Adam Ferguson and the Beginnings of Modern Sociology: An Analysis of the Sociological Elements in His Writings With some Suggestions as to His Place in the History of Social Theory 9780231877442

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STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS, AND PUBLIC LAW EDITED B Y T H E F A C U L T Y O F P O L I T I C A L S C I E N C E OF C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y

Number 3 2 8 A D A M FERGUSON A N D THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIOLOGY

Il est donc bon de réviser de temps à autre le jugement de la postérité, de rappeler à la mémoire du public les ouvrages qui tombent dans l'oubli avant d'avoir produit tout l'effet utile dont ils sont susceptibles, et de rendre à leurs auteurs la justice qui leur est due. . . . Le temps aussi a exercé son influence sur l'oeuvre du philosophe écossais : beaucoup de considérations de détail, qui avaient leur raison d'être à l'époque où il écrivait, ne l'ont plus aujourd-liui, mais le fond reste vrai et vivant Il n'y aurait donc pas lieu, croyons-nous, de rééditer intégralement ses ouvrages; mais il est fort à désirer qu'on en extraie la quintessence, et nous faisons des vœux pour que notre modeste essai engage de plus habiles à le compléter et à faire un bon abrégé des travaux de Ferguson. Ce livre serait certainement plus instructif que beaucoup de publications modernes qui absorbent le temps et l'attention des lecteurs, mais ne nourissent guère leur esprit. —H.

BOUET.

Wenn Montesquieu einen groesseren Erfolg hatte als Ferguson, so hat doch das Buch des letzteren einen weit groesseren wissenschaftlichen Wert. Man kann es als die erste Naturgeschichte der menschlichen Gesellschaft und Ferguson als den ersten Soziologen bezeichnen. —GUMPLOWICZ. *

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In soziologischer Richtung ist ihm (Montesquieu) Ferguson weit ueberlegen. Ferguson erst geht soziologisch in die Tiefe indem er die sozialpsychische Seite der menschlichen Natur zum Gegenstand der Untersuchung macht, Selbstliebe, Wohlwollen, Selbstschaetzung gegeneinander abwaegt, und den ersten Entwurf einer Naturgeschichte der menschlichen Gesellschaft hinterlaesst. —LUDWIG *

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The critical spirit of Hume and the historical spirit of Montesquieu were most attractively combined in Ferguson. He . . . discarded all ready-made systems of what is " natural ", and studied society and its institutions as " going " concerns, beyond hope of control by even the wisest philosophers. His interest was to determine by the light of history whither society was moving, not by superhuman wisdom to fix its course. — W . A.

DUNNING.

ADAM FERGUSON AND THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIOLOGY AN ANALYSIS OF T H E SOCIOLOGICAL ELEMENTS IN HIS WRITINGS WITH SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO HIS PLACE IN T H E HISTORY OF SOCIAL THEORY

W. C. LEHMANN, PH. D. Aêsi$lant Pro/ator in Sociology ut SyroniM University

NEW

YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

PRESS

LONDON : P. S. KING & SON, LTD.

1930

COPYRIGHT,

1930

BY COLOMBIA UNIVERSITY

PRESS

PRINTED IN THE UNITEB STATUS OF AMERICA

Χα MY WIFE

PREFACE THIS study in i8th century social theory grew out of a paper on a related theme presented at Dr. Tenney's suggestion in his seminar in social theory at Columbia University in the spring of 1926. It was nurtured first by a series of surprises at the utter modernity of Ferguson's viewpoint, at the soundness of his basic methodology in an allegedly à priori age, and at the suggestiveness at least of the questions propounded; and later by a growing appreciation of the extent to which others were propounding the same questions and consulting the records of history past and present for a satisfactory answer. The study was in the main completed in 1928, but circumstances of teaching and a summer abroad prevented its earlier appearance. It is offered to the reader with some confidence that where Ferguson and other 18th century figures are themselves permitted to speak, he may find them worth a hearing. The reader, however, who may be easily routed by King Bomba's army, is warned to read no farther. A t least the writer himself refuses to flee before the facce feroce of those who would raise the alarm-cry, " Philosophy ! " and confesses even to having occasionally kept company with that dame of ill repute. While he makes no pretense at profoundness, he insists frankly that those who place science and philosophy in antithesis needlessly confuse philosophy with a priori speculation ; that not only was philosophy a perfectly reputable term in the 18th century for the most " p o s i t i v e " or factual intellectual endeavor, but that all sciences of today are the legitimate offspring of parental enterprises that are recorded 7

8

PREFACE

only in the histories of philosophy; and that it is not only absurd but fatal to be so fearful of every discussion of the assumptions and basic methodology of scientific discovery and interpretation. This study has definitely to do with an interest in science. I am indebted to various members of the faculty of Political Science at Columbia University, particularly to Dr. A . A . Tenney for that sympathetic and understanding support without which this study could scarcely have been undertaken and completed; to Dr. F. H. Giddings for his whole-hearted encouragement and continued interest in this little adventure in the history of sociology; and to Dr. R. E. Chaddock for stimulating an interest in the foundamentals of scientific method. T o Dr. H. E. Barnes I am indebted for suggestions both contained in his writings and personally given. In its final revision my manuscript benefited by the suggestions freely given by Dr. Herbert N. Shenton and other of my colleagues at Syracuse. In preparing the manuscript and seeing it through the press and in preparing the index, my wife came frequently to the rescue. WILLIAM C. SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, M A Y ,

1930.

LEHMANN

TABLE OF CONTENTS MCI

PREFACE

7 INTRODUCTORΓ

CHAPTER I GENERAL ORIENTATION

Objective Biographical Method of Approach . . Previous Studies Thesis Stated

15 16 21 23 25 C H A P T E R II

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The New World of Experience: Discoveries, Scientific Advance, Economic and Political Changes The New Mind: Bacon, Descartes, Newton and their Influence on Social Thought Individualistic and Speculative Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century: Reason and the Order of Nature

P A R T

SOCIOLOGICAL

33 39

I

A N A L Y S I S OF F E R G U S O N ' S W R I T I N G S A

28

FROM

VIEWPOINT

A. THE FUNDAMENTAL APPROACH CHAPTER

III

T H E FACT AND FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY

The Fact of Society Foundations of Society : Necessity Inborn Tendencies Habit

47 49 50 52

9

IO

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

The Individual as Societally Determined Society and Individual Perfection . . Need of a Societal Approach to the Study of Man

rui S3 SS 56

C H A P T E R IV SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL CONTINUITY

The Socio-Historic Process as a Process of Change Continuity in Social Change Interest in Social Origins and in Historical Evolution

57 63 63

CHAPTER V T H E N A T U R E o r H U M A N S O C I E T Y AS C U L T U R E

Instinct and Habit " The Conditioned Response " Behavior Patterns of the Many The Function of Habit in Social Life Differentiation of Group Ways Attack on Romantic Conception of State of Nature and Nature Peoples

66 70 71 73 75 77

B. SOCIAL EVOLUTION CHAPTER VI T H E N A T U R E AND C O U R S E O F S O C I A L E V O L U T I O N

The Trend of the Evolution of Society: Savagery . . . . . · . . Barbarism' "Civility" General Tendencies The Nature of Social Evolution: Motive Forces Invention and Borrowing Evolution of Language as Example Summary

80 83 84 84 86 89 QO 93

CHAPTER VII FACTORS IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION

Racial Differences Climate and Situation The Role of Conflict in Society Institutions Viewed ai Dynamic Factors

94 95 ç8 106

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

II FAG·

Techniques and the Division of Labor 107 Dynamic Aspects of Human Native: Animal Drives; Union and Division; Active Tendencies; " Perfection " in The Function of Intelligence 115 Moral Factors 117 Summary 117 C. SOCIETY IN ITS STATIC ASPECTS CHAPTER

VIII

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N OP H U M A N R E L A T I O N S H I P S

Kinds of Societies Bases of Social Organization Kinds of Social Ties Psychic Factors in the Organization of Human Relationships . . CHAPTER

119 121 123 125

IX

L A N G U A G E , S C I E N C E , A R T , L I T E R A T U R E , R E L I G I O N IN R E L A T I O N TO SOCIETY

Language Science Art Literature Religion D.

129 131 132 134 136

. . .

THE UEANING OF SOCIETY AND THE UETHODS OF ITS STUDY CHAPTER

X

T H E COMMERCIAL AND P O L I T I C A L A R T S IN R E L A T I O N TO PROGRESS AND D E C A Y

W e a l t h and Society O r i g i n , Forms and Function of the State T h e State and Economic Life General Policy Progress and Decay of Societies CHAPTER

13g 141 144 145 147 XI

U L T I M A T E V A L U E S IN H U M A N SOCIETY

Society Defined T h e Individual and Society Individualism or Socialism?

153 156 159

12

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XII METHODOLOGICAL

SUMMARY

General Assumptions: The Philosophy of Nature Ferguson's Conception of Scientific Method Limitations and Caution in Application of Method Methods of Historical Reconstruction Methods of Sociological Interpretation Summary

P A R T

164 166 170 173 176 179

II

F E R G U S O N ' S P L A C E IN T H E H I S T O R Y O F S O C I A L THEORY C H A P T E R

XIII

ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS

Acknowledged Influences 183 General Foundations : Physical Science, Mechanistic Interpretations, Social Philosophy 185 Antecedents of Particular Teachings . . 186 Origin of Central Conceptions: Societal Solidarity 190 Psychological Interpretations . . . 191 Evolution •••193 C H A P T E R

XIV

A M O N G HIS C O N T E M P O R A R I E S

David Hume Adam Smith William F. Robertson Priestley, Kames and Dunbar Gilbert Stuart . . . John Millar . . . . Miscellaneous Edmund Burke C H A P T E R

. . 197 . 205 209 .211 . 214 -217 . . . 223 . . 224 X V

A M O N G HIS C O N T E M P O R A R I E S

(Continued)

Generalization : A Vigorous Intellectual Movement Interest in Scientific Methodology Interest in Nature and Origins of Society

227 . . 228 229

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

Iß M G ·

T h e Psychological Approach ' ' Theoretical History " " Philosophical H i s t o r y " or Historical Idealism S u m m a r y of Ferguson in Relation to this Movement CHAPTER FERGUSON'S

XVI

R E L A T I O N TO THE C H I E F T E N D E N C I E S ANGLO-AMERICAN

22g 230 232 235

OF

SOCIOLOGY

Influence on Contemporaries and Posterity Surmised Causes of his " e c l i p s e " " Boundary Lines " ; T h e Quantitative Method S o c i o l o g y , Social Reform and Social Policy F e r g u s o n and the Social Physicists F e r g u s o n and Psychological Sociology T h e o r i e s of Social Evolution : Ferguson and Spencer F e r g u s o n and the Historico-Cultural Approach CONCLUSION

238 240 242 243 244 247 248 255 .

257

BIBLIOGRAPHY

259

INDEX

263

CHAPTER

I

INTRODUCTION

Objective. The aim of the present study is neither to present a critical analysis of the theorizings of a great sociologist, nor to write a much needed chapter in the history of social theory—though it may savor of a pretense to do both. Its much humbler aim is but to open the shutters, sweep out a few cob-webs, and set slightly in order a room that has strangely fallen into neglect, if perchance it may, speaking for itself, reveal at least to the antiquarian qualities of interest he little suspected there. It calls attention merely to a prominent figure in the third quarter of the 18 century and beyond, in a then home of many muses, who, though strangely obscured by the fortunes of time, yet approached the threshold not merely but entered at least the ante-room of a magnificent structure ; and asks whether, to change the figure slightly, he was not one, even though scarcely the greatest, of a group of workmen who laid well the foundations of a building, the erection of which is still a vital concern of our own day. In short, with an orientation that is essentially historical, rather than analytical, certain materials are placed before the reader, on the basis of which he may himself judge whether a scientific sociology was not on the very verge of coming into being at the time of which we write, and that on lines much sounder than those of either the speculative ventures and premature systematizations, or the philosophies and techniques of social reform, aspiring to that title in the century that followed. 15

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ADAM

FERGUSON

Biographical. Adam Ferguson ( 1723-1816), 1 contemporary and intimate associate of Adam Smith, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Blair, was in his day a remarkable figure, a light of unusual brilliance. His lectures were attended, his biographer tells us, by the most distinguished men in the country, and his writings attracted an amount of notice both in England and in France that " would be nearly incredible if we were right in supposing that international communication began with the railway system He " ably discussed the principles ", another writer tells us, " of both Politics and Political Economy. His Essay on the Origin of Civil Society and Lectures on Political Economy . . . contributed to direct the attention of thinking men to those departments of inquiry, and to familiarize the general mind of the country with political investigations." * A Scotsman at a time when Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen were peculiarly the seats of learning, Ferguson was in more ways than one a son of Scotland.4 Prepared for holy orders at a time when the deistic movement in one or another of its forms dominated the theological situation, his mind early took on a liberal turn while yet his sympathies re1 Adam Ferguson, LL.D., F.R.S.E., born at Logierait, Perthshire, Scotland, June 20, 1723; died at St. Andrews, Feb. 22, 1816. Principal biographical sources are : Biographical Sketch by John Small, in Transactions of Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1864; review in Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1867; Dictionary of National Biography, s. v., by Leslie Stephen; Cockburn, Memorials of his Time (1856) ; Laurie, H., Scottish Philosophy in its National Development, Glasgow, 1902, ch. xi ; McCosh, J., Scottish Philosophy, New York, 1875, ch. xxxii ; Stewart, Dugald, Collected Works, Edinburgh, 1858, esp. vol. x, memoirs of Stewart, Smith, Robertson, Reid, with many letters by Hume, etc. Preface to Ferguson's Roman Republic, one vol. ed., New York, 1852.

