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.

    416/438 page 406
    • > ' 4o 6 II ISTOKY OF The heir of a crown has no fuch quarrel to main- tain with his fubjedts : his fituatiori is flattering; and the heart muffc be uncommonly bad , that does not glow with affedtion to a people; who are, at once, his admirers, his fupport, and the. ornaments of his reign. In him, perhaps, there is no explicit defign of trefpaffing on the rights of his fubjects; but the forms intended to preferve their freedom, are not, on this account, always fafe m his hands. Slavery has been impofed upon mankind in the wantonnefs of a depraved ambition, and tyrannical cruelties have been committed in the gloomy hours of jealoufy and terror: yet thefe demons are not neceflary to the creation , or to the fupport of an arbitrary power. Although no policy was ever more fuccefsful than that of the Roman republic in maintaining a national fortune; yet fubjedts, as well as their princes, frequently imagine that freedom is a clog on the proceedings of government: they imagine, that defpotical power is beft fitted to procure dif- patch and fecrecy in the execution of public coun- cils; to maintain what they are pleafed to call political order*, and to give a fpeedy red refs of * Our notion of order in civil fociety being taken from the analogy of fubjedts inanimate and dead, is frequently falfe; we confider commotion and adtion as contrary to its nature; we think that obedience, fccrccy , and the filent palling of affairs through the hands of a few, are its real conftituents. The good order of {tones in a wall, is their being properly fixed in the places for which they are hewn;
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