation.
Yet it is undoubtedly an age of methods rather than of principles; and, as such its peaceful prosperity was well suited to its questions.
Problems of technique, such as the cabinet and the Bank of England required the absence of passionate debate if they were in any fruitful fashion to be solved.

Nor must the achievement of the age in politics be minimized.

It was, of course, a complacent time; but we ought to note that foreigners of distinction did not wonder at its complacency.
Voltaire and Montesquieu look back to England in the eighteenth century for the substance of political truths.