* Edinburgh Review, loc. cit., pp. 67 et seq. •Veitch in Stewart, Works, vol. x, p. xlviii, cf. p. 261. Also McCosh, op. cit. * The Scotchman most " typical of the whole race in appearance, character, taste and fortunes ". Edinburgh Review, loc. cit., p. 48.

INTRODUCTION

17

mained essentially religious and idealistic. A chaplaincy with the famous Black Watch Highland Regiment in which he, however, scorned the book for the sword and could not long find satisfaction, is probably not without bearing upon his later defense of military virtues and his philosophy of conflict. Failing to secure a " living ", he succeeded his friend David Hume to a librarianship in Edinburgh, where he manifested a considerable interest in literature and himself produced some pieces. Barely failing, in spite of the " manipulations " of Hume, in an appointment to the chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow as successor to Adam Smith, he was in 1759 appointed to the chair of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, a position for which he of course had no special preparation or inclination, but which, together with various literary and tutorial activities, led to his appointment in 1764 to the coveted chair of "Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy " in the same university. This position he held till the state of his health required his retirement from active duties in 1785. In 1767, nearly ten years before the appearance of the Wealth of Nations, he published, what remained perhaps his chief claim to distinction, An Essay on the History of Civil Society—an essay, which, while it for some reason failed to receive Hume's recommendation for publication, was yet very highly esteemed by that critical genius, as well as by d'Holbach and others in France. 1 It immediately won him distinction. It reached a seventh, though but little altered edition during his lifetime and an eighth edition after his death ; besides being almost immediately translated into German and later into French. Previous to this in 1761 he had 1 Hume speaks of a Treatise on Refinement ( 1739) which was an early draft of this essay or a part of it. Stewart, op. cit., p. 38. Cf. infra, p. 238, note 2.

ADAM

ιδ

FERGUSON

issued a syllabus of his lectures, Analysis of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy: for the use of the students of the college of Edinburgh. This was elaborated into what remained however still but a syllabus in the form of brief propositions The Institutes of Moral Philosophy, issued in 1772, which went through at least four editions during his life time, besides being widely used in translations on the Continent, even in Russia, as an outline for similar courses of study. In 1782 he published his " History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic " which Thomas Carlyle in his rectorial address speaks of as, " particularly well worth reading on Roman History " and which McCosh considers perhaps the best treatise on the subject prior to Niebuhr. 1 It appeared in three editions during his life time and in at least one edition and many reprints after his death. A German translation appeared in 1784-1786, and French translations between 1784 and 1810. It is narrative throughout and so will concern us but little in this study. In 1792, several years after he had ceased to lecture at the University, he published his Principles of Moral and Political Science, being chiefly a retrospect of lectures delivered in the college of Edinburgh. This is in a sense an elaboration, in abbreviated lecture form, 2 of the syllabus earlier published as the " Institutes." It need hardly be pointed out that the terms " moral " and " political " designate more than merely ethics and political science as we might understand them today, but that the lectures covered the whole range of his interest in anthropology, psychology, economics, politics, law, ethics, with sections even in logic and theology. It appeared in French in 1821. While Ferguson's ultimate interest may be said to have been in the field of ethics, in which he was with all his eclecti1

McCosh, loc. cit.

* Veitch in Stewart, op. cit., p. xvii.

INTRODUCTION

19

cism and his own principle of " perfectionism basically a follower of Shaftsbury, Hutcheson, and the Scottish school, he held that a valid ethic could be approached only by way of a severely objective description of human behavior in its biopsychological character, its institutional patterns, and its historical development.1 It is here accordingly that his sociological generalizations must be sought. A faint indication of the range of his interests, his varied contacts, and the " color " of the man, may be given by the following kaleidoscopic paragraph. When as chaplain he was reprimanded for bearing arms in the front ranks (Fontenoy, 1745) he is said to have retorted, " D a m n my commission! ", 2 and retired with reluctance. He was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an active member of the Select Society, Edinburgh's literary club of many brilliant lights. He was implicated in the famous literary scandal known as the " Douglas controversy " and retorted to the critics by an essay in defense of The Morality of Stage Plays. In the American Revolution he moderately defended, in a pamphlet, the British position, and was himself secretary to a commission to Philadelphia to affect conciliation. They were permitted to land but being refused a passport to the capital by Washington and Franklin had to return with chagrin. Walter Scott was a childhood companion and lifelong friend of Ferguson's family and particularly of the later Sir Adam, and it was thus in Ferguson's home that there took place the only meeting between the boy Scott and the poet Burns. He was once favored with a personal interview by Voltaire. On a visit to Germany he was voted a member of the Berlin Academy of Science. In his home he was as kindly, and at ' Ferguson, Principles, vol. i, pp. 4 et seq. ; ii, pp. ι et seq. ; cf. however Edinburgh Review, loc. cit., pp. 78 et seq. 1

The remark is, however, apparently " spurious ".

20

ADAM

FERGUSON

dinner he was as jovial a controversialist, as he might be " peppery " with members of his household when the evil day of removing the accumulation of dust and rubbish from his desk could be postponed no longer, or when on getting up to look at the thermometer in his room and finding it one or two degrees below the required high mark, he learned that he was being permitted to freeze. He suffered, we are told, in his later years from some ailment which also required that he be dressed, when going out, " like a philosopher from Lapland ", 1 This, however, did not prevent him from calling his country home, characteristic of the time and his interest, Kamchatka. His lectures and other contacts with his students were always born by a lofty ethical ideal and in this he " conjoined the simplicity, elevation and ethical hardihood of the early Roman with Grecian refinement and eloquence ", an ideal of human virtue approaching " the dignity and grandeur of the ancient Stoical model." 2 Procedure. Our procedure in this study will be after a necessary historical orientation, to present an objective account of the sociological elements in Ferguson's writings, with some reference to his general methodology. On the assumption that the reader will probably make his acquaintance with Ferguson in no other way and that this acquaintance is still distinctly worth making, this will be done in considerable detail and with quotations in the text as copious as space will permit. This will be followed by an effort, in Part ii, to arrive at the origins of Ferguson's ideas and at an appraisal of any distinctive contributions he may have made to social theory ; by some comparison with other writers who formed as it were his contemporary milieu ; and by an inquiry into his influence on his own contemporaries and succeeding writers and thinkers, and into the relation generally of his ideas 1

Lord Cockburn, op. cit., pp. 44-46 ; Small, op. cit., p. 658.

* Veitch, in Stewart, op. cit., pp. x v i et

seq.

INTRODUCTION

21

to the sociological development of the next century. The latter will serve at the same time as a critical summary. Basis of Selection of Materials. Our method of analyzing Ferguson's writings themselves may need a word of explanation or possibly even of justification. Three questions in particular are involved. The first is the basis of our selection of materials from writings that contain much that is only remotely connected with our present interest. This involves directly, in the second place, at least a working definition of our own conception of sociology. The third is, the organization or arrangement of our materials, in which we frankly do not follow rigidly any scheme that Ferguson's writings would suggest, and so might easily enough be charged with an interpretation that is after all subjective. In the matter of selection our first cue is taken from Ferguson himself when he distinguishes between physical laws and moral laws.1 Any regularities of happening that can be empirically established in the mental operations of men, in the behavior of men in society, or in the conduct of nations, are in his use of the term physical laws no less than are those in the functioning of the human body or in the movements of a planet. Moral laws apply to judgments of value, of " excellence and defects." Any materials, then, that are not explanatory, or descriptive, of human behavior with a view to generalization, as for instance, discussions of the nature of morality or the norms of human conduct, or history so far as it presents unique events, are excluded from our field of interest. Any explanation of human behavior, furthermore, of a purely individuo-psychic nature, as for instance habit formation, is admitted only so far as these processes point to group life for their origin or objective, or are admitted only with an apology, as it were, because a separation is not practically feasible or desirable. Discussions, further, that 1

Infra, pp. 166 et seq.

ADAM

22

FERGUSON

would today be distinctly included in other social sciences such as economics, political science, or historical anthropology, are taken up only so f a r as they show the larger interrelationship of the processes treated with each other or with those of other fields, as, f o r instance, of the division of labor with the origin of economic inequalities, or of both with the origin of the s t a t e ; — o r these discussions are at least subordinated to the general point of view.

Finally it may be

added that w e shall be guided more largely by the " Essay " than by any other of Ferguson's writings, primarily because it is here that he directs himself

most immediately

and

exclusively to the problem before us, but also because in this earlier work he would be less likely to show the influence of other writers of the latter half of the i8th century. Conception

of Sociology.

T h i s of course already indi-

cates in part the conception of sociology held by the present writer.

T h i s may be further characterized, with such refer-

ence to the genesis o f the concept as is essential to our study, and with no effort at further defense, as f o l l o w s : First, sociology was born out of the effort at the secularization and humanization of the mind.

It represents a reaction against

both the interests and the methods of the scholastic in viewing human life as a whole.

" T h e proper study of mankind

is man," is in this sense, so f a r as it is empirical rather than merely speculative, an approach toward sociology.

When

such realism leads to an emphasis on the collective or corporate aspects of human behavior, a further step toward sociology is taken.

W h e n our procedure has become both

descriptive and explanatory of the process of human association, duly recognizing, of course, that all scientific explanation is in last analysis description, the level of sociology is distinctly reached.

In short, sociology is conceived as the

effort to generalize, f r o m experienced or observed fact, on the behavior of men in society, with a view to a more accur-

INTRODUCTION

23

ate and more complete comprehension of the associative life of man, both in its static and its dynamic aspects. This lifts the concept at once to the level of a science without that distinction of the humanistic and the naturalistic that is so likely in the end to become inimical to the study of culture or " Geisteswissenschaft ". Finally, we admit the question of progress only with due recognition that its final analysis and evaluation is a question of philosophy ; and we refrain from any effort to draw too sharp a line between sociology and the other social sciences, and from any insistence on a purely quantitatively inductive rather than a merely critical, empirical method, because this could have little application to a work of the mid18th century. Central Viewpoint. In defense of our scheme for the analysis of Ferguson's writings, we can only say that he himself provides none that is really adequate to our purposes. Many of our own chapters are suggested by chapters or sections in Ferguson. Others draw from throughout his writing. The central, and on the surface seemingly arbitrary procedure, of gathering elements from throughout his work under the category of "social evolution: its nature and its factors " must find its justification finally in internal evidence. It is not so much the title or the whole organization of the Essay and the caption and general sub-titles of vol. i of the Principles that suggest it, as the author's whole frame of mind, his whole " Fragestellung ". For the rest, the critical reader will himself have to judge how well we have succeeded in the whole of part ii, by quotation, paraphase and summary, to let none but the author under review himself to speak. Previous Studies. While to most of the readers Ferguson will be an unfamiliar figure, this study makes no pretense at plowing completely virgin soil. The German sociologists and historical economists have never completely lost sight of

24

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FERGUSON

him, witness Marx, Buecher, Gumplowicz, Waentig, Breysig, Sombart, Oppenheimer, and particularly a study by Huth, and another by Buddeberg.1 Two or three references among French writers deserve note: Cousin in his Scottish Philosophy, Janet in his Histoire de la science politique and Bouet (Bonet?) in an article appearing in the Journal des Économistes.2 In the English, reference should first of all be made to H. E. Barnes, who in his Sociology Before Comte calls particular attention to Ferguson. Leslie Stephen treats him, somewhat slightingly, it would seem, in his History of English Thought in The Eighteenth Century. Laurie devotes a chapter to him in his Scottish Philosophy in its National Development. Teggert has noted him in his Theory of History. Perhaps the best appreciation in English or American writing is a brief treatment by Dunning in his History of Political Thought.* Of these only two need a further word here. Huth has dealt seriously with Ferguson along with Adam Smith and a host of other writers in his Soziale und individualistische Auffassung im 18. Jahrhundert, vornehmlich bei Adam Smith und Adam Ferguson. The attention given to Fer1

Huth, " Soziale α Individualistische Auffassung im 18. Jahrh., vornehmlich bei Adam Smith u. Adam Ferguson," in Staats u. Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, Heft 125 (1906); Buddeberg, "Ferguson Als Soziologe," in Jahrbuecher fuer Νottonalo ekonomie, Jena, 1925, Bd. 123, S. 609-635 ; Sombart, W., " Die Anfaenge der Soziologie," in Erinnerungsgabe an Max Weber, 1923, Bd. 1. Other references, infra, ch. xvi. 'Janet, Histoire de la Science Politique, Paris, 1887, vol. ii, pp. 563-67; Bouet (Bonet?), "Adam Ferguson et ses idees politiques et sociales," in Journal des Économistes, Paris, 1898, ser. 5, vol. 36, pp. 321-334. • Barnes, H. E., " Sociology before Comte," in Arn. Jour, of Sociology, Chicago, Sept. 1917; Stephen, L., History of English Thought in the 18th Century, 3d ed., Ν. Y . and London, 1902, vol. ii, ch. χ, sec. 89; Laurie, op. cit. ; Teggert, F. J., Theory of History, Yale, 1925 ; Dunning, W. Α., Hist, of Political Theories, vol. iii, 1920, pp. 66 et seq.

