Ferguson was sympathetic to traditional societies,such as the Highlands,for producing courage and loyalty. He criticized commercial society as making men weak,dishonourable,and unconcerned for their community.
It remains a matter of debate as to whether,at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745),Ferguson fought in the ranks throughout the day,and refused to leave the field,though ordered to do so by his colonel. Nevertheless,he certainly did well,becoming principal chaplain in 1746. He continued attached to the regiment till 1754,when,disappointed at not obtaining a living,he left the clergy and resolved to devote himself to literary pursuits.
In 1780 he wrote the article "History" for the second edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.[8] The article,40 pages long,replaced the article in the first edition,which was only one paragraph.
In 1783 appeared his History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic,which became very popular and went through several editions. Ferguson believed that the history of the Roman Republic in its period of greatness formed a practical illustration of the ethical and political doctrines which he especially studied. The history reads well and impartially,and displays conscientious use of sources. The influence of the author's military experience shows in portions of the narrative.
In 1785,tired of teaching,he resigned his professorship and devoted himself to revising his lectures,which he published in 1792 as Principles of Moral and Political Science.
In his seventieth year Ferguson,intending to prepare a new edition of the history,visited Italy and some of the principal cities of Europe,where he was received with honour by learned societies. From 1795 he resided successively at Neidpath Castle near Peebles,at Hallyards on Manor Water,and at St Andrews,where he died on 22 February 1816.
He is buried in the churchyard of St Andrews Cathedral,against the east wall. His large mural monument includes a carved profile portrait in marble.
Ethics
In his ethical system Ferguson treats man as a social being,illustrating his doctrines by political examples. As a believer in the progression of the human race,he placed the principle of moral approbation in the attainment of perfection. Victor Cousin criticised Ferguson's speculations (see his Cours d'histoire de la philosophie morale an dix-huitième siècle,pt. II.,1839–1840):
We find in his method the wisdom and circumspection of the Scottish school,with something more masculine and decisive in the results. The principle of perfection is a new one,at once more rational and comprehensive than benevolence and sympathy,which in our view places Ferguson as a moralist above all his predecessors.
By this principle Ferguson attempted to reconcile all moral systems.[citation needed] With Thomas Hobbes and Hume he admits the power of self-interest or utility,and makes it enter into morals as the law of self-preservation. Francis Hutcheson's theory of universal benevolence and Adam Smith's idea of mutual sympathy (now empathy) he combines under the law of society. But,as these laws appear as the means rather than the end of human destiny,they remain subordinate to a supreme end,and the supreme end of perfection.[citation needed]
In the political part of his system Ferguson follows Montesquieu,and pleads the cause of well-regulated liberty and free government. His contemporaries,with the exception of Hume,regarded his writings as of great importance (see Sir Leslie Stephen,English Thought in the Eighteenth Century,Cambridge University Press,2011,p.214). Ferguson shared his republican contemporaries' fear that imperial expansion would undermine the liberty of a state,but he saw representative institutions as a solution to the dangers posed by an expanding state.[9] He defended the British Empire,but argued that political representation was key to prevent it from becoming tyrannical.[9]
Social thought
Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) drew on classical authors and contemporary travel literature,to analyze modern commercial society with a critique of its abandonment of civic and communal virtues. Central themes in Ferguson's theory of citizenship are conflict,play,political participation and military valor. He emphasized the ability to put oneself in another's shoes,saying "fellow-feeling" was so much an "appurtenance of human nature" as to be a "characteristic of the species." Like his friends Adam Smith and David Hume as well as other Scottish intellectuals,he stressed the importance of the spontaneous order;that is,that coherent and even effective outcomes might result from the uncoordinated actions of many individuals.
