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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    matters of property, a difpofition.to proted and to oblige, toredrefs the grievances, and to promote the intereft of his fubjeds. It was from a reference to thefe objeds, that Titus computed the value of his time, and judged of its application.- But the fword , which in this beneficent hand was drawn to proted the fubjed, and to procure a fpeedy and effedual diftribution of juftice, was likewife fuffi- cient, in the hands of a tyrant, to fhed the blood of the innocent, and to cancel the rights of men. The temporary proceedings of humanity, though they fufpended the exercife of oppreflion, did not break the national chains: the prince was even the better enabled to procure that fpecies of good which he ftudied; becaufe there was no freedom remaining, and becaufe there was no where a force to difpute his decrees, or to interrupt their execution. Was it in vain , that Antoninus became ac- quainted with the characters ofThrafea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion , and Brutus ? Was it in vain , that he learned to underftand the form of a free community, railed on the bafts of equality and juftice; or of a monarchy, under which the liberties of the fubjed were held the moft facred objed of adminiftration * ? Did he millake the means of procuring to mankind what he points out as a bleffing? Or did the abfo- lute power with which he was furnifhed, in a mighty empire, only difable him from executing what his mind had perceived as a national good? In fuch a cafe , it were vain to flatter the monarch or his * M. Antoninus, lib. 1, D d
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