INTRODUCTION

25

guson, in particular, however, after all boils down to proportions none too large, and the impression one gets is somewhat confused by the inclusion in the treatment of such a variety of writers. T o the present writer he seems to labor too much with the problem of the relation of the individual to society though to be sure society to him means something more than merely group life; and to labor with what comes at least dangerously near a conception of society such as has been so severely dealt with of late as the " group fallacy ". Then too, in attributing to Ferguson everywhere a societal or sociological approach to the study of human life, to the practical denial of an individual approach and of an appreciation of the individual over against society, he shoots distinctly above his mark. Buddeberg's article " Ferguson als Soziologe " which appeared after this study was already slightly under way and came to the writer's attention only considerably later, is the most serious study we have yet found of Ferguson, though it has the limitations of a magazine article of some thirty pages without specific references for doctrines discussed. Statement of General Thesis. Finally, to forestall all exaggerated expectations and to summarize by way of anticipation what is set forth in the following pages, let it be said that Ferguson's significance can be gauged only by seeing him in the light of his contemporary background and of the trend of the social thought of at least two centuries preceding. No claim is made for complete originality except in emphasis and force of presentation; nor for any exhaustive or thorough-going treatment of the themes he discourses upon. There is no pretense that Ferguson elaborated or applied a 1

To Buddeberg as to Huth the author herewith acknowledges his obligations. Where they contain references or interpretations that would not readily have suggested themselves to our own independent study or where we take issue with their conclusions, this will be noted in the text or in footnotes.

26

ADAM

FERGUSON

quantitative method, or a truly explorative procedure that advances a science by discovering new data rather than merely effecting new and deeper understanding.

I f there-

fore it might, f r o m a present-day point of view, be charged that w e are offered mere " substitute speech reactions " , or " painful elaborations of the obvious " , 1 w e can only reply that there must then have been whole centuries of serious philosophical and scientific endeavor when even the obvious is little in evidence in any discussion of the problems of social l i f e that has come down to our o w n day.

N o r again

is there any pretense that F e r g u s o n elaborated or seriously attempted a " system " of sociology, either in the sense that he made a formal rounded systematic presentation of his ideas on the subject, or in the sense that those ideas formed a unified, closely reasoned structure with some single fundamental thesis or principle as its key.

N o r finally, that he

succeeded completely in extricating himself from the speculative tendencies of his century shortly to be referred to. W e rather count it sufficient to claim that Ferguson appreciated the fact and the meaning of society and brought it into the center of his field of vision and attention in a w a y that was certainly illuminating and we believe essentially new, and that he applied to its analysis a method that w a s at least remarkably realistic, critical, and essentially empirical; 2 that he keenly appreciated the organic nature of society or the socio-historic process in its static and still more in its dynamic aspects, and treated it f r o m a point of view that was at once psychological and historical ; that as a result he presented a thoroughly evolutionistic analysis that at least deserves our most serious attention; that he developed the concept of a division of labor in society in a w a y that remarkably antici1

Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological

Theories, Ν. Y., 1928, pp. ix.

' W e use the term throughout this discussion in the sense of "experiential " and not in the narrower sense of " experimental ".

INTRODUCTION

27

pates later writers ; that he perceived the interdependence of the various fields of human interest and activity in a way that would logically call for sociology as a science more comprehensive in its scope than the other social sciences; that he moved on a plane of humanistic or psycho-cultural interpretation that might still challenge many a writer in sociology today ; and finally that he anticipates such specific theories as in particular the conflict theory of human society in a way that should alone give him a place in the history of social theory if not of sociology itself.

CHAPTER

II

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

1

T H E N E W WORLD OF E X P E R I E N C E

SOCIAL theories are never born in a vacuum, nor apparently new attitudes in a completely unchanged environment. Movements of thought can best be understood when thrown on the background of the life currents they endeavor to interpret and of the problems they labor to solve. Highly speculative as is much of the theorizing of the i8th century, it is still not without its foundations in social reality. W e cannot adequately describe here, but may at least point to such aspects of social reality as would seem most vital to an appreciation of the trends of thought and theory that must serve as a background for our present study. In the first place, the outlooks and attitudes of men of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as their theoretical formulations, were destined to be tremendously influenced by the new worlds that burst in upon men's vision during the previous century or two. Three such worlds may be named. First, A s this chapter is still in a sense introductory and makes little claim to originality, only the most important of the many references consulted need be cited here. Windelband, W . , Die Geschichte der neueren philosophie, 7 u. 8 Aufl., Leipzig, 1922, Bd. i ; Hasbach, W . , " Untersuchungen ueber Adam Smith und die Entwicklung der Politischen Oekonomie," Leipzig, 1891, and " Die allgemeinen philosophischen Grundlagen der von F . Quesnay α Α . Smith begruendeten politischen Oekonomie," in Staatsu. Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, bd. χ, heft. 2, Leipzig, 1890; Huth, Η., " Soziale und Individualistische Auffassung im 18. Jahrhundert." ibid., H e f t . 125 (1906) ; Randall, J. H., Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, Ν. Y . , 1926; Sombart, W . , Die Anfaenge der Soziologie ; Barnes, H. E., " Sociology before Comté " ; Smith, A . L., English Political Thought in the 17th and 18th Centuries in Cambridge Modern History, vol. vi, ch. xxiii. 28 1

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

29

there was the world of antiquity which came to live anew both in its outer form and to some extent at least in its inner spirit by the labors of the humanists and as a result of the Renaissance movement generally. Without for a moment forgetting how often men lost themselves in the letter to the neglect of the spirit and set up a new authority only more tyrannous than the old, it was still a new world that was thus opened up to men in the rediscovery of antiquity, whether as art, as literature, or as history, and a world that was destined to grow upon men and some way to be intellectually mastered. Then there was the new world of geographic discovery and exploration with its unexploited resources, its strange peoples and their still stranger manners, whether of savagery, barbarism, or " civilization ", 1 its lure to new adventure and enterprise, the multitude of " things " it was destined to throw into Europe's lap, and the variety of contacts and new modes of life it was destined to bring. And, finally, there was the new world revealed by the telescope and later by the miscroscope, and the completely new orientation that particularly the former was to bring. This vision, in fact or imagination, into worlds beyond our terrestrial globe and planetary system that were still solid, "earthy" worlds, and still more the realization that with one infinitesimal exception these worlds do not move about man's habitat as their pivotal point, but that the earth is but a speck, moving with many other bodies about many other centers in order, and that, from one point of view at least, man's life is just a passing shadow on that speck—all this constituted nothing short of a revolution, which, gradual though its realization may have been, came none the less with the impact of worlds in collision. A s an eminent historian of modern thought has well said, 1

Infra, pp. 59 et seq.

ADAM

30

FERGUSON

N e v e r has such rapid progress in the evolution of man's world outlook made its appearance in so short a time, and it has been rightly pointed out that the enlargement of man's geographic and cosmic horizon brought about by these very discoveries, has been, if possible, even more effective than the enlargement of the historical horizon by means of the humanistic studies. F o r the whole position of man in the universe must on the basis of these facts have appeared in a new light. In the whole history of human culture no change equally profound and far-reaching with this one can be found. It constitutes the most decisive factor among all the elements of modern thought. T h e significance of this revolution is so overwhelming, and the train of its consequences so far-reaching, that even to this day its force has not yet spent itself. A n d s p e a k i n g m o r e specifically o f the C o p e r n i c a n revolution he s a y s , H o w could this speck of cosmic dust [man's habitat] with its f u r r o w s and ridges, covered with teeming myriads of organisms, still presume to be the center of an infinite universe? A n d once man's conception of the universe had ceased, in a physical sense, to be geo-centric, it could not but rise, in a spiritual sense to those new heights, where universal evolution is no longer viewed f r o m the limited view-point of man, his needs, his wishes and his hopes. Herein lies the real greatness and liberating power of the achievement of Copernicus and the secret of so magnificent and far-reaching an influence upon the evolution of human culture the like of which has nowhere else been wielded by scientific penetration. 1 It is utterly inconceivable that such n e w f o r c e s should not h a v e led to a secularization o f h u m a n interests, to a n emerg e n c e o f the individual, to a n e n l a r g e m e n t o f personality, to a lust f o r the conquest o f spiritual realms, and, finally, that such a clash o f w o r l d s w i t h i n a n d w i t h o u t should not h a v e 1

Windelband, op. cit., pp. 55-57.

Translation ours.

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

β!

led to revolutions in thought, to a propounding of questions and a positing of premises that were to constitute a mind as far removed from the old scholasticism as the earth had been moved out of the center of the universe. Another set of changes—and we are now thinking more particularly of 18th century England—will be found in the far-reaching transformations of a broadly economic nature that were coming over the life of men and were to be reflected in the thought of the time. Men were rapidly conquering the forces of nature and the resources of the earth to make them subservient to human need, and were becoming conscious of a sense of mastery. Opportunities of trade were enlarging, wealth was increasing, new wants were being developed, and new means to their satisfaction. The enjoyment of many things came to develop a new hedonism in the life of men and a new ethic in its justification. Men of undertaking found new spurs to activity ; economic conquest and the accumulation of wealth came to be worshiped as a kind of new religion. Moreover, economic production was taking on a new character, and while, from a present day point of view, Gide, for instance, is quite right in pointing out that Adam Smith stood before the dawn of industrialism and was in no sense its apostle,1 yet from their own point of view, men in the third quarter of the 18th century were keenly conscious of a new technic of production, an ever increasing division of labor, an unprecedented increase of wealth, and new problems of economic in relation to national life. The position of the agrarian was being threatened ; commerce was still dominant, but machine industry was rapidly making its appearance. These changes brought new problems, problems of adjustment within the economic sphere itself, problems of relief for the distressed, problems of human rights requiring new 1

Gide and Rist, Histoire des Doctrines Economiques, Paris, 1909, p. 77.

32

ADAM

FERGUSON

legal adjustments and a new basis of law in history and ethical theory. A t first the state was welcomed as a promoter, subsidizer, protector, of commercial and industrial enterprise, but civil society has a way of outdistancing the ways of the state, and what was once welcomed as a supporting hand came soon, by a shifting on the economic dial, to be felt as an unwelcome interference and then as wickedness itself in high places. 1 Such problems weighed on men's minds ; they pressed for solution ; the statesman, whether in or out of politics, needed a theory. O n the whole this economic development made for an enlargement of social life, a multiplication of contacts, a growing complexity of relationships, a differentiation of social functions, a very considerable reorganization of human relations and institutions. It gave men a sense of mastery, if over the forces of nature, why not also over the affairs of men? It led to an almost unprecedented individualism, not to say egoism ; yet it must needs have led also to a sense of dependence on the whole, to a sense of the needs of co-operation, and therefore to enquiries concerning the relation of the individual to society. There was also an important series of political changes that could not but affect the thought of a people much given to political speculation. 2 A Tudor absolutism might be felt a blessing by all ; a fumbling Stuartian absolutism needed a defence, a balsam—or a purge. W h y tolerate it? or how get rid of it? This led to the first great revival of political theory. W h a t is the nature of the state? of sovereignty? W h a t the origin of the state? and what its relation to society? the relation of the individual to both? and hence the nature of the individual himself. Then, there was the Cromwellian upheaval, with Locke as its ever ready exponent, and there 1 1

Cf. Adam Smith's attitude toward mercantilism. Hasbach, Untersuchungen, pp. 299 et seq.; Huth, op. cit., p. 115.

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

33

was the Restoration, soon to be followed by the Glorious Revolution, lacking, to be sure, its Bastile stormings, its August Days, its Guillotine, its i8th Brumaire, but in effect anticipating by a century that more stormy effort and filling Englishmen with pride in their own liberty and confidence in their power of transforming their institutions without a real breach in their national life, by evolution rather than by revolution. Again, not without its effect on political theory at least, there was the conflict between Liberal and Conservative, between Whig and Tory in the i8th century in matters of commercial and colonial policy, of taxation, of various domestic reforms. 1 And finally there were the semi-political concerns of humanitarian reform suggested by the names of John Howard and Wilberforce in the way of poor-laws, the anti-slavery movement, and those first efforts, or proposals rather, for the relief of human misery that are suggested in strange contrast by Godwin and Malthus. THE NEW MIND

We can suggest only in boldest outline some of the mental attitudes and theoretical formulations by which men tried to adjust themselves to this changing world. The Renaissance dare not detain us except to suggest the secularization of mind and interests it provoked, with at least a limitation of the scope if not a loosening of the grip of the theological mind. Men were at least prepared in England for the work of Bacon with his insistence, in theory if not in practice, on inductive method and the experimental attitude for natural science, with his revolt against scholasticism and the authority of the past. " We are the ancients," he would be saying, " profiting by the experience of the ages. But to exploit more fully our present position, we must secure a more 1 Cf. Ferguson, Essay on the History pp. 217 et seq.

of Civil Society, Dublin, 1767,

ADAM FERGUSON complete mastery over nature ; to do this we must ferret out her secrets, and this can only be done by induction from observation and experimentation." This seems to have been Bacon's meaning and the key to his remarkable influence on succeeding generations. 1 But they were also prepared f o r the work of Descartes, equally sceptical of the authority of the past (except in the disguised form of religious dogma where he made a kind of insincere compromise) in fact completely denying history ; equally critical with Bacon, severely logical, equally concerned in the comprehension of the material world around him, but essentially rationalist rather than empiricist in his tendencies and approaching his problems with a method that was primarily deductive. T o master this method and to aid in the work of systematization, completing the circle as it were without recourse to further data, he greatly developed the science of mathematics. It is needless to point out here how profoundly Descartes influenced the whole of modern thought not only by his scepticism or criticism of foundations, but also in his rationalistic procedure and in his mathematical conception of reality. 2 It may be necessary to remind the reader how intimately the methods of Bacon and Descartes were combined by men like Galilei and Newton, who were destined to have such a profound influence on posterity, not only in the field of natural! science but of all thinking. If these men and their followers were led to many a profitable discovery by research into the facts and sequences of nature, these were possible only on the assumption of a " Nature," a " universe," a closed system* as it were, with all its parts interrelated, a world of law and order, of inherent causality, whose laws, being essentially laws of motion, were capable of mathematical formulatiorn 1 s

Muzzey, D. S., in class lectures.

