An Essay on the History of Civil Society

Contents

1. I.1 Of the Question Relating to the State of Nature 24 min 15

   Ferguson opens by rejecting the search for an original “state of nature”. Rousseau’s solitary animal and Hobbes’s war of all against all both rest on conjecture, not evidence. A natural historian should describe humans as they are always found: in groups, using language, divided by friendship and enmity, and driven by a love of improvement. Since art is natural to man and the species progresses, every condition, from forest to palace, is equally natural. The real question is not what our ancestors were but what condition we should aim at.

2. I.2 Of the Principles of Self-Preservation 14 min 3

   Ferguson turns to the instincts of self-preservation. Combined with foresight, they produce a concern with property, or “interest”, which makes man the great storemaster among animals and can corrupt him into violence or meanness. He rejects the “selfish system” that reduces benevolence to self-love as a mere change of words, and confines “interest” to concern with external fortune and animal life. Many passions, such as rage and indignation, are as disinterested as benevolence and often act against interest.

3. I.3 Of the Principles of Union Among Mankind 10 min 6

   Human beings have always lived in troops and companies. Ferguson finds the bonds of society not in calculated advantage but in affection, habit and shared danger: the joy of company, the friendship tested in hardship, the loyalty of a savage to his defenceless tribe or of a Greek or Roman to his city. Examples from Dampier and North American ethnography illustrate the point. By contrast, in a commercial state the individual may become solitary, treating others as sources of profit, so that interest divides rather than unites.

4. I.4 Of the Principles of War and Dissension 14 min 7

   The same nature that unites people also divides them. Ferguson argues that humans take pleasure in opposition, that every society defines itself against outsiders, and that national antipathies, from Rome and Greece to the Khoikhoi and North American nations, precede and outrun any real conflict of interest. Shared danger holds states together, as it held early Rome. War and rivalry thus give civil society its object and form and call out courage and generosity; removing all external emulation might weaken the bonds of society at home.

5. I.5 Of Intellectual Powers 14 min 3

   On the intellectual powers, Ferguson cares less about their origin than their use. Knowledge consists in finding general rules, a task shared by the scientist and the man of business. But he ranks practical ability in human affairs, the talent to act with and lead men, above learning, and warns that separate professions may weaken it. Later ages know more than the Greeks and Romans without being their superiors; modern Europe’s bookish education produces men who repeat the language of politics but cannot act.

6. I.6 Of Moral Sentiment 21 min 8

   Moral sentiment is a basic fact of human nature, felt before any theory explains it. Interest alone cannot account for our passions over insult, wrong and character. Ferguson rejects Mandeville’s claim that morality is a political fraud and grounds the sense of right in a benevolent disposition that extends our own claims to others. Harmlessness is the law of justice and spreading happiness the law of morality. Magnanimity is formed not in courts and fashionable cities but where character, not fortune, decides men’s standing.

7. I.7 Of Happiness 20 min 7

   Happiness is poorly understood. Ferguson argues that it lies less in pleasure or repose than in activity: people are miserable without occupation and often seek danger and difficulty for their own sake, as huntsmen, gamblers, soldiers and politicians show. Sensual pleasure is brief, and a despot surrounded by luxury may be more wretched than his subjects. Strong passion can overcome pain, as the examples of Scaevola, Regulus and Muley Moluck show. Ancient discipline in enduring pain and despising pleasure is held up as a model.

8. I.8 The Same Subject Continued 24 min 7

   Continuing on happiness, Ferguson argues that it depends on how the mind is employed, not on circumstances, and that even business can be pursued as a kind of play. Selfish anxieties come from choosing the wrong objects; the exercise of benevolence and public zeal is itself the chief happiness, and virtue and self-interest coincide. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for whom the public was everything, showed this; modern Europeans, devoted to commerce and private pastimes, treat the state as a set of departments rewarding individual service.

9. I.9 Of National Felicity 13 min 5

   The individual is part of the community, yet the happiness of individuals is the end of society. National felicity lies not in wealth, territory or population but in the character of a people. Ferguson attacks the admiration of empire: Rome’s greatness ruined its virtue, while the rivalry of small Greek states produced great men. States should be roughly equal to their neighbours, which justifies Britain’s union. Dispute among free citizens is the school of political life, and no single form of government suits every people.

