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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    tained for literature^ eloquence,and civil accom- plishments , was not more real than that of a Scythian for fuch a meafure of fimilar endowments as his own apprehenfion could reach. K Were I to boaftfays a Tartar prince * , “ it would be of cc that wifdom I have received from God. for tc as,on the one hand , I yield to none in the con- tc duct of war, in the difpofition of armies, whether <c of horfe or of foot, and in directing the move- <c ments of great or fmall bodies; fo, on the other, £c I have my talent in writing, inferior perhaps “ only to thofe who inhabit the great cities of <c Perfia or India. Of other nations, unknown to <c me, I do not fpeak.” Man may miftake the obje&s of his purfuit; he may mifapply, his induftry and mifplace his im- provements. If under a fenfe of fetch poffible er- rors, he would find a ftandard by which to judge of his own proceedings, and arrive at the beft fiate of his nature, he cannot find it perhaps in the prac- tice of any individual, or of any nation whatever; not even in the fenfe of the majority, or the pre- vailing opinion of his kind. He muff look for it in thte'beft conceptions of his undemanding, in the befl: movements of his heart ; he muft thence difco- i ver what is the perfection and the happinefs of which he is capable. He will find , on the Scrutiny, that the proper ftate of his nature, taken in this fenfe, is not a condition from which mankind are for ever removed , but one to which they may now * Abulgaze Bahadur Chan. Hiitory. of die Tartars.
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