Cf. Windelband, op. cit., pp. 130-1481.

Randall, op. cit. ; Whitehead, A. N., Science and the Modem N. Y., 1925, pp. 48 et seq.

World'.,

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

35

and of at least reasonably accurate demonstration. All change, all relationships, were if not mechanically, at least mechanistically conceived. Yet, lest we mistake this for crass materialism, we need but be reminded how the whole was ever fitted into a divine plan and produced an almost mystical reverance for the marvels of universal harmony, for this majestic creation, designed and executed by the " Author of Nature It is only seemingly irrelevant to present purposes, thus to emphasize the entrance and frequently all but dominance of the Cartesian element, of these mechanistic and mathematical conceptions. Even today we confuse the appeal from theology and metaphysics to natural science with positivism, with inductive method, quite forgetting that Darwinism, for instance, is for most people a philosophy of nature, often totally divorced from the experimental and inductive spirit of Darwin himself, just as Behaviorism may be divorced from experimental psychology. W e not only heuristically but dogmatically complete the circle and construct our universe f a r beyond the warrants of our data. Instead of using the two methods in judicious combination as all true science must, 1 being always severely critical and empirical, always anxious to enlarge our basis of fact, but no less careful to seek the guidance of principles in our explorations and to give meaning to our discoveries by subsuming them under a general point of view, we " construct" a natural science of society much as men did in the 17th and 18th centuries, betraying ourselves into thinking we are laboring with the tools of Bacon when really we are worshipping at the altar of Descartes. While this Newtonian method was applied first to the study of material phenomena and a great deal of modern philosophy is concerned with theories of knowledge as they ' Windelband, op. cit., pp. 93, 129 et seq.

36

ADAM

FERGUSON

apply to our grasping of external reality, the application was soon enough made to mental and moral phenomena. Hobbes explicitly attempts to reduce all mental life to mechanical motion and conceives the passions, human association, and social relationships, in the same general terms; and so in some measure at least do most of his contemporaries and immediate successors. A s Thorndike says, " . . . men began to wonder if some simple formula could not be discovered to account for the seeming disorder of human society, or to reduce those chaotic political and social relationships to an order like that of the natural world. . . " 1 And, as Sorokin well says, The social physics of the 17th century has at least in its plans and aspirations not been surpassed by all the mechanistic theories of the 19th and 20th centuries. These thinkers laid down principles of psychology, of social and political science, which at the present moment are heralded by many as something that has been quite recently discovered.2 In the development of these lines of thought two tendencies seem to be distinctly noticeable. One may be called, in full historical justification, the Epicurean attitude, the other the Stoic.® One, beginning with Hobbes, tended toward atomism, mechanism, philosophic materialism, relativity, and frequently a more or less consistent evolutionism ; the other, attaching primarily to the name of Shaftsbury, emphasized more the unity and stability of nature, was less willing to give up freedom, and when adopting evolution, less confident that this always meant progress. Both, in England at least, tended strongly toward empiricism and ever sought application to the affairs of men. 1

Thorndike, L., Short History of Civilization, Croft's, N. Y., 1926, pp. 426 et seq. * Sorokin, P., " Contemporary Sociological Theories," pp. 3-13. * Cf. esp. Hasbach, Phtl. Gründl.·, Huth, op. cit.

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

37

In either case, and under the influence of Newtonian conceptions and of actual scientific research, where it led to many a convenient formulation, and not only reduced to order what had once been chaos or the playground of supernatural forces, but also uncovered new worlds unsuspected before, there was a twofold development of these " naturalistic " conceptions. One was an elaboration of a static philosophy of nature 1 where all was subject to law, governed by rigid necessity, and therefore under the sway of mechanical causation. Created originally to comprehend man's environing world, it was applied equally, though with much halting, to man himself, whose life men hoped to reduce to formulas equally convenient in a mechanistic, today we should say a behavioristic psychology and in a mechanics of social and political life. Knowledge, ideas, were derived mechanically from sensations; will and action resulted equally mechanically from ideas. W i t h its more Epicurean adherents at least, this led to a more or less consistent determinism. Selfpreservation is the law of l i f e ; social atomism is the result. The state is mechanically created by men to foster the well being of individuals in association. Men hoped not only to find the laws of mental and social life, if possible by induction, but also, as engineers, to apply them, however found, to the conduct of affairs and the guidance of reform activities. O f Shaftesbury, Hasbach says, 2 that in consequent New1 Particularly Hasbach, Phil. Gründl. The distinction here being made between " philosophy of nature " or " Naturphilosophie " and the " order or nature philosophy " or " Naturrecht " must be kept in mind. The one applies to the physical universe, inorganic or organic, and may be either static (Newton) or dynamic (Darwin, Spencer) ; the other applies to moral and political life and attempts to express either an ethical ideal or a historical generalization or " universalization " and is in the main static though it was also made to include the idea of progress. T o avoid confusion we shall use the term " Naturrecht " for the latter. Cf. also, Teggert, op. cit., pp. 82 et seq.

* Hasbach, Phil. Gründl., p. 145.

ADAM

FERGUSON

tonian fashion he explains the ills of h u m a n society as a perversion of the divine order. T h e h u m a n soul is represented as a machine in which the mechanism of drives and passions are designed by the Creator to effect h u m a n happiness, but men have by some fault of their o w n disturbed the balance wheel, as it were, in the clock-works. Yet by a careful study of the w o r k s it will be possible to reconstruct the laws of h u m a n conduct and of h u m a n society, and accordingly cure the ills. T o quote S h a f t s b u r y , W e inquire what is according to Interest, Policy, Fashion, Vogue; but it seems wholly strange and out of the way to enquire what is according to Nature. The Ballance of Europe, of Trade, of Power, is strictly sought a f t e r ; while few have heard of the Ballance of their Passions, or thought of holding these Scales even. . . . You have heard it (my Friend!) as a common Saying that Interest governs the World. But I believe whoever looks narrowly into the Affairs of it, will find that Passion, Humour, Caprice, Zeal, Faction, and a thousand other Springs which are counter to Self-interest, have as considerable a part in the Movements of this Machine (sic). There are more Wheels (sic) and Counter-Poises in this Engine (sic) than are easily imagin'd. 'Tis of too complex a kind, to fall under one simple View, or be explained thus briefly in a word or two. The Studiers of this Mechanism (sic) must have a very partial Eye, to overlook all other motions beside those of the lowest and narrowest compass. 'Tis hard that in the plan or Description of this Clock-work (sic) no Wheel or Ballance should be allowed on the side of the better and more enlarged Affections. . . . You who are skilled in other Fabricks and Compositions, both of Art and Nature, have you considered of the Fabrick of the Mind, the Constitution of the Soul, the Connexion and Frame of all its Passions and Affections; to know accordingly the Order and Symmetry of the Part, and how it either improves or suffers; what its Force is, when naturally preserved

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

39

in its sound State; and what becomes of it when corrupted and abused ? 1 A single familiar instance may be cited here of how this conception of an over-ruling Nature was made to include the lives of men in association. W e remember Adam Smith's almost passionate insistance on freedom from restraint in economic life, and his willingness to have economic enterprise guided by the egoistic ends of the individual entrepreneur ; but we forget that this was not done in a " devil-take-the-hindmost " disregard of what happens to the other fellow and to society as a whole, but with a firm belief in nature's own co-ordination of the action of many individuals to the good of all. 2 If in such discussion we are often struck by the language of religion and piety, " the Author of Nature ", " the Author of our being ", " it is divinely ordained in a benevolent providence ", etc., it is to be remembered that this is the theology of Newton and the Deists with a god who never interferes with the operation of physical law and is in a sense himself bound by those laws. It means no restriction on natural causation, and yet the whole is strangely subsumed under a telic point of view. A n d just this is of primary importance—these mechanistic conceptions were seldom consistently carried through. There was always left that loop-hole of voluntarism by which men's thought not only escaped into a world of values—that is after all the philosopher's privilege if not his business—but these values were re-admitted through a veritable flood-gate, as principles of explanation, which is quite another matter. W h e n a contract is made binding upon all generations to come, the state is in effect exalted into a super-individual, 1

Quoted from Shaftsbury in Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 146-7.

2

Infra, pp. 207 et seq. ; cf. 158, 163.

ADAM

40

FERGUSON

super-social, metaphysical principle.

W h e n laws governing

human relations are made eternal, when society is not only exalted above some individuals, but over all individuals in all time, these are made independent principles which immediately l i f t us out of that empirical world which the philosophy of nature, in the sense heretofore used, was to comprehend. 1 T h e " order of nature Naturrecht,

as developed in the philosophy of

may to be sure be modeled on the pattern of this

other world of nature, its laws equally eternal, its authority equally compelling, but in essence it is something in different!

toto

Its laws were no longer laws of motion nor

regularities of sequence in any sense, to be inductively arrived at.

T h e y were rather expressions of ideals of human con-

duct and relationships.

T h e y were discovered or determined

to be sure in part by appeal to presumably universal practice, or the supposed

relationships among men in societies com-

pletely unsophisticated and without positive establishments of any kind, j u s t as such societies must have come f r o m the hands of the Creator ; but in last analysis the appeal was to the dictates of common sense and the dictates of Reason. Essentially they have nothing to do with the empirical world ; they are completely removed f r o m history.

While the t w o

were o f t e n enough in fact identified, the " state of nature " has properly nothing to d o with an earliest stage of human history f r o m which society in time evolved.

A s Professor

Giddings is one of the f e w to notice and point out in connection with Rousseau, 2 it is an ideal conception over against which contract is thrown as another ideal.

This is the

strength, f r o m its o w n point of view, of the whole philosophy of Naturrecht

which so all but completely dominated the 17th

and 18th centuries ; but it is also in effect a categorical denial 1

Cf. Sombart, op. cit., p. 7.

* Giddings, Studies in the Theory of Human Society, New York, 1922, p. 260.

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

41

of history and the effective bar to the rise of a scientific sociological explanation. W e are familiar with this conception of Naturrecht from Locke, Rousseau, Paine, and many others, and from the political slogans of the day in France and America. W e need only emphasize here that this theory was always a theory of human relationships, in some sense a theory of society, even when most individualistic, and that even its severest opponents were never completely emancipated from its spell. It was in fact an outstanding characteristic of the thought of the 18th century. This suggests a second characteristic of the thought of the time. Parallel with this conception of the " natural " in society, and in reality but another facet of it, was a theoretical individualism as vigorous as the practical individualism previously referred to. It was seldom a denial of a social life, and was even compatible with a theory of altruism. It meant merely that social questions tended strongly to be approached from the point of view of the individual and his interests or his rights, that institutions were denied any binding power, in fact any deeper reality, except as they were related to "nature," that the individual was the measure of all things and was both free and powerful to shape his own life without the trammels of conventions and institutions, which are " artificial ". This individualism with its emancipation from the authority alike of tradition, of the traditional religion, of the state—from every authority, in fact, except the binding authority of its own deified Reason, was as characteristic of the 18th century as was its " naturalism ". A third facet of what is really the same dominating tendency is, accordingly, its thoroughgoing intellectualism, its sublime confidence in the power and guidance of a certain kind of intellectualism—Reason. T o know Is to have power; to reason rightly is to direct aright one's actions. Intellect

42

ADAM FERGUSON

is king of human faculties ; sentiment and passions may be ignored ; the customary is denied compelling power. Social ills are due to wrong philosophies; as man constructs his ideal, so must the future be. What is logically absurd or incongruous is virtually denied existence in fact. Since nature conforms, or at least can be made to conform to logic better than can the absurdities of history, nature is worshipped, history is denied. And where history is taken somewhat seriously, the temptation is ever present to make it but a mirror to reflect, negatively, the glories of the Age of Reason, or a scourge to lash, a heel to crush — ecrasez l'infame!1 Furthermore, in the abstractions of reason, complete explanations are always possible, harmonious systems, like solar systems are easily constructed. The constant, the universal elements in nature, in human nature, in society, in culture, are emphasized ; the variable, the particular, the individual — racial, national, historical differences—are neglected. Man is everything, men are overlooked ; men in all stages of civilization belong to a single series ; cosmopolitan ideals inflame the imagination. Above all, reason, which is one with nature, or rather with which nature is one, gives man a sense of mastery, of power to reconstruct society on a rational plan. In this union of reason and nature is given, not the concept of historical evolution but the " idea of progress " and a boundless faith in the onward march of Reason itself. In this way men can boldly shatter mighty fortresses and under the doom of their falling ruins write Historical Sketches of the Progress of the Human Mind.2 But assuming this is a true picture, is it telling the whole story? Is it as characteristic of the thought of England as of that of France? of the end as of the beginning of the ι Thomas Paine, Voltaire. ' Condorcet.

HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

43

century ? Is there not at least a realistic grappling in theory and in practice with the problems of the state, with the problems of agriculture and commerce and industry? Is there nowhere a more serious confronting of the problem, and the problems, of society? Is there nowhere at least beginning to dawn a truer psychology of human motivation and a more matter-of-fact facing of socio-historie reality both as present fact and as historical becoming? An attitude, that is, at once historical and sociological? And if so, who were some of its representatives? To such questions we shall revert again and possibly suggest a partial answer. 1 1

Infra, part ii.

PAKT I ANALYSIS OF FERGUSON'S WRITINGS FROM A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW-POINT

C H A P T E R THE

III

F A C T A N D F O U N D A T I O N S OF S O C I E T Y

1

THAT man is a socius and is bound by a thousand ties to his fellows, that his life, both biologically and culturally speaking, is rooted in the life of the group and that his energies seldom find expression except in the company of his fellows, would hardly need proving or elaborating today, any more than it did in the days of Hume, Smith, and Ferguson, or for that matter of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. That men still took pains, then as now, to do so, is due no doubt to the fact that both in practice and in theory men have built on the assumptions of an individualism that, if it does not rule ones fellows out of existence, at least rules them out of consideration. If the social or collective character of human life must be obvious the moment men turn from star-gazing or star-dwelling to a facing of the facts of life, the full significance of this fact, the extent to which the egoist as well as the altruist is still engrossed in the life of the group, the depth to which the roots of our very being and of our becoming, as anything more than mere biological organisms, penetrate the soil of a social sub-structure, has not always been so clearly realized. Moreover, the need of a collective approach, of the application of group and cultural categories, as a method of study, has found only gradual recognition even in recent times. 1 In the following notes HCS will refer to Essay on the History of Civil Society, Dublin, 1767; PMPS, i, ii, to Principles of Moral and Political Science, vols, i and ii ; Inst., to the Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 3 ed., Edinburgh, 1785.

47

48

ADAM FERGUSON T H E FACT OF SOCIETY

I t is with this in mind that we begin our analysis of the writings of A d a m Ferguson by pointing out his clear recognition, first of all, of the fact of society, of the dependence of the individual upon the group, of the need of viewing man in society to understand his life at all. This is recognized as, first of all a matter of history. Men do not only live in groups wherever we find them today, but f r o m all indications they have always done so. Neither history nor the records of travel among primitive people have shown us men living in any other way. 1 Theories of men living in isolation, or in groups so small or so loosely bound together as to spell a practical negation of society, are a fiction of men's brains, the result of an α priori method of reasoning that would hypothetically reconstruct the earliest state of man by merely stripping men of everything they are possessed of in the latest.* " Man is born in society " Ferguson quotes f r o m Montesquieu, " and in society he remains. 8 " Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarreled in tribes and companies." 4 " W i t h m a n society appears to be as old as the individual and the use of the tongue [the chief instrument of communication] as universal as that of the hand or the foot." 5 " If there was a time when he had the acquaintance with his own species to make and his faculties to acquire, it is a time of which we have no record and in relation to which our opinions can serve no purpose and are supported by no evidence." 8 Moreover, such groups have always been characterized by a certain solidarity, a certain organization, a mutual interdependence and friendliness among their members that makes a Hobbesian " bellum omnium contra omnes " a sheer caricature of social reality. T o be sure conflict between groups 1

HCS, pp. 4 et seq., 23 et al. *HCS, p. 23.

2 5

HCS, p. 7. HCS, p. 8.

8

β

HCS, p. 24. HCS, p. 8.

THE FACT

AND FOUNDATIONS

OF

SOCIETY

and even struggle within groups play an important role in society; 1 but in spite of these conflicts, if not rather just because of them, men are drawn into intimate association with, and firm attachment to, the members of their own particular group and thus develop a sociality that is intimately a part of themselves and gives character and color to all their actions. FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY

Such sociality in individuals, such association, or as Ferguson would say, such " bandings of men together into societies ", is not merely a fact to be recorded, a kind of accident of human history as it were, but a fact deeply grounded in the nature of things, and one that admits of at least a partial explanation. Necessity While men have never created society but have always lived in it because they were born into it ; it is admitted that they have often perfected society and maintained various social institutions because driven thereto by the necessities of more or less outward circumstances or because led thereto by the calculation of their own advantage. 2 Severe as is Ferguson's attack upon the contract theorists and upon all purely rationalistic explanations of society that see in the state and in all social institutions the result merely of calculated advantage, 8 he of course does not deny that a conscious organization for security, a planful striving for advantages that can be achieved only by more perfect cooperation, have a real influence on the organization of human relationships. 4 But he is careful to point out that 1

Infra, pp. 98 et seq. PMPS, i, pp. 239, 261 et seq. 4 PMPS, i, pp. 23, 262 ; Inst., p. 317. 2

* Vide infra, chs. v, vi.

50

ADAM FERGUSON

men are so far from valuing society only on account of its mere external conveniences, that they are commonly most attached where these conveniences are least frequent ; and are there most faithful, where the tribute of their allegiance is paid in blood. Affection operates with the greatest force, where it meets with the greatest difficulties : In the breast of the parent, it is most solicitous amidst the dangers and distresses of the child : In the breast of man, its flame redoubles where the wrongs or sufferings of his friends, or his country, require his aid. 1 W e o f t e n " assign as the motives of conduct with men, those considerations which recur in the hours of retirement and cold reflection " where we frequently " can find nothing important, besides the deliberate prospects of interest; and a great work, like that of forming society must, in our apprehension, arise f r o m deep reflections and be carried on with a view to the advantage which mankind derives from commerce and mutual support ". 2 But in reality it is just in commercial states, where on this theory we should expect the contrary, that man is sometimes found a detached and solitary being: he has found an object which sets him in competition with his fellow creatures, and he deals with them as he does with his cattle and the soil, for the Sake of the profits they bring. The mighty engine which we suppose to have formed society, only tends to set its members at variance, or to continue their intercourse after the bands of affection are broken. 3 Innate

Tendencies

I n reality society rests, so our author holds—and this is central to all of his thought on the subject—upon a much firmer foundation than a mere calculation of advantage or even of perceived necessity, upon basic traits in human nature itself. In the equipment with which every human being ι

HCS, p. 27.

*HCS, p. 25.

» Ibid., p. 28.

THE FACT

AND FOUNDATIONS

OF

SOCIETY

enters upon the scene is found the chief foundation stone upon which society built from the very beginning, so f a r as we can speak of such a beginning at all, 1 and upon which in its broadest outlines the social structure still must rest. "Man is by nature the member of a community". 2 "Nature has provided, that the individual can nowhere shake himself loose from his species and that if he does not bear his part in society as a friend, he must suffer as an enemy "." This is of course obvious of the physical dependence of the individual, his birth and infant helplessness ; * but it is no less true of his various drives and affections, of instinctive tendencies which can only be satisfied in the company of his fellows. 5 Man is destined by every circumstance of his life to bear an active part in the living system to which he belongs. His very subsistence depends thereon. Born into society, he depends first on the activity of his parents ; irresistible passions, affections more powerful than interest or self-preservation drive him to establish his own family. " The company of his fellows is everywhere required to his satisfaction or pastime. He may be unsocial, but he is not solitary; even to behave ill, he must be in society " ; all of his striving for happiness implies his fellow human beings, to command, to be admired." These faculties or dispositions in [man's] case have a principal reference to the community or system, of which he is by nature a part. He is made to confer ; to inform, or to receive information ; to confide or to trust ; to co-operate, or to oppose ; ι PMPS, i, pp. 197-199. Ή CS, p. 86; cf. PMPS, ii, p. 269. * PMPS, ii, p. 329. 4 Ibid., i, pp. 31 et seq. ; cf. ii, p. 174. * Ibid., ii, p. 59; i, pp. 24, 30.

4

Ibid., ii, pp. 27 et seq.

52

ADAM

FERGUSON

to approve, or to condemn ; to persuade or to dissuade. A n d it may be difficult to decide how f a r society of one kind or other is necessary to light u p the spark of intelligence, or to furnish the occasion of those exertions in which alone the existence of his faculties can be known. 1 Habit T h i s emphasis o n inborn social tendencies, h o w e v e r

we

m i g h t define them t o d a y , o c c u r s a g a i n a n d a g a i n in F e r g u s o n , as m i g h t be developed at m u c h g r e a t e r length.

Still,

he does not e x a g g e r a t e , or lose s i g h t o f a n o t h e r a n d e v e n m o r e p o w e r f u l f o u n d a t i o n u p o n w h i c h society rests, and that is habit, or the effect o f p r e v i o u s association. . . . parental affection . . . embraces more close as it becomes mixed with esteem, and the memory of its early e f f e c t s ; . . . W h a t this propensity [to m i x with the herd and without reflection to follow the c r o w d of his species] was in the first moment of its operation, we know not ; but with men accustomed to company, its enjoyments and disappointments are reckoned among the principal pleasures and pains of human life. . . . T h e track of a Laplander on the snowy shore, gives joy to the lonely mariner; and the mutual sign of cordiality and kindliness which are made to him, awaken the memory of pleasures which he felt in society. . . . B u t neither the propensity to mix with the herd, nor the sense of advantages enjoyed in that condition, comprehend all the principles by which men are united together. Those bands are even of a feeble texture, when compared with the resolute ardour with which a man adheres to his friend, or to his tribe, after they have for some time run the career of f o r t u n e together. Mutual discoveries of generosity, joint trials of f o r titude, redouble the ardours of friendship, and kindle a flame in the human breast, which the considerations of personal interest or safety cannot suppress. T h e most lively transports of 1

PMPS, i, pp. 265 et seq.

THE

FACT

AND

FOUNDATIONS

OF

SOCIETY

joy are seen, and the loudest shrieks of despair are heard, when the objects of tender affection are beheld in a state of triumph or suffering. . . . 1 T H E I N D I V I D U A L AS PRODUCT OF HIS SOCIAL E N V I R O N M E N T

But if it is true that society has its origin and its existence in the nature of the individual human organism, in the very necessities of continued existence, in its instinctive tendencies and in the nature of the human mind, associative or reflective, it is equally true—and what is more important f o r present purposes, realized with equal clarity by this writer of the mid-i8th century, that the individual has his origin in, is controlled in his attitudes by, and depends for the development of his latent capacities upon, the group of which he is a part, the social structure into which he is integrated, the cultural values which he has not himself created. 2 H o w largely according to Ferguson the behavior patterns, to use present-day terminology, of the individual are determined by the cultural situation which happens to environ him, how largely his attitudes are determined by values existing independently of himself, will appear from the following sections, and less specifically throughout this analysis. Here we can only indicate how the development of human faculties and moral qualities depend upon human association. From man's union with his species are derived, not only the force, but the very existence of his happiest emotions ; not only the better part, but almost the whole of his rational character. Send him to the desert alone, he is a plant torn from its roots : the form indeed may remain, but every faculty droops and withers; the human personage and the human character cease to exist.* » HCS,

pp. 24-26.

* Inst., pp. 197 et seq. (ed. Basil, 1800). ' HCS,

p. 27.

ADAM

54

FERGUSON

I t is in the t r i u m p h s a n d calamities o f h u m a n association that a man is made to forget his weakness, his cares of safety, and his subsistence ; and to act f r o m those passions which make him discover his force. . . . It is not alone his sense of a support which is near, nor the love of a distinction in t h e opinion of his tribe, that inspires his courage, or swells his heart with a confidence that exceeds what his natural force should bestow. Vehement passions of animosity or attachment are the first exertions of v i g o r in his breast; under their influence every consideration but that of his object is forgotten; danger and difficulties only excite him the more. 1 . . . Society, in which alone the distinction of right and w r o n g is exemplified, may be considered as the garden of God, in which the tree of knowledge of good and evil is planted; and in which men are destined to distinguish and to chuse among its fruits. 2 C o u r a g e is a g i f t o f society. in society.

L o v e a n d antipathy both arise

E g o i s m a n d altruism, individualism and social-

ism as b r o a d l i f e tendencies, themselves of course social in r e f e r e n c e , a r e conditioned n o t o n l y b y h u m a n association, but b y particular cultural v a l u e s appearing, perhaps inevitably a p p e a r i n g , u n d e r g i v e n circumstances in the course o f social e v o l u t i o n . 3 S o in f a c t all those traits w h i c h render man essentially h u m a n are not the g i f t of

nature, except as mere latent

capacities, but are the result o f actual participation in social and cultural situations. 4

A s the eye, the ear, the a r m o f a

n o r m a l adult h u m a n b e i n g are w h a t they are partly at least as a result o f n o r m a l f u n c t i o n i n g in the individual life history, s o o u r v a r i o u s skills result f r o m p e r f o r m a n c e in the arts w h i c h e n g a g e us, o u r mental habits and p o w e r s o f an1HCS,

3

HCS,

p. 26 ; cf. p. 85.

2

p. 28; pt. iv.

* PMPS,

PMPS,

i, p. 268. i, pp. 228 et seq.