10. I.10 The Same Subject Continued 27 min 7

    Subordination is as natural as society, arising from differences of talent before any institution, though no power gives a right to do wrong. Following Montesquieu, whom he generously acknowledges, Ferguson classifies governments as republics (democratic or aristocratic), monarchies and despotisms, governed by the principles of virtue, moderation, honour and fear. Real states blend these forms and move between them. In corrupt societies democracy and despotism alternate, and the only true state of war is that between a despot and his subjects.

11. II.1 Of the Informations on This Subject Which Are Derived From Antiquity 17 min 6

    Ferguson opens Part II by asking how we can know the earliest condition of mankind. Every nation’s history shows a slow rise from rude beginnings, but conjecture tends to describe the savage merely as civilised man minus his virtues. National legends record the ideas of the ages that transmitted them, while monkish chroniclers kept facts and lost character. The Greek and Roman historians, read alongside modern travellers’ accounts of Arabs and American peoples, are the best guides: present-day rude nations show, “as in a mirrour”, the features of Europe’s own ancestors.

12. II.2 Of Rude Nations Prior to the Establishment of Property 36 min 28

    Ferguson divides rude nations into savages, who live by hunting, fishing and simple farming and know little property, and barbarians, whose herds make them rich or poor. Drawing on Lafitau, Charlevoix and Colden, he describes North American peoples: common harvests, households held by women, no ranks beyond age and talent, councils and a confederacy of six nations, revenge restrained by family obligation, fortitude under torture, contempt for trade. Sociability, eloquence and courage, he concludes, are original human properties, and the materials of Lycurgus’s Sparta are already present among such peoples.

13. II.3 Of Rude Nations Under the Impressions of Property and Interest 27 min 27

    With herds and property, rude nations enter the barbarous state. Unequal fortunes and hereditary honours create chieftains and followers; war becomes plunder, as among Homer’s heroes, Tartars and Germanic invaders. Such societies show the rudiments of monarchy but remain familiar and nearly equal. Where interest prevails and territory is large, despotism can arise, as among the Tartars. Barbarians settle disputes by the sword, by judicial combat and by appeals to the gods, and priests and diviners may gain power. Ferguson insists that these ages had their own security, affection and vigour of spirit.

14. III.1 Of the Influences of Climate and Situation 32 min 12

    Part III follows nations beyond rudeness, and Ferguson first asks why civil arts and political wisdom flourished mainly in the temperate zone. He surveys supposed effects of heat and cold on temper, passion and genius, from Laplanders to Arabs and from Siberia to India, but admits that no one can explain how climate acts on the mind. Situation explains more: moderate hardship stimulates industry, as in Holland, and coasts, mountains and a balance of power keep nations separate, independent and active.

15. III.2 The History of Subordination 35 min 12

    How government arose. People pursuing immediate aims arrive at ends they never intended: nations stumble on establishments that are “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design”. Founding legislators like Romulus and Lycurgus formalised existing customs. Small states tend to democracy, large ones to monarchy; liberty survives through the opposition of orders and parties. Ferguson traces feudalism from the Germanic conquests, the struggles of kings and nobles, and Britain’s unusual mixed monarchy, and shows how informal subordination, as in Rome, shapes every constitution.

16. III.3 Of National Objects in General, and of Establishments and Manners Relating to Them 5 min 2

    Every government must attend to defence, justice and internal prosperity, and nations, like individuals, have favourite pursuits that shape their manners, whether warlike or commercial. Ferguson regrets that states justify policy only by safety, wealth and property, and almost never by its effect on the talents and character of citizens.

17. III.4 Of Population and Wealth 22 min 10

    Population and wealth matter, but statesmen can do little to create either. Rude peoples value every warrior; bounties on marriage and imported settlers achieve little where people are oppressed. Secure freedom and property, and population rises to the limit of subsistence. Needs are relative, so wealth alone does not settle families. Commerce thrives when left to merchants, as the corn trade shows. Ferguson warns against treating national wealth as the sum of happiness: a nation run like a company of merchants may lose the virtue needed to defend itself.

18. III.5 Of National Defence and Conquest 20 min 7

    Much of policy concerns war. Sparta’s discipline aimed at virtue more than conquest. War favours monarchy and dictatorship, yet the best armies grow from citizens used to equality. As arts advance, civil and military functions separate, the propertied “resign the sword”, and paid standing armies appear, raising the danger that soldiers will one day rule. Ferguson traces how fear and ambition drove Greek, Macedonian and Roman expansion, and warns that Europe’s mercenary armies could conquer the world’s “effeminate kingdoms”.

