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.

    402/438 page 392
    which the different conftitutions of government have prepared for their members. But, under the difadvantages of a feeble fpirit, however directed ? and however informed, no national conflitution is fafe; nor can any degree of enlargement to which a Fate has arrived, fecure its political welfare. IN ftates where property , diftinction , and pleafure are thrown out as baits to the imagina- tion, and incentives to pallion , the public feems to rely for the prefervation of its political life, on the degree of emulation and jealoufy with which parties mutually oppofe and reftrain each other. The defires of preferment and profit in the breaft of the citizen, are the motives from which he is excited to enter on public affairs, and are the confiderations which direcl his poli- tical condud. The fupprefiion , therefore, of ambition, of party - animofity, and of public envy , is probably , in every fuch cafe , not a reformation, but a fymptom of weaknefs , and a prelude to more fordid purfuits , and ruinous am u foments. On the eve of fuch a revolution in manners, the higher ranks, in every mixed or monarchical government, have need to take care of them- felves. Men of bufinefs, and of induftry, in the inferior Rations of life, retain their occupa- tions, and are fecured , by a kind of neceffity, in the poffefifion of thofc habits on which they rely for their quiet, and for the moderate en- joyments of life. But the higher orders of men.
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