People's characteristics in relation to institutional settings was a subject as important to eighteenth-century Englishmen and Scotsmen as it was to contemporary Frenchmen; yet the assessments offered in the two nations differed remarkably. A factor to consider is the variety of modes for the expression of political opinion in Britain. In France, writing en philosophe was a necessity for those who aimed at intervening in the political debate, since more topical and popular modes were not tolerated. Hence philosophy was, among other things, a prime language of politics. In Britain, the philosophical register coexisted side by side with a fairly free expression of political views in the press as well as in books which, albeit foreign to philosophic complications, struck a middle chord between a popular and a conceptualized treatment. Leaving aside the press, obvious differences separated the philosophical approach from that of those who wrote about politics in the light of the issues of the day. Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments cannot be placed in the same category as Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Smith's philosophical detachment in addressing manners and customs shared little with Burke's partisan denunciation of French mentality in the immediate wake of the Revolution. Burke's book is a long pamphlet, Smith's a comprehensive reformulation of the moral problem. There was a frequent contrast in contents, however, which was more important than any dissimilarity in genre, tone, or arrangement. Philosophers showed a complex attitude towards the set of arguments labelled as ‘Whiggism’.