19. III.6 Of Civil Liberty 33 min 10

    Peace at home requires justice, and law is a “treaty” protecting property, person and political rights; liberty consists in security under law. Ferguson discusses agrarian and sumptuary laws as remedies for inequality, and holds up Sparta, where wealth carried no rank and virtue was the object of the state. Modern nations must instead seek freedom through limits on magistrates and the balance of parties in mixed government. Rome and England are the great legislators, but rights such as habeas corpus survive only through a vigilant, spirited people.

20. III.7 Of the History of Arts 8 min 1

    Art is natural to man and grows from the needs and pursuits of each society. Ferguson rejects the habit of tracing every art to borrowing: nations take from others only what they are nearly ready to invent, and the flourishing of the arts reflects political happiness at home more than foreign instruction.

21. III.8 Of the History of Literature 21 min 5

    Literature, too, arises spontaneously where people are free and active. Poetry comes first, because rude peoples speak in metaphor and verse aids memory, and early poets like Homer are rarely surpassed. Prose history and philosophy follow when people turn to policy and commerce. Society itself is the school of letters: turbulent Athens, Rome and Italy produced great writers, while monastic and endowed leisure produced only jargon. Knowledge without fortitude and public affection is worthless.

22. IV.1 Of the Separation of Arts and Professions 9 min 6

    Ferguson opens Part IV with the division of labour, which he calls the separation of arts and professions. Specialisation raises skill, output and profit, and the same device organises government and war. Commercial society grows by small improvements no one planned, until it is too complex for any mind to grasp. Yet many specialised tasks need no thought: “ignorance is the mother of industry”, and the workshop becomes “an engine, the parts of which are men”. Masters, statesmen and generals gain breadth while workers and soldiers lose it, and thinking itself becomes a trade.

23. IV.2 Of the Subordination Consequent to the Separation of Arts and Professions 10 min 4

    Rank, Ferguson argues, arises from talent, from property and from the habits different occupations form. Work done for mere subsistence is held sordid, and the ancient republics freed their citizens for politics and war by loading labour on women and slaves, an injustice Ferguson admits, seen most fully at Sparta. In commercial states “the exaltation of a few must depress the many”, and the urban poor are corrupted rather than merely ignorant. Such inequality makes democracy hard to sustain, as Athens shows: popular assemblies fall under demagogues or a single leader.

24. IV.3 Of the Manners of Polished and Commercial Nations 11 min 2

    Polished nations share many features once their ranks and professions multiply: security, settled forms of procedure, and leisure for refinement and study, so that literature becomes a set of specialised trades. Their characters differ chiefly with their constitutions. Rome bred soldiers and Carthage merchants; the republican must court the people and join parties, the monarchical subject must court the great. Ferguson warns that a government securing liberty without any effort from citizens may loosen social bonds, especially in a mixed constitution, and cautions against judging individuals by national stereotypes.

25. IV.4 The Same Subject Continued 28 min 8

    Modern Europe, Ferguson observes, wages war as an affair of states, sparing individuals and honouring prisoners, while the Greeks and Romans enslaved or killed the conquered. By modern standards the admired ancients were “barbarous”, as an imagined traveller’s letter on Sparta and Athens comically shows. Yet their courage, equality and public spirit earned them the first rank among nations. Ferguson traces modern courtesy in war to chivalry, combining Germanic regard for women, Celtic forms of combat, Christianity and feudal rank, and concludes that by this measure the moderns excel antiquity.

26. V.1 Of Supposed National Eminence, and of the Vicissitudes of Human Affairs 14 min 4

    Part V asks why nations decline. Every people thinks itself superior, and nations are commonly praised for size, wealth or luxury rather than for character. Ferguson argues that virtues shine most in struggle and that the ends they achieve often cause corruption. States may simply be conquered, but the harder question is why great powers such as Greece and Rome sank before weaker enemies. He rejects the comparison of nations to aging bodies, since a society renews its members, and proposes to look instead for the causes of internal decay.

27. V.2 Of the Temporary Efforts and Relaxations of the National Spirit 10 min 1

    Human beings are made for activity, and national spirit is the energy with which a people pursues its common objects. That spirit fluctuates with passing passions and occasions, as in the Crusades, the struggles for freedom and the conquests of the New World. States with sound institutions recover from upheavals stronger, as Britain did after its civil wars. Long peace lets martial spirit languish, but free peoples are regularly roused again. Final corruption comes only from changes that deprive citizens of public action and debase their minds.

