>>> YOU ARE VIEWING A 200 LINE SAMPLE OF EBOOK# E05757 <<< TITLE: AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY, EIGHTH EDITION AUTHOR: ADAM FERGUSON EBOOK: E05757 (O'Briens Book Cellar) LANGUAGE: ENGLISH This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was produced in 1971 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. AN ESSAY on the HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. * * * * * BY ADAM FERGUSON, L. L. D. CONTENTS * * * * * PART I. OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE. SECTION I. Of the question relating to the State of Nature SECTION II. Of the principles of Self Preservation SECTION III. Of the principles of Union among Mankind SECTION IV. Of the principles of War and Dissention SECTION V. Of Intellectual Powers SECTION VI. Of Moral Sentiment SECTION VII. Of Happiness SECTION VIII. The same subject continued SECTION IX. Of National Felicity SECTION X. The same subject continued PART II. OF THE HISTORY OF RUDE NATIONS. SECTION I. Of the informations on this subject, which are derived from Antiquity SECTION II. Of Rude Nations prior to the Establishment of Property SECTION III. Of rude Nations, under the impressions of Property and Interest * * * * * PART III. OF THE HISTORY OF POLICY AND ARTS. SECTION I. Of the Influences of Climate and Situation SECTION II. The History of Political Establishments SECTION III. Of National Objects in general, and of Establishments and Manners relating to them SECTION IV. Of Population and Wealth SECTION V. Of National Defence and Conquest SECTION VI. Of Civil Liberty SECTION VII. Of the History of Arts SECTION VIII. Of the History of Literature PART IV. OF CONSEQUENCES THAT RESULT FROM THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL ARTS. SECTION I. Of the Separation of Arts and Professions SECTION II. Of the Subordination consequent to the Separation of Arts and Professions SECTION III. Of the Manners of Polished and Commercial Nations SECTION IV. The same subject continued * * * * * PART V. OF THE DECLINE OF NATIONS. SECTION I. Of supposed National Eminence, and of the Vicissitudes of Human Affairs SECTION II. Of the Temporary Efforts and Relaxations of the National Spirit SECTION III. Of Relaxations in the National Spirit incident to Polished Nations SECTION IV. The same subject continued SECTION V. Of National Waste PART VI. OF CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL SLAVERY. SECTION I. Of corruption in general SECTION II. Of Luxury SECTION III. Of the Corruption incident to Polished Nations SECTION IV. The same subject continued SECTION V. Of Corruption, as it tends to Political Slavery SECTION VI. Of the Progress and Termination of Despotism AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. * * * * * PART FIRST. OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE. * * * * * SECTION I. OF THE QUESTION RELATING TO THE STATE OF NATURE. Natural productions are generally formed by degrees. Vegetables are raised from a tender shoot, and animals from an infant state. The latter, being active, extend together their operations and their powers, and have a progress in what they perform, as well as in the faculties they acquire. This progress in the case of man is continued to a greater extent than in that of any other animal. Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilization. Hence the supposed departure of mankind from the state of their nature; hence our conjectures and different opinions of what man must have been in the first age of his being. The poet, the historian, and the moralist frequently allude to this ancient time; and under the emblems of gold, or of iron, represent a condition, and a manner of life, from which mankind have either degenerated, or on which they have greatly improved. On either supposition, the first state of our nature must have borne no resemblance to what men have exhibited in any subsequent period; historical monuments, even of the earliest date, are to be considered as novelties; and the most common establishments of human society are to be classed among the encroachments which fraud, oppression, or a busy invention, have made upon the reign of nature, by which the chief of our grievances or blessings were equally withheld. Among the writers who have attempted to distinguish, in the human character, its original qualities, and to point out the limits between nature and art, some have represented mankind in their first condition, as possessed of mere animal sensibility, without any exercise of the faculties that render them superior to the brutes, without any political union, without any means of explaining their sentiments, and even without possessing any of the apprehensions and passions which the voice and the gesture are so well fitted to express. Others have made the state of nature to consist in perpetual wars kindled by competition for dominion and interest, where every individual had a separate quarrel with his kind, and where the presence of a fellow creature was the signal of battle. The desire of laying the foundation of a favourite system, or a fond expectation, perhaps, that we may be able to penetrate the secrets of nature, to the very source of existence, have, on this subject, led to many fruitless inquiries, and given rise to many wild suppositions. Among the various qualities which mankind possess, we select one or a few particulars on which to establish a theory, and in framing our account of what man was in some imaginary state of nature, we overlook what he has always appeared within the reach of our own observation, and in the records of history. In every other instance, however, the natural historian thinks himself obliged to collect facts, not to offer conjectures. When he treats of any particular species of animals, he supposes that their present dispositions and instincts are the same which they originally had, and that their present manner of life is a continuance of their first destination. He admits, that his knowledge of the material system of the world consists in a collection of facts, or at most, in general tenets derived from particular observations and experiments. It is only in what relates to himself, and in matters the most important and the most easily known, that he substitutes hypothesis instead of reality, and confounds the provinces of imagination and reason, of poetry and science. But without entering any further on questions either in moral or physical subjects, relating to the manner or to the origin of our knowledge; without any disparagement to that subtilty which would analyze every sentiment, and trace every mode of being to its source; it may be safely affirmed, that the character of man, as he now exists, that the laws of his animal and intellectual system, on which his happiness now depends, deserve our principal study; and that general principles relating to this or any other subject, are useful only so far as they are founded on just observation, and lead to the knowledge of important consequences, or so far as they enable us to act with success when we would apply either the intellectual or the physical powers of nature, to the purposes of human life. If both the earliest and the latest accounts collected from every quarter of the earth, represent mankind as assembled in troops and companies; and the individual always joined by affection to one party, while he is <<< END OF SAMPLE... (THE FULL EBOOK HAS 646036 TOTAL CHARACTERS) >>>