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.

    18/438 page 8
    of our prefent condition and frame, as adventiti- ous, and foreign to our nature. The progrefs of mankind from a fuppofed Rate of animal fenfibility} to the attainment of reafon, to the life of language, and to the habit of fociety, lias been accordingly painted with a force of imagination, and its Reps have been marked with a boldnefs of invention that would tempt us to admit, among the materials ofhiRory, the fuggeRions of fancy, and to receive, perhaps, as the model of our nature in its original Rate, fome of the animals whofe fliape has the greatcR refemblance to ours *, It would be ridiculous to affirm, as a dif- covery, that the fpecies of the horfe was pro- bably never the fame with that of the lion, yet, in oppofition to what has dropped from the pens of eminent writers, we are obliged to obferve, that men have always appeared among animals a diRind; and a fuperior race; that neither the pof- feflion of Rmilar organs, nor the approximation * of ffiape, nor the ufe of the hand,f nor the con- tinued intercourfe \yith this fovereign artiR, has enabled any other fpecies to blend tneir nature or their inventions with his; that in his rudcR Rate, he is found to be above them ; and in his greateR degeneracy, never defcends to their level. He is, in fhort, a man in every condition; and \ve can learn nothing of his nature from the * Roujfeau fur l’o.rigine de 1'inegalite parmi les honimeg. f Traite de l’efprit.
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