28. V.3 Of Relaxations in the National Spirit Incident to Polished Nations 27 min 4

    Ferguson asks whether polished nations decline because their work is finished, and denies it: human ends are never exhausted. The danger lies elsewhere. Commerce draws talent toward profit; accumulated learning breeds admirers instead of rivals; and the separation of professions breaks the bonds of society, as the Athenians ceased to be citizens when politics and war became specialised trades. Large, peaceful states weaken public affection. Governments that aim only at quiet, or at securing person and property without regard to citizenship, may leave a free constitution in the hands of people unfit to keep it.

29. V.4 The Same Subject Continued 18 min 5

    Nations consist of men, and their strength depends on public spirit and capacity as well as resources. Ferguson regrets that statesmen and warriors are being replaced by clerks and accountants, with China as the extreme case of a populous, bureaucratic but weak state. Relying on hired or professional troops leaves a people helpless against invaders or against its own army. Separating the citizen from the soldier “dismembers the human character”. Greece declined when soldiers of fortune replaced citizens; Rome lost its freedom when Marius created armies loyal to their generals.

30. V.5 Of National Waste 8 min 3

    National strength rests on the wealth, numbers and character of a people. Ferguson argues that decline comes from misuse of resources, not their exhaustion. Since public revenue depends on what owners will spare, private extravagance can leave the public poor while its members are rich. Money spent at home merely circulates; real loss comes from consuming goods and diverting labour unproductively, as in pointless wars. Public borrowing lets governments disguise the costs of their enterprises and burden future ages, as the once-heroic Dutch Republic has done.

31. VI.1 Of Corruption in General 20 min 5

    Part VI turns to corruption. Ferguson rejects a miser’s accounting that would value people only by productive labour: inequality, leisure and wide participation in government belong to a free society. Corruption is a defect of character, in which wealth and favour replace merit and individuals use the community for private ends, becoming either rapacious or servile. Despotism is government designed for such people, and it rests on fear, which in turn deepens corruption. Rude nations can be corrupt too, but vigorous peoples can still reform themselves; weak and depraved ones cannot.

32. VI.2 Of Luxury 12 min 3

    Luxury is praised as the parent of arts and condemned as the source of corruption. Ferguson argues that any line between necessities and luxuries is relative to the age: each censor condemns only refinements newer than his own, as a savage might have condemned the first tools. Virtue and vice lie in the mind, not in dress or lodging. Luxury becomes ruinous only when its objects are preferred to friends and country. Its level depends on the mechanical arts and on inequality, and it suits monarchies better than democracies.

33. VI.3 Of the Corruption Incident to Polished Nations 16 min 4

    Ferguson distinguishes luxury, the refinement of wealth and its enjoyment, from corruption, a weakness of character found at any level of wealth. Luxury corrupts when rank comes to depend on fortune alone. In rude economies the rich spend on followers and become patrons; once produce can buy ornaments, the master consumes his estate himself. The desire for wealth springs from the esteem attached to it, as Aurangzeb’s pursuit of pomp shows. Admiration of splendour prepares people, in the West as in the East, for servility.

34. VI.4 The Same Subject Continued 15 min 5

    Corruption, Ferguson argues, needs a political setting in which mercenary habits can be indulged safely. Where public disputes cease, private interest and pleasure take over, and people flatter their weakness as politeness. He defends ambition against the satire of Juvenal and Pope, and criticises the praise of retirement as a relic of monkish ideals. In commercial states liberty depends on rival ambitions and parties, so their decline signals weakness. Higher ranks that abandon public duty become the most wretched members of society.

35. VI.5 Of Corruption, As It Tends to Political Slavery 28 min 9

    Commerce and political liberty advanced together in modern Europe, but wealth supports freedom only while its owners are independent; in corrupt ages it buys servility. Laws protect liberty only through “men resolved to be free”. Rulers naturally extend their power, and liberty cannot be granted by even the best of them. Balanced constitutions need disagreement, not unanimity. Benevolent despotism, an orderly bureaucratic state, a disarmed people relying on professional soldiers, and the growth of territory all prepare the way for arbitrary power.

36. VI.6 Of the Progress and Termination of Despotism 19 min 6

    Despotism establishes itself gradually, breaking the remnants of rank and independence by force and ruling through fear and simple commands, so that speech and persuasion become unnecessary. Governors plunder provinces, the army itself decays, and a wealthy empire faces poor and warlike peoples at its frontier. Despotism cannot reform itself; by destroying commerce it brings about its own collapse, as subjects flee, take up arms and rebuild society from a rude state. Ferguson ends by rejecting fatalism: nations decay only through the vices of their members.