Adam Ferguson

thumb|Adam Ferguson Adam Ferguson (June 20, 1723 – 22 February 1816) was a Scottish moral philosopher and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment. Quotes An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) Eighth Edition The attainments of the parent do not descend in the blood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as a physical mutation of the species. PART I, SECTION I. Love is an affection which carries the attention of the mind beyond itself, and is the sense of a relation to some fellow creature as to its object. PART I, SECTION II. Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops and companies. PART I, SECTION III. We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy. PART I, SECTION IV. Men are to be estimated, not from what they know, but from what they are able to perform. PART I, SECTION V. The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning. PART II, SECTION I. Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate. PART III, SECTION I. …if we intend to pursue the history of our species in its further attainments, we may soon enter on subjects which will confine our observation to more narrow limits. The genius of political wisdom and civil arts appears to have chosen his seats in particular tracts of the earth, and to have selected his favourites in particular races of men. PART III, SECTION I. Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. PART III, SECTION II. In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many. PART IV, SECTION II. Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1769) Theory consists in referring particular operations to the principles, or general laws, under which they are comprehended; or in referring particular effects to the causes from which they proceed. Introduction, Section IV, Of Theory, p. 7. Quotes about Ferguson I believe, also, you will find a thing not much noted, that there was a very great deal of deep religion in its form in both nations [Greek and Roman]. That is noted by the wisest of historians, and particularly by Ferguson, who is particularly well worth reading on Roman history; and I believe he was an alumnus in our own University. His book [History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic] is a very creditable book. He points out the profoundly religious nature of the Roman people, notwithstanding the wildness and ferociousness of their nature. They believed that Jupiter Optimus—Jupiter Maximus—was lord of the universe, and that he had appointed the Romans to become the chief of men, provided they followed his commands—to brave all difficulty, and to stand up with an invincible front—to be ready to do and die; and also to have the same sacred regard to veracity, to promise, to integrity, and all the virtues that surround that noblest quality of men—courage—to which the Romans gave the name of virtue, manhood, as the one thing ennobling for a man. Thomas Carlyle, On the Choice of Books (1866), pp. 58-59 He [Walter Scott] talks of the strong subjection of Ferguson's "passions and feelings to the dominion of his reason." The statement would be nearer the truth if it were inverted. For though a most kind and excellent man, he was as fiery as gunpowder. Lord Cockburn, Memorials of His Time (1856), p. 57 I have read over (but too hastily) Mr. Ferguson's book. There are uncommon strains of eloquence in it: and I was surprised to find not one single idiom of his country (I think) in the whole work. He has not the fault you mention. His application to the heart is frequent, and often successful. His love of Montesquieu and Tacitus has led him into a manner of writing too short-winded and sententious; which those great men, had they lived in better times and under a better government, would have avoided. Thomas Gray to James Beattie (12 August 1767), quoted in The Works of Thomas Gray in Prose and Verse. Vol. III, ed. Edmund Gosse (1884), pp. 279-280 As a moral teacher Ferguson was great. He conjoined the simplicity, elevation, and ethical hardihood of the early Roman with Grecian refinement and eloquence. He had an instinctive sympathy for the grand and ennobling in moral doctrine; and guided by his own lofty nature and feelings, more than by profound speculative insight, he sketched an ideal of human virtue that approached the dignity and grandeur of the ancient Stoical model. His ethical doctrine was one, indeed, hardly to be looked for in the existing state of abstract speculation in Scotland, and but little in harmony with the temper of the times. But Ferguson drew his inspiration from the past. His sympathies were with the nobler minds of antiquity. His speculation in spirit, form, and results, is that of an ancient moralist of the best school. An early life spent in camps and on battle-fields, had, moreover, taught many stirring lessons to the meditative moralist. Experience of the changing fortunes, and the varied contingencies of war, strengthened his natural leaning to a morality severe and self-sufficient. His teaching was in great measure an inculcation of the need of the warrior-spirit in the moral life, where a higher end than military glory, and less perishable laurels than are gathered on the bloody field, are within reach, provided only they be sought with a will and bearing as resolute and unflinching as are demanded in the service of the lower ambition. William Hamilton, 'Memoir of Dugald Stewart', The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Esq., F.R.SS. Vol. X, ed. William Hamilton (1858), pp. xvi-xvii When Adam Ferguson summed up such teaching by defining the savage as a man who did not yet know property (1767/73:136), and when Adam Smith remarked that `nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures or natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that is yours' (1776/1976:26), they expressed what, in spite of recurrent revolts by rapacious or hungry bands, had for practically two millennia been the view of the educated. As Ferguson put it, `It must appear very evident, that property is a matter of progress' (ibid). Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (1988), Ch. 2: The Origins of Liberty, Property and Justice. Ferguson has very much polished and improved his Treatise on Refinement, and with some amendments it will make an admirable book, and discovers an elegant and a singular genius. David Hume to Adam Smith (12 April 1759), quoted in The Letters of David Hume. Volume I, ed. J. Y. T. Grieg (1932), p. 304 An intimate acquaintance with the languages of those nations who once possessed a high share of human greatness and felicity, is well calculated both to engender and preserve a love of freedom. Mr Ferguson, accordingly, was a zealous and enlightened friend of whatever tended to promote the advancement, and diffuse the principles of national liberty. Attached, like his father, and all the clergy of Scotland, to those maxims of ecclesiastical policy that produced the Reformation, and those ideas of political right, that, by justifying the revolution, endeared the House of Brunswick, and legalised their claims to the throne of these kingdoms, he is said even then to have prided himself on being a “constitutional Whig.” 'Sketch of the Life of the late Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.', The Scots Magazine (June 1816), p. 418 He survived till the year 1816, when he died in full possession of his mental faculties, at the advanced age of ninety-three. The deep interest which he took in the eventful war had long seemed to be the main tie that connected him with passing existence; and the news of Waterloo acted on the aged patriot as a nunc dimittis. From that hour the feeling that had almost alone given him energy decayed, and he avowedly relinquished all desire for prolonged life. Walter Scott, 'Life and Works of John Home', The Quarterly Review (June 1827), in Walter Scott, Periodical Criticism. Vol. III. Miscellaneous (1835), pp. 332-333 External links Adam+Ferguson Adam Ferguson Category:Academics from Scotland Category:Philosophers from Scotland Category:1723 births Category:1816 deaths Category:Vegetarians Category:Essayists from Scotland Category:Historians from Scotland Category:Librarians from Scotland Category:Clergy Category:Enlightenment Category:University of St. Andrews alumni Category:University of Edinburgh faculty Category:University of Edinburgh alumni