Ferguson saw history as a two-tiered synthesis of natural history and social history,to which all humans belong. Natural history is created by God;so are humans,who are progressive. Social history is,in accordance with this natural progress,made by humans,and because of that factor it experiences occasional setbacks. But in general,humans are empowered by God to pursue progress in social history. Humans live not for themselves but for God's providential plan. He emphasized aspects of medieval chivalry as ideal masculine characteristics. British gentlemen and young men were advised to dispense with aspects of politeness considered too feminine,such as the constant desire to please,and to adopt less superficial qualities that suggested inner virtue and courtesy toward the 'fairer sex.'[10][11]
Ferguson was a leading advocate of the Idea of Progress. He believed that the growth of a commercial society through the pursuit of individual self-interest could promote a self-sustaining progress. Yet paradoxically Ferguson also believed that such commercial growth could foster a decline in virtue and thus ultimately lead to a collapse similar to Rome's. Ferguson,a devout Presbyterian,resolved the apparent paradox by placing both developments in the context of a divinely ordained plan that mandated both progress and human free will. For Ferguson,the knowledge that humanity gains through its actions,even those actions resulting in temporary retrogression,form an intrinsic part of its progressive,asymptotic movement toward an ultimately unobtainable perfectibility.[12]
Ferguson was influenced by classical humanism and such writers as Tacitus,NiccolòMachiavelli,and Thomas Hobbes. The fellow members of Edinburgh's Select Society,which included David Hume and Adam Smith,were also major influences. Ferguson believed that civilization is largely about laws that restrict our independence as individuals but provide liberty in the sense of security and justice. He warned that social chaos usually leads to despotism. The members of civil society give up their liberty-as-autonomy,which savages possess,in exchange for liberty-as-security,or civil liberty. Montesquieu used a similar argument.[10]
Smith emphasized capital accumulation as the driver of growth,but Ferguson suggested innovation and technical advance were more important,and he is therefore in some ways more in line with modern thinking. According to Smith,commerce tends to make men 'dastardly'. This foreshadows a theme Ferguson,borrowing freely from Smith,took up to criticize capitalism. Ferguson's critique of commercial society went far beyond that of Smith,and influenced Hegel and Marx.[10][11]
Letter from George Washington to Doctor Adam Ferguson about the state of Sir Henry Clinton's request for a passport on his behalf. June 9,1778
He married Katherine Burnett in 1767.[13] Ferguson was first cousin,close friend and colleague to Joseph Black M.D and Katie Burnett was Black's niece.[14] They produced seven children. The eldest,Adam Ferguson (British Army officer),was a close friend to Sir Walter Scott,followed by James,Joseph,John,Isabella,Mary and Margaret.[15] John (John MacPherson Ferguson) was a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy.[16]
Ferguson suffered an attack of paralysis in 1780 but fully recovered and became a vegetarian for the rest of his life.[17][18] Ferguson also abstained from alcoholic drink. He did not dine out unless with his first cousin and great friend Joseph Black.[19]
Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia (1756)[21]
References
↑Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense, ed. by G. A. Johnston (1915), essays by Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, James Beattie, and Dugald Stewart (online versionArchived 3 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine ).
↑Barnes, Harry E. (September 1917). "Sociology Before Comte: A Summary of Doctrines and an Introduction to the Literature". American Journal of Sociology. 23 (2): 234. doi:10.1086/212733. JSTOR2763534. S2CID143916665.
↑Willcox, William Bradford; Arnstein, Walter L. (1966). The Age of Aristocracy, 1688 to 1830. Volume III of A History of England, edited by Lacey Baldwin Smith (Sixth Edition, 1992ed.). Lexington, MA. p.133. ISBN0669244597.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Hamowy, Ronald (1969). The social and political philosophy of Adam Ferguson: a commentary on his Essay on the history of civil society (PhD). University of Chicago. OCLC22572105.
Hill, Lisa. "Adam Ferguson and the Paradox of Progress and Decline," History of Political Thought 1997 18(4): 677–706
Kettler, David Adam Ferguson: His Social and Political Thought. New Brunswick: Transaction, 2005.
McDaniel, Iain. Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Roman Past and Europe's Future (Harvard University Press; 2013) 276 pages
McCosh, James, The Scottish philosophy, biographical, expository, critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (1875)
Oz-Salzberger, Fania. "Introduction" in Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, edited by F. Oz-Salzberger, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Oz-Salzberger, Fania. Translating the Enlightenment: Scottish Civic Discourse in Eighteenth-Century Germany, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)
Vileisis, Danga: Der unbekannte Beitrag Adam Fergusons zum materialistischen Geschichtsverständnis von Karl Marx. In: Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung. Neue Folge 2009. Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2010, S. 7–60 ISBN978-3886196692
Waszek, Norbert & Hauck, Eveline. ""In the human kind, the species has a progress as well as the individual": Adam Ferguson on the progress of "mankind"", in: Humankind and Humanity in the Philosophy of the Enlightenment, ed. by Stefanie Buchenau & Ansgar Lyssy, London, Bloomsbury, 2023, p.115–130.
Further reading
Broadie, Alexander, ed. The Scottish Enlightenment: An Anthology (2001).
External links
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