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.

    27/438 page 17
    >7 creatures, as being the fubjeds on which he is chiefly concerned to diAinguifh what is right from • what is wrong. He enjoys his felicity likewife on certain fixed and determinate conditions; and either as an individual apart, or as a member of civil fociety, mull take a particular courfe, in or- der to reap the advantages of his nature. He is, withal, in a very high degree fufceptible of ha- bits; and can, by forbearance or exercife, fo far weaken, confirm, or even divcrfify his talents, and his difpofitions, as to appear, in a great meafure, the arbiter of his own rank in nature , and the author of all the Varieties which are exhibited in the a dual hiftory of his fpecies. The univerfal charaderiftics in the mean time , to which We have now referred, mud, when we would treat of any part of this hiftory, conftitute the firft; fubjed of our attention; and they require not only to be enumerated, but to be diftindly conftdered. The difpofitions which tend to the prefervation of the individual, while they continue to operate in the manner of inftindive deftres, are nearly the fame in man that they are in the other ani- mals: but in him they are fooner or later com- bined with refledion and forefight; they give rife to his apprehenfions on the fubjed of property, and make him’acquainted with that objed of care which he calls his intereft. Without the inftinds which teach the beaver and the fquirrel, the ant and the bee, to make up their little hoards for winter, at firft improvident, and, where no immediate C * ,r
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