The ideas of the Philosophic Whigs formed themselves in opposition to two competing trends - those of the Utilitarians and the Radicals on the one hand, and those of the Tories on the other.
Philosophic Whigs such as Sir James Mackintosh or Thomas Babington Macaulay attacked the former for an abstract approach to society and a neglect of historical roots; the latter for looking back to an idealised past and neglecting historical change and developmental time.
[1] Similarly, they condemned the French Revolution for over-abstraction on the one hand, and a slavish apeing of Roman republicanism on the other.
[4] Their thinking passed in to the Victorian mainstream, through figures like Bagehot and Dicey who saw the need for laws to adapt to changing social structures and habits.
[7] John Buchan in The Moon Endureth mocked a philosophic Whig for imagining himself the Emperor of Byzantium in his spare time.