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.

    433/438 page 423
    4^5 In this manner, the fcenes of human life have been frequently Ihifted. Security and prefumption forfeit the advantages of profperity; refolution and conduft retrieve the ills of adverfity; and mankind while they have nothing on which to rely but their virtue, are prepared to gain every advantage; and while they confide moft in their good fortune, are moft expofed to feel its reverie. We are apt to draw thefe obfervations into rule; and when we are no longer willing to aft for our country, we plead in excufe of our own weaknefs or folly , a fuppofed fatality in human affairs. The inftitutions of men, if not calculated for the prefervation of virtue , are, indeed, likely to have an end as well as a beginning: but fo long as they are effectual to this purpofe, they have at all times an equal principle of life which no- thing but an external force can fupprefs ; no nation ever buffered internal decay but from the vice of its members. We are fometimes willing to acknowledge this vice in our countrymen; but who ever was willing to acknowledge it in him- felf? It may be fufpefted, however, that we do more than acknowledge it, when we ceafe to oppofe its effefts, and when we plead a fatality, which, at leaft, in the breaft of every individual, is dependent on himfelf. Men of real fprtitude* integrity, and ability, are well placed in every fcene; they reap, in every condition, the prin- cipal enjoyments of their nature ; they are the.
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