We know that Thoreau's essay was King's first intellectual contact with the theory of passive resistance to laws perceived as morally unjust (lines 5 to 9).
We also know that Thoreau's essay was the only example of transcendentalist writing with which King was familiar (lines 17 to 20).
The final paragraph tells us that King was a developing transcendentalist without realizing it as his second major book outlines a philosophy similar to that of the transcendentalist S. This is reinforced by the final sentence of the passage (lines 45 to 49; lines 55 to 59).
While King's philosophy may have been similar to transcendentalist thought, this does not necessarily mean that his philosophy was affected by it. King was only familiar with one piece of transcendentalist writing and his philosophy differed from Thoreau's on a number of points.
It seems more likely, based on the information in the passage, that King developed his own philosophy that just happened to coincide with many of the ideas underlying transcendentalist thought.
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