An essay on the history of civil society / [Adam Ferguson].

  • Adam Ferguson
Date:
1789
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the history of civil society / [Adam Ferguson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wliat relates to himfelf, and in matters the moft im- portant, and the moft eafily known, thathefub- jftitutes hypothecs inftead of reality, and confounds the provinces of imagination and reafon, of poetry and fcience. But without entering any further on queftions either in moral or phyfical fubjeds, relating to the manner or to the origin of our knowledge; with- out any difparagemcnt to thatfubtilty which would analyze every fentiment, and trace every mode of being to its fource ; it may be fafely affirmed, That the charader of man, as he now exifts, that the laws of his animal and intelledual fyftem, on which his happinefs now depends, deferve our prin- cipal ftudy; and that general principles relating to this or any other fubjed, are ufeful only fo far as they are founded on juft obfervation, and lead to the knowledge of important confequences, or fo far as they enable us to ad with fuccefs when we would apply either the intelledual or the phyfical powers of nature, to the purpofes of human life. If both the earlieft and the lateft accounts col- lected from every quarter of the earth , reprefent mankind as affembled in troops and companies; and the individual always joined by affection to party, while he is poffibly oppofed to another; employed in the exercife of recollection and fore- fight ; inclined to communicate his own fentiments, and to be made acquainted with t£ofe of others; thefe fads muft be admitted as the foundation of all our reafoning relative to man, His mixed difpofttion to fnendfhip or enmity, his reafon, his
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