THE FACT AND FOUNDATIONS

OF

SOCIETY

alysis, our attainments of knowledge, our political aptitudes, our manners, result f r o m functioning in l i f e situations which are essentially social situations, our attitudes, our sentiments, our emotional reactions our moral qualities take their character f r o m many reactions to life situations in the social world in which we are placed and will v a r y w i t h different types of society, with different stages of social evolution. 1 SOCIETY AND INDIVIDUAL PERFECTION

If the individual owes his very being, as anything more than a bio-psychic organism, to association, to a passive but still more to an active participation in the affairs of society, so too, he finds his greatest perfection, the most complete realization of his various capacities in the fullest and richest participation in the life of his fellows. The atmosphere of society, from the whole, we may conclude, is the element in which the human mind must draw the first breath of intelligence itself : or if not the vital air by which the celestial fire of mortal sentiment is kindled : we cannot doubt but it is of mighty effect in exciting the flame; and that the minds of men, to use a familiar example, may be compared to those blocks of fuel which taken apart are hardly to be lighted : but if gathered unto a heap, are easily kindled into a blaze. 2 It follows logically enough from this that F e r g u s o n should find in society, in public affairs and in promoting the good of one's fellows, the worthiest, in fact the only worthy end of human action, and that accordingly his conception of the nature of the individual and of society would influence vitally his theory of ethics and his conception of the good life. This will however engage us later. 8 1

PMPS,

* Ρ M PS, s

pp. 240 et seq. ; HCS,

p. 5.

i, pp. 268 et seq., 124; HCS,

Infra, ch. xi.

p. 335.

ADAM

56

FERGUSON

M E N TO BE STUDIED IN SOCIETY

From all this it follows—and this is of course central to an appreciation of Ferguson in relation to sociology—that man must be studied as a social being and in his group relationships if he is to be understood at all, that the study of social institutions and group ways is an important part of the study of man, 1 and that account is to be taken of the interdependence of all the various phases or departments of human social activity. If both the earliest and the latest accounts, collected from every quarter of the earth, represent mankind as assembled in troups and companies; and the individuals always joined by affection to one party, while he is possibly opposed to another, . . . these facts must be admitted as the foundation of all our reasoning relative to man. His mixed disposition to friendship or enmity, his reason, his use of language and articulate sounds, like the shape and erect position of his body, are to be considered as so many attributes of his nature.2 But to this we shall have occasion to revert again. 1

Infra, p. 178-9.

2

HCS,

pp. 4 et seq.

CHAPTER

IV

SOCIAL C H A N G E AND SOCIAL C O N T I N U I T Y S O C I E T Y , however, has its length as well as its breadth. The collective behavior of men may be studied as a sequential no less than as a co-existential order. If a cross section, as it were, of the life of humanity or of any given nation at a given time, reveals relationships of continuity and interdependence, of order among its parts, a longitudinal section through time reveals similar relationships no less certainly and no less intrinsic. If the sociologist has sometimes dealt exclusively with the breadth of society while relegating its length to the historical student, or even denying to this longitudinal view the name of society, Ferguson made even more, if possible, of this dynamic than of the static view, and made at least a heroic effort, even if not altogether a successful one, to discover its laws. That is, he faced squarely the fact of history and grappled at least seriously with the dynamics of social change. The next step, accordingly, in our effort to give an account of his writing will be to indicate his appreciation of the fact of change, of growth, of continuity in the socio-historic process; and this could hardly be better introduced than by quoting from the opening paragraph of the " Essay ".

Natural productions are generally formed by degrees. Vegetables grow from a tender shoot, and animals from an infant state. The latter being destined to act, extend their operations as their powers increase : they exhibit a progress, in what they perform as well as in the faculties they acquire. This progress 57

ADAM FERGUSON

5»

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. 1 " The state of nature or the distinctive character of any progressive being is to be taken not f r o m its description at the outset or at any subsequent stag« of its progress ; but from an accumulative view of its movement throughout. . . . " T h e state of nature relative to man is also a state of progress, equally real and of greater extent. T h e individual receives the first stamina of his f r a m e in a growing state. His stature is waxing. . . his faculties improve by exercise and are in a continual state of exertion." 2 Change, growth, progress, are the order of nature in man as well as in the universe about him. N o institutions are stable; where growth ceases, decay and death set in. s SOCIAL C H A N G E

F r o m this it may be seen that Ferguson begins with a " principle of progression ", a conception of change, of growth, of gradual development that is essentially a part of his philosophy, written as it were, in his universe. It applies to the inorganic and to the organic world ; it is intimately a part of the life history of every organism, particularly of every human being. It applies to the historical reality as well. 1

H CS, p. ι.

3

2

Ibid., ch. ii, secs, i, xvi, et ai.

ΡMPS, i, pp. 192 et seq.

SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL CONTINUITY I f it were nothing more than this, however,—a mere idea of universal progress, speculative, uncritical, unanalysed, unhistorical, like so many that were current in the i8th century, it could hardly command our serious attention. I f , however, there is a realistic appreciation of cultural differences and historical change, plus an effort to explain them, this deserves our attention however unsatisfactory the sociological explanations, and however deservedly the " history " with the paucity of materials available, might be designated " conjectural history ", 1 A g a i n it must be emphasized that Ferguson begins with a historical situation. There has been a widening of the mental horizon. First of all, as has been previously indicated, " nature peoples " , so called, have come under men's purview ; or perhaps we should say, men have begun to view them through anthropological lenses and have begun to get close-up views of them with historical realism and with an appreciation of differences from tribe to tribe and from area to area. The romantic Rousseauan idealism of a savage paradise, the condescending pity of "lo, the poor Indian", the Philistine disdain of savage scalpers, the idle curiosity about a strange species roaming the forests, and the philosophic ignorance of a " life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short " 2 were giving way to more accurate, analytical descriptions of men like unto "polished" citizens, with similar sentiments and interests, and corresponding institutions, however different in detail and however " rude " withal. Moreover it was becoming possible to point to a growing number of such peoples in various stages of savagery and barbarism and widely distributed over the earth's habitable surface 3 and careful accounts of their life were available. 4 Trade, 1

Infra, p. 231.

2

Hobbes.

3

HCS,

p. 119.

* Most frequently cited by Ferguson are Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages ; Charlevoix, History of New France ; Colden, History of the Five Nations ;

ADAM FERGUSON

6o

and for present purposes particularly English trade, was bringing men into more intimate contacts with peoples of divers cultures. T h e classics were being studied not merely for their language, their poetry, their philosophy, but f o r the history they contained, 1 a history sometimes very realistically conceived. 2 Histories were coming to be written in a new spirit and often with a new erudition. A n d , men were living or experiencing history in the very important political, economic, and other cultural changes transpiring in their own century and generation. These various factors combined to raise the question, Is our own culture permanent? H a s it always been what it is? A n d if not, are we not related to peoples who bore the torch before us? Were the barbarians described by Caesar, Tacitus, etc. so different from the savages and barbarians we know today ? A n d if some of the former were our ancestors, are not the latter our contemporary ancestors ? Did not the wonderful Greek and Roman civilizations themselves develop from such beginnings? Is not in fact the story they have themselves left us, when stripped of its romantic glamor, in very considerable part the story of peoples essential barb a r i a n ? ' Then may not present savages and barbarians, (author ?), History of the Caribbees; D'Arvieux, History of the Wild Arabs; Chardin's Travels·, Collection of Dutch Voyages; Abulgaze, History of the Tartars. Other authors cited are : W a f e r , Kolbe, Rubruquis, Jean de Plan Carpen, Simon de St. Quintin, Tchutzi, Strahlenberg, Dampier, Gemelli Carceri, de Retz. Note in this connection also Voltaire on the Hurons; Montesquieu, Persian Letters; Raynal, History of the Two Indies. See Grundeman, Die geographischen u. voelkerkundlichen Quellen u. Anschauungen in Herder's Idean zur Geschichte der Menschheit, Berlin, 1900. Cf. also Botsford, J. B., English Society in the i8th Century as Influenced front Oversea, New York, 1924 ; Gillespie, J. EL, The Influence of Oversea Expansion on England to 1700, New York, 1920; and Shepherd, W . , lectures at Columbia University on the Expansion of Europe; cf. Political Science Quarterly, Mar. 1919. 1

HCS,

pp. 112 et seq., 290 et seq.

* Wegelin, for instance (Considerations

2

Ibid.

sur les gouvernements,

1766,

SOCIAL

CHANGE

AND

SOCIAL

CONTINUITY

6l

given time and favorable conditions, achieve a civilization not unlike oar o w n ? or some different one? If so, what are those conditions ? Will an analysis of our own situation and a comparison of various histories give us the answer? What are the antecedents of our own culture and what the origins of particular institutions and ways of life we possess today? Is there a real continuity in events, is there a regularity of development ? I f so, may we not understand at least in some measure such regularity by analysing total situations and total processes into their factors? Such questions as these, abound in the writings of F e r guson, either explicitly or implicitly, and would, quite apart f r o m any attempted answer, in themselves seem sufficient to lend some importance to the man who raised them. 1 The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning. Nations, distinguished by the possession of arts, and the felicity of their political establishments, have been derived from a feeble original, and still preserve in their story the indications of a slow and gradual progress, by which this distinction was gained. The antiquities of every people, however diversified, contain the same information on this point. 1 Human affairs, in the meantime, continue their progress. What was in one generation a propensity to herd with the species, becomes, in the ages which follow a principle of national union. What was originally an alliance for common defence becomes, a concerted plan of political force; the care pp. 31, 42), calls the Romans the Iroquois of Europe and compares the Algonquins and Apalachites with the Celts and Etruscans. Colden says the great Greeks and Romans were once as much barbarians as are the Indians. Cf. Huth, op. cit., pp. 15 et seq.; cf. HCS, pp. 290 et seq. 1 Vide infra, chs. xiv, xv, esp. p. 230-2, quotation from Stewart, which the writer discovered after these paragraphs were written. Vide HCS· pt. ii.

* HCS, pp. 109 et seq.

ADAM

62

FERGUSON

of subsistence becomes an anxiety for accumulating wealth, and the foundation of commercial arts.1 W h e n nations succeed one another in the career of discoveries and inquiries, the last is always the most knowing. Systems of science are gradually formed. The globe itself is traversed by degrees, and the history of every age, when past, is an accession of knowledge to those who succeed. The Romans were more knowing than the Greeks; and every scholar of modern Europe is in this sense, more learned than the most accomplished person that ever bore either of those names. But is he on that account their superior ? 2 CONTINUITY

T h e socio-historie process is thus seen not only as one involving constant change, but involving continuity in that change. There is a thread running through events, there is continuity in achievement, one generation builds upon the work of its predecessor, one age builds upon the foundations laid by many ages that have gone before, and one nation borrows from another. 3 A given institution is as a rule created by the gradual transformation of some other institution or set of institutions. 4 T h e end product would be impossible without the beginning; 5 the earliest creations may still remain in the present institution either as a foundation, as one of its elements, or as a kind of survival. T h e process is a continuous stream, consisting sometimes more in the mere passing on of a tradition, sometimes more in the using of that tradition as a cultural base upon which to build the new.® The state of nature relative to the species . . . consists in 1HCS,

p. 182.

* Ibid., p. 42; cf. PMPS, 3

PMPS,

i, ρ. 47-

i, pp. 194 et seq. 4

HCS,

•/¿>»d., ch. iii, sec. i, ii; HCS,

pp. 125, 182. p. h i .

« PMPS,

i, p. 200.

SOCIAL

CHANGE

AND

SOCIAL

CONTINUITY

63

the continual succession of one generation to another; in progressive attainments made by different ages; communicated with additions from age to age ; and in periods the farthest advanced, not appearing to have arrived at any necessary limit. This progress indeed is subject to interruption, and may come to a close, or give way to vicissitude at any of its stages, but not more necessarily at the period of highest attainment than at any other. So long as the son continues to be taught what the father knew, or the pupil begins where the tutor has ended, and is equally bent on advancement, to every generation the state of arts and accommodations already in use serves but as a ground work for new invention and successive improvement. As Newton did not acquiesce in what was observed by Kepler and Galileo; no more have successive astronomers restricted their view to what Newton has demonstrated. . . . 1 SOCIAL ORIGINS

There is accordingly manifested throughout these writings a real interest in social origins, chiefly, perhaps, in sociopsychic, but also in socio-historic origins. There is an effort to understand the beginnings of the modern state, of present techniques and of the industrial order. T h i s is occasionally applied in such details as the origin of horse culture which is traced, apparently in a single area, to the plow, the shambles, the dairy, and the mount. 2 I t is applied in tracing the origin of certain of our moral standards to the influence of commercial life,® to understand the origin of many of our attitudes of chivalry, of justice, of social ranks, of humanitarianism by reference to chivalry and the feudal institutions of Medieval Europe. 4 The rudiments of architecture are found " in the form of a Scythian cottage " ; those of arms in the sling and the bow, and those of the ship " in the canoe of 1 P M P S , i, p. 194. 3

PMPS,

i, pp. 301 et seq.

* HCS, p. 231. * HCS, pp. 300-303.

ADAM

64 the savage.

