  Burke's life was spent in parliamentary affairs from the mid-1760s, and this made a difference to his style of intellectual activity. This did not lie primarily in developing the cast of his mind, and if in 1771 Burke stated that ‘I have endeavoured all my life to train my understanding and my temper in the studies and habits of Philosophy’, at the same time he concluded that ‘my Principles are all settled and arranged’  .[5]  This did not preclude intellectual innovation. The difference made by participation lay not least in his reasons for applying his mind, and consequently in how he did so. The reasons were to influence opinion, both in Parliament and from his position as a member of the legislative, and to determine votes in the House of Commons itself. The matter common to both of these was Burke's view that words were central to political understanding.