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.

    29/438 page 19
    T9 its objed is not to gratify any particular appetite, but to fecure the means of gratifying all; and it impofes frequently a reftraint on the very defires from which it arofe, more powerful and more fe- vere than thofe of religion or duty. It arifes from the principles of felf- prefervation in the human frame; but is a corruption , or at leaft a partial refult, of thofe principles, and is upon many ac- counts very improperly termed fcf-love. Love is an affedion which carries the attention of the mind beyond itfelf, and is the fenfe of a relation to fome fellow-creature as to its objed. Being a complacency and a continued fatisfadion in this objed, it has, independent of any ex- ternal event, and in the midft of difappointment and forrow, pleafures and triumphs unknown to thofe who are guided by mere confiderations of intereft; in every change of condition, it conti- nues entirely diftind from the fentiments which we feel on the fubjed of perfonal fuccefs or adver- fity. But as the care a man entertains for his own intereft, and the attention his affedion makes him pay to that of another, may have fimilar effeds, the one on his own fortune, the other on that of his friend, we confound the principles from which he ads; we fuppofe that they are the fame in kind, only referred to different objects; and we not only mifapply the name of love, in conjundion with felf, but, in a manner tending to degrade our nature, we limit the aim of this fuppofed felfifh affedion to the fecuring or
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