FERGUSON

E v e n the historian and the poet may find the

original essays of their arts in the tale and the song, which celebrate the wars, the lives and the adventures o f men in their rudest condition". 1

Particular economic habits or in-

stitutions are traced to their rude beginnings, and particular political institutions to corresponding practices in the casual organization o f an undifferentiated society, where personal merit determines position and necessity determines function. 2 W e find, then, an abundance o f

comparisons

between

" polished societies " and " rude nations " in their political, economic and broadly social aspects ; and between the early and the later stages in the development of particular traits and institutions, such as methods of warfare, the treatment of prisoners of war,® the treatment of women, the organization o f family life, manner of holding land, the development of the arts, personal adornment.

T h e r e are efforts to char-

acterize both in their likenesses and differences, " rude " and " polished" societies as a whole, and to suggest their differences in social organization, in habits o f war or peace, in the degree o f absorption o f the individual in the group.

S o too

the comparative point o f view between various societies and national groups on the same general level of culture is much in evidence and an effort made to see each in the light of its own conditioning circumstances.

All this will, however,

elementary and even crude as the analysis may seem in the light of increased knowledge, appear casually in the course of this analysis, or will be taken up separately in due time. I t needs here further only to remark Ferguson's insistence on viewing the historical process more or less in its entirety, seeing rude beginnings in the light o f an elaborate superstructure, and the superstructure in the light o f its begin• HCS, p. 251. *HCS, p. 125; cf. pp. 49, 67 et seq., 182. ' Ibid., pp. 288 et seq.

SOCIAL

CHANGE

AND

SOCIAL

CONTINUITY

65

nings, and every intermediate stage in the light of what goes both before and after, and on realizing that there is a division of labor in time as well as in a cross-sectional view of society at a given time. In coming to this mighty end [of the separation of the arts and professions in polished society] every generation, compared to its predecessors, may have appeared to be ingenious; compared to its followers, may have appeared to be dull: and human ingenuity, whatever heights it may have gained in a succession of ages, continues to move with an equal pace, and to creep in making the last as well as the first step of commercial or civil improvement. 1 . . . When the attentions of men are turned toward particular subjects, when the acquisitions of one age are left entire to the next, when every individual is protected in his place, and left to pursue the suggestion of his wants, devices accumulate ; and it is difficult to find the origin of any art. The steps which lead to the perfection are many ; and we are at a loss upon whom to b e s t o w the g r e a t e s t s h a r e o f o u r praise, on the first o r o n t h e

last who may have borne a part in the progress. 1 1HCS,

p. 272.

»Ibid., p. 255.

C H A P T E R T H E N A T U R E OF H U M A N

V

S O C I E T Y AS C U L T U R E

addressing ourselves, however, to Ferguson's conception of social evolution, it will be necessary, to grasp his full meaning, to define more carefully his conception of human society as culture. 1 A t least four elements are involved. First of all, however much it may build upon native equipment, man's behavior in society, whether in the form of action, or thought or of emotional response, is essentially acquired behavior, conditioned by previous experience, and in large part " habitual " in the narrower sense of that term. In the second place, the individual is influenced, in fact largely determined in the formation of his habits, by his association with other individuals, and we thus come to have more or less standardized patterns of behavior within any group. In the third place, such " uniformity or the coincidence of many, in a particular way of thinking," or for that matter of acting or feeling, forms an accumulating tradition or social heritage. A n d , finally, behavior takes on ever varying forms from time to time and from people to people ; which by inversion implies that differences in manner of life, in national character, or in rank on the scale of civilization, are essentially differences of conditioning of a human nature everywhere fundamentally the same. 2 BEFORE

T h i s conception we shall now attempt to set forth, avoiding so far as possible repetition of what the previous sections have already established, and for reasons that will be obvious, letting the author in the main speak for himself. While ι C f . infra,

66

pp. 154-156.

2

HCS,

p. 203.

SOCIETY

AS

CULTURE

67

Ferguson of course wrote in the 18th century, a mere substitution of terms will o f t e n make his discussion of instinct and habit, of the conditioned response, of the origin of emotional bias, of the function of habit in social life, of f o l k w a y s , of man and culture, sound strangely modern, or shall w e say make our present discussions, short of a small though increasing number of experimental and laboratory

studies,

sound disconcertingly ancient. INSTINCT AND HABIT

O n the subject of man's biogenetic relation to the rest of the animal world he has little to say.

T h e r e is a great deal

said about man's place in nature ; there are o f t e n enlightening comparisons between man and other animals, both in structure and behavior. 1

W h i l e a fairly

sharp distinction is

drawn between the two worlds and an unbridgeable gulf is fixed by the introduction of " mind " , as he uses the term, and the power of self-determination, it remains still true that the foundations of comparative anatomy and comparative psychology are distinctly laid, if in fact his " b e h a v i o r i s m " is not already an ancient cult. 2

But so f a r as w e have been

able to ascertain, there is no acknowledgment, but rather an express denial of a genetic or blood relationship with a transformation of species, and a certain impatience with simian analogies. 3

Darwin, and even Lamarck had not yet w o n the

day. 4 Y e t , as already s e e n s of man's innate tendencies a great 1

HCS, p. 67; PMPS,

2

Ibid., i, pt. i, ch. i, esp. sec. v.

i, ch. i, sec. v. 8

HCS, pp. 7 et seq.

* The nearest he comes to biological transmutation is in passages quoted below, p. 72. Buffon is much in evidence in Ferguson as in all his contemporaries. 5 Cf. supra. Ferguson does not always distinguish sharply between " second nature ", and a biologically inherited " original nature '' (cf. Giddings, Studies, p. 112, footnote), but he does very definitely make the distinction, and where it is essential, so indicates.

68

ADAM

FERGUSON

deal is made; in fact they often appear as the dominating factor in determining human relationships and social evolution. 1 These " instincts " equip man f a r more imperfectly to cope with his environment as he enters upon the scene than do those of the lower animals, but they permit a f a r greater flexibility of acquired behavior. Man alone must learn, but he also is pre-eminently able to learn. Man alone among the animals is naked and unarmed ; but also man alone is able to make clothes to suit varying conditions and arms more deadly than tooth and claw. 2 Man has infinite powers of varying his conduct and adapting himself to varying situations, in the way not only of intellectual activities, but of fancy, ornament, imagination, understanding, the building of temples, and the creation of works of art from which alone among the animals he can receive gratification. 8 Man has by nature a wider range of interests than have other animals, but also more occasion for strife. If art is more likely than instinct to err, it is also more capable of improvement. 4 A s a result of this greater plasticity in man, the individual presents a f a r greater range of habits and acitivities, and both individuals and groups present greater varieties in their adaptations to situation and circumstance. 5 " When animals differ, we infer difference of species"; when men in remote areas behave alike we infer historical continuity or cultural diffusion and are " as much puzzled to account f o r uniformity in the different ages and nations of man as we should be to account for variety in specimens of some animals." β These innate tendencies in man can, however, never be isolated except in abstraction ; 7 they are always overlaid by 1

Infra, pp. m et seq., 127.

2

Ibid., p. 57.

» Ibid., pp. 24, 32.

5

Ibid., pp. 59-61.

β

ΡMPS, i, pp. 51 et seq., 239. * Ibid., pp. 231-333.

Ibid.

''Ibid., ii, p. 419. On these and the following paragraphs see esp. PMPS, i, ch. iii, sec. vii.

SOCIETY

AS

69

CULTURE

habits as a result of an ever-increasing fund of experience, and are to be found only as a part of social behavior or cultural situations. Habits become so deeply ingrained that they are " scarcely to be distinguished from original propensity." 1 The Frenchman who said, " Pourquoi Bread; Le Francois font les choses tout simple, ils appellent Pain ' Pain ' " quite forgot that an artificial association was not a natural connection.2 Sex attitudes, parental dispositions, the sentiment of sympathy or humanity, the esteem of merit, the love of justice and the reprobation of wickedness or indignation at wrong, are all conditioned by association and experience, however " natural " they may seem. " The distinction of good and evil originates in the sensibility of intelligent beings to the circumstances in which they are placed, or to the qualities of their own nature. But the application of this distinction, will depend upon the associations men have formed ".* In fact the instinctive is much the smaller part of any human response.4 For . . . In other classes of animals, the individual advances from infancy to age or maturity; and he attains, in the compass of a single life, to all the perfection his nature can reach : but, in the human kind, the species has a progress as well as the individual ; they build in every subsequent age on foundations formerly laid; and in a succession of years tend to a perfection in the application of their faculties, to which the aid of long experience is required, and to which many generations must have combined their endeavors.5 Few chapters in Ferguson are more engaging than those which deal with the manner in which these native tendencies of action or feeling become altered, that is with the nature of habit and its relation to social life. Conditioned response, 1

Ρ M PS, i, p. 131, 221.

"Ibid., pp. 123, 126.

2

Ibid., pp. 137 et seq.

*Ibid., p. 125.

BHCS,

p. 6.

ADAM

7°

FERGUSON

repression, emotional transfer, childhood complexes, are not names used by Ferguson, but that the conceptions were quite definitely present, the following quotations will at least in part indicate. I n respiration, in the sucking response,

complicated operations are performed of which the nature is so far from being understood by the infant who performs them that it has baffled from time immemorial the searches of speculative men and is but recently known in the progress of science.1 Habit is a source of inclination . . . not numbered among the original propensities of human nature . . . but a disposition which results from our having already acted. It is the acquired relation of a person to the state in which he has already been. . . . Its law is that whatever the living nature is able to perform without impairing its organs, if persisted in will produce a habit.2 . . . A task which at first is severe and laborious becomes easy and even agreeable through use.8 . . . The concomitancy of things or circumstances, leads to a habit of conceiving them together.4 THE

" CONDITIONED R E S P O N S E "

In this manner we not only attach qualities to subjects with which they have not any real connection in the ordinary course of things, but we also attach feeling and emotion of mind to things which are not in reality objects of such feeling.5 Passions are thus communicated from one person to another by contagion without any communication of thought or knowledge of the cause, and the person to whom the passion is communicated, may mistake for the object of it some trifling incident or circumstance which happens to accompany the emotion. If the nurse should shriek or give signs of horror, while a 1

P M P S , i, p. 120.

* Ibid., p. 137.

2

Ibid., pp. 209 et seq. " Ibid., p. 139.

3

Ibid., p. 222.

SOCIETY

AS

CULTURE

71

rat or a mouse is passing on the floor, her child being infected with terror, may from thenceforward attach similar emotions to the appearance of a similar cause. . . . the most ungovernable feelings of horror are incurred on the presentment of things [quite meaningless in themselves. T h e appearance of a cat, the smell of cheese, the sight of a particular joint of meat often produce effects] such as probably must have originated in early childhood, or under the effects of disease ; and acquire the force of habit, before the reason of the thing could be questioned; so that they remain through life no less a mystery to the person who is subjected to them, than they are to others who behold their effects. 1 In this way our emotional attitude becomes conditioned to the greatest variety of objects, some of them merely in a casual w a y but others in a w a y that constitutes a social environment in matters of religion, wealth, objects of public esteem, standards of taste, deferential attitudes towards those in authority, etc. 2 Such is the force of association in these matters, and such its effect on our conduct, even in opposition to conviction and reason ; that though we are sensible our notions are ill-founded, yet we are not released from their influence, until we have worn off one habit by degrees, or in the same manner in which it was framed, and until we have substituted another by a similar practice or use in its stead.3 H A B I T S AS B E H A V I O R P A T T E R N S OF T H E M A N Y

E v e n more important is it to notice that such habits are in the main social habits and that differences in manners and customs are essentially matters of habit. . . . Individuals, for the most part, without any authority 1

PMPS,

i, pp. 143 et seq.

'Ibid., i, p. 151.

2

Ibid., pp. 145 et seq. ; ii, p. 379.

ADAM

72

FERGUSON

of facts, single or multiplied, take their notion of things from report or prevailing opinion. . . . T h i n g s again and again conceived, upon the authority of others [come to have] the same effect as to be experienced. . . . F r o m this source the bulk of people derive their conceptions on the point of honour, and on the constituents of rank or distinction, whether birth, fortune, or personal qualities. From this source they derive their veneration for the religion and their respect f o r the government of their country. O n these subjects, w e think by contagion with other m e n ; and remain submissive to government, or docile to religion, so long as the world continues to set the example. A s w e follow the herd, in forming our conceptions of what was respectable, so w e are ready to follow the multitude also when such conceptions come to be questioned or rejected; and are no less vehement reformers of religion, and revolutionists in government, when the current of opinions has turned against former establishments, than w e were zealous abettors while that current continued to set in a different direction. 1 A s uniformity, or the coincidence of many, in a particular way of thinking, proceeds f r o m communication, and is preserved by habit, it were absurd to employ any other method, to obtain or preserve unanimity. . . . 2 W e h a v e not a n y sufficient reason, he says elsewhere, to believe that men of remote ages and nations, differ f r o m one another otherwise than by habits acquired in a different manner of life : But how differently are they affected by external causes ? and what a difference do they exhibit in their choice of food, accommodations, and pleasures? T h e train-oil, or putrid fish, which is a feast in Labrador or Kamchatka, would be little else than poison to a European stomach. O r if men, in situations so remote f r o m one another, should PMPS, i, pp. 134 et seq. ; cf. p. 213. HCS, p. 18+ This was probably written in the early years of the French Revolution. 1

2

PMPS,

i, p. 219.

SOCIETY

AS

CULTURE

73

be supposed to be of a different race ; or to have incurred, from a difference of climate or situation, a change in the construction of their organs ; varieties, almost equally striking, are observable in the habits contracted in the different ranks of life, by men of the same country and age. The peasant is at ease in his cottage, under a roof, and in the midst of accommodations, that would extremely discontent or displease a person accustomed to other conveniences.1 [Man's character] takes a stamp from his situation and the manner of life in which he is engaged : He seems to carry in his nature, a principle of ductility or pliancy, which is withheld from the other animals: But, that we may not mistake the effect or the extent of this principle, it is proper to recollect, that its existence is inferred from the varieties exhibited by men of different nations, ages, and ranks of life, not from the facility with which any one individual can turn himself into different shapes, whether with respect to his opinions, his inclinations, or faculties. In respect to these, in every particular instance, there are habits which serve to fix the manners of men, no less than instinct is observed to fix the practice of other animals. 1 T H E FUNCTION OF HABIT

Nor is it merely accidental that this should be so, or unimportant for the study of human society. If this were not the case, human life would be a scene of inextricable confusion and uncertainty. One person could not know whether another, in the transactions of life had any determinate rule of conduct; or whether a party, in any transaction, would abide by the sequel, even of what he himself had proposed. Were intelligent beings so anomalous in their disposition and conduct, the consequence would be no less per1 PMPSy i, p. 221. It is not altogether clear from these paragraphs how f a r he implies an organic adaptation beyond the life history of the individual.

* Ibid., p. 232.

74

ADAM FERGUSON

ptexing, in the rational system, than the want of any uniform law, upon which to proceed, would be in the practice of mechanical arts ; and would equally frustrate every exertion of prudence or foresight in the conduct of life. . . . Were it not for this effect of habit, we should have continual occasion to complain, that no measures could be taken upon mere expectation, nor any reliance had on a conduct which were so subject to fluctuation, and without any determinate r u l e . . . . 1 The authority of government itself, under every political establishment, rests on the habits of thinking, which prevail among the people [and different forms of government, similarly, rest on different attitudes that have in one way or another come to be built into habits]. 2 " In matters of mere discretion," he continues, or small moment, such as are, for the most part, the ordinary constituents of good or ill manners ; the proprieties of language and dress ; the routine of hours for meals, for business, or play ; the place of distinction in company; or the choice of innocent and arbitrary rites; it is better that the members of society should be of one mind, though perhaps with little foundation of evidence or reason, than that every one should, under pretence of thinking for himself, be at variance with his neighbor in matters of trifling account. The authority of prevailing opinions makes at least one bond of society ; and it is more fit that the people should move together, though not in the best way that might be devised for them, than that they should disband and separate into different ways, where no one might find, in the way he had chosen for himself, anything to compensate his separation from the rest of his kind.3 Not that man is not also in a real sense the master and critic of his own habits, but man is at least something less than a purely rational animal. 4 i, pp. 232 et seq.

1

Ρ M PS,

3

Ibid., pp. 217 et seq.

2

Ibid., p. 215.

* Ibid., pp. 130 et seq., 202, 232.

SOCIETY AS CULTURE GROUP

75

WAYS

N o less clear is his appreciation of the essentially habitual or " folkway " character o f differences in manner of life and thought presented by various ages and nations. Whence is it else, [than from habit] that the subjects of monarchy have one opinion respecting the expedience of political establishments, and the members of democracy a different one ? Whence is it that the creed of the vulgar is so different in Asia, from what it is in Europe. . . . There are habits of thinking peculiar to nations, to different ages, and even to individuals of the same nation and age, taken up at first without evidence, and often tenaciously retained without being questioned. In Greece, it was thought dishonorable to lose the shield in battle, or turn the back upon an enemy : In Scythia, flight was thought an ordinary stratagem in war. In Greece, music and dancing were reckoned accomplishments : A t Rome they were reckoned disgraceful. Our ancestors conceived the military character, as that which distinguished the lord or the gentleman : In their opinion, to be noble and military was the same. Ask a gentleman of the continent of Europe what it is to be noble? He will answer, it is to be descended through a certain number of generations of noble ancestors. Cannot merit compensate the want of birth? The answer is, that merit may recommend a gentleman in his rank ; but no merit can ever entitle a peasant or a burgher to the reception that is due to a gentleman. Ask him to discuss the evidence of these opinions: He will reject the proposal with contempt. The citizen, in a democratical government, on the contrary cannot conceive how a man that is born free should be inferior to another, who does not excel him in parts, integrity, or in service performed to his country. 1 " T h e multiplicity of forms," he elsewhere says, 1

PMPS,

i, pp. 214 et seq. ; cf. p. 301.

76

ADAM

FERGUSON

in the meantime, which different societies offer to our view is almost infinite. The classes into which they distribute their members, the manner in which they establish the legislative and executive powers, the imperceptible circumstances by which they are led to have different customs, and to confer on their governors unequal measures of power and authority, give rise to perpetual distinctions between constitutions the most nearly resembling one another, and give to human affairs a variety in detail, which, in its full extent, no understanding can comprehend and no memory retain. 1 Every nation is a motley assemblage of different characters, and contains, under any political form, some examples of that variety, which the humours, tempers, and apprehensions of men so differently employed, are likely to furnish. Every profession has its point of honour, and its system of manners ; the merchant his punctuality and fair dealing; the statesman his capacity and address ; the man of society, his good breeding and wit. Every station has a carriage, address, a ceremonial, by which it is distinguished, and by which it . suppresses the national character under that of the rank, or of the individual. . . . The air of the person, the tone of the voice, the idiom of language, and the strain of conversation, whether pathetic or languid, gay or severe, are [from place to place] no longer the same.2 Differences these, which arise from a variety of circumstances, but are neither an expression of innate differences, nor the result of conscious, voluntary accommodation. T o be sure, in all these passages we have no formal description of a group behavior pattern. The language is still in a sense that of individual psychology. And yet the nature of habit as distinguished from original response, its function in social life, the influence of the habits of the group on those of each separate individual, their prevailingly non-rational character, their variation from time to time, from place to ι H CS. p. 95·

2

Ibid., p. 283.

SOCIETY

AS

CULTURE

77

place, and even from group to group within a given society, are so clearly perceived as forcefully to suggest the names of Maine, Bagehot, Sumner, and even a Watson among the modern psychologists, or a Lowie among the cultural anthropologists. ATTACK ON ROMANTIC CONCEPTION OF T H E STATE OF N A T U R E

It remains, by way at once of a kind of summary and subscript, to recall Ferguson's vigorous attack upon that romanticism that sees in the savage a mere child of nature, a state of nature from which civilized man has departed, and that constructs the picture of his life by a mere subtraction of all that constitutes either the boast of our exalted civilization or the bane of the fraudulent, oppressive encroachments of busy invention upon a blissful reign of nature. 1 Men have always possessed culture, and the savage is by nature not essenitally different from ourselves. To be sure culture must have had a beginning, though we have no record of it. To be sure we know how many peoples today whose arts and political establishments, and manner of life generally, are in a very rude state ; and we must infer that the life of our own remote ancestors, like those of other advanced peoples, was much like theirs if we would know anything about it at all.2 But it does not follow that men are in that state 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 ; s or that this state of nature consisted of perpetual wars, 1

HCS, pp. 2, 7, i n .

1

Ibid., pp. 111-119.

» Ibid., p. 2.

ADAM

78

FERGUSON

kindled by interest and the competition for dominion, where every individual had a separate quarrel with his kind, and where the presence of a fellow creature was the signal of battle. 1 W h a t reason to doubt here that man's present dispositions and instincts are the same he always had and that his present manner of life is but the continuance of his first destination, that the beginning of our story is nearly of a piece with the sequel ; 2 and to accept " as the model of our nature in its original state, some of the animals whose shape has the greatest resemblance to o u r s ? " * " A r t is itself natural to man," and " from the first age of his being " he invented and contrived. " H e applies the same talents to a variety of purposes, and acts nearly the same part in very different scenes. He would be always improving on his subject, and he carries this intention wherever he moves, through the streets of the populous city, or the wilds of the forest," 4 and the latest state of his arts is but a continuation of the first." Under actual observation, rather than in such imagination, even the naked savage may be " a cox-comb and a gamester . . . proud and vain without the distinction of title and fortune, . . . his principal care . . . to adorn his person, and to find an amusement." He shares " our vices, and, in the midst of his forest, vies with the follies which are practiced in the town ". He often excels us in our talents and our virtues, and has a penetration, a force of imagination and elocution, an ardour of mind, an affection and courage which the arts, the discipline, and the policy of few nations would be able to improve." If we admit that man is susceptible of improvement, and has in himself a principle of progression, and a desire of perfection, 1HCS,

p. 3 ; cf. PMPS,

* Ibid., pp. 7 et seq. *Ibid., pp. m et seq.

i, pp. 197 et seq. * Ibid., p. 9.

2

HCS, p. 3·

« Ibid., p. 12.

SOCIETY

AS

CULTURE

79

it appears improper to say, that he has quitted the state of his nature, when he has begun to proceed; or that he finds a station for which he was not intended, while, like other animals he only follows the disposition and employs the power that nature has given. 1 1 H CS, p. 12. Flint's criticism (The Philosophy of History in Europe, Edinburgh and London, 1894, p. 349) that Ferguson here fails to distinguish between the state of nature as an historical and as an ideal conception, is not altogether amiss, but it does not seriously affect the argument as the confusion was made by most men writing on the subject, and the distinction is as a rule clearly made by Ferguson himself. See esp. PMPS, i, ch. iii, sec. i ; vol. ii, p. 206.

CHAPTER

VI

T H E NATURE AND COURSE OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION

WE are now prepared to take up more explicitly Ferguson's conception of social evolution. Whether or not he deserves the encomium of being the first in modern times to present a thoroughgoing evolutionary view of the socio-historic process, there can be no doubt that he did conceive society as a dynamic process, changing in some sense according to law, by forces inherent within the process itself and with a close interdependency between its various factors. 1 We shall present, again largely in the author's own words, first his conception of evolution as a generalized history of society, with its trends and directions set forth; then an analysis in more detail of the nature of social change and cultural accumulation, of the growth and decay of society, the dynamics and methods, as it were, of the process ; and in a following chapter the major factors entering into, or forces underlying the process. , His emphasis on the fact itself of growth, of change, of historical development, has already been set forth. It need not be repeated that the process is conceived as a social or cultural rather than a biological one. Nor, again, is his merely a vague undefined " idea of progress " a rationalization of a boundless optimism born of an i8th century deification of a supreme and all-powerful reason and likewise of an 18th century failure to appreciate the complexity of the 1 It is in this sense primarily that we use the term " evolution ", and not merely to describe a trend of development or a series of universalized historical stages.

80

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

8l

social process and the strength of its traditional and unreasoned elements. Rather, however much he remains a child of his day, and however little he might impress an extreme historical realist in anthropology today, he definitely points the way of an interpretation at once more realistic and more penetrating. T H E TREND OF EVOLUTION

Society moves everywhere from a "rude" to a "polished" state, from savage, through barbaric to civil society.1 All "polished " society has once been rude. So ancient history implies ; so even sacred history strongly suggests ; 2 so we must infer both from history and on general principles of philosophy. All rude societies will apparently achieve a polished state if given time and in the absence of interfering and interrupting circumstances.11 All advanced institutions have grown out of rude beginnings and the rude contain the seeds of advanced ones. SAVAGERY *

In their earliest stages societies are relatively uniform 5 because men live closer to a universal human nature.® In1 Ferguson distinguishes clearly between savagery and barbarism, the former characterized by fishing, hunting, and collecting, with property and political institutions little developed, the latter by herdsmanship, property institutions, increasing strife, and the development of ranks and subordination (political institutions). He also accepts fishing, hunting, cattle culture, agriculture, commerce and manufacture as so many economic stages. Inst., pp. 22 et seq. Cf. similar usage by John Millar {infra). Herder. Cf. also Bossuet, Turgot, Condorcet. See Teggert, op. cit., pp. 91 et seq. ; also Posadzy, Der entwicklungsgeschichtliche Gedanke bei Herder, Posen, 1906. Cf. Goldenweiser's statement ( K n o p f , Early Civilisation, 1922, p. 21 ) that this evolutionary and comparative method found no considerable application before Spencer. 2

HCS,

pp. 109-111.

* Ibid., pt. ii, sec. ii.

3

Ibid., pp. 27, 281, etc.

» Ibid., p. 281.

· Ibid., p. 125.

82

ADAM

FERGUSON

creasing divergence between societies comes only with increasing complexity, with increasing division of labor, and because of varying situations to which they must adapt themselves. 1 In savagery the arts are few, societies are small, and undifferentiated. 2 There is little social inequality between their members, primarily because property is as yet comparatively absent. 3 And whatever inequalities exist are inequalities of merit, of essential function, resting primarily on differences of native ability and temper and of actual achievement. 4 L i f e is in the main unsophisticated and is lived straight forward without masks.6 Such property as exists is in the main held communally.® Strife and intertribal warfare though frequent, are not nearly so frequent or important as has often been made to appear. 7 There is little prevision and little provision for distant needs ; 8 a tendency toward sloth and loitering, at least on the part of men in the intervals of hunting and war. 8 There is of course no science, and intellectual interests and religious beliefs are crude. 10 The family is everywhere present 1 1 and arbiter of its own affairs even in matters of bloodshed and murder. It has its own division of labor along sex lines at least where there is a beginning of agriculture. It controls such property as may exist and as is not either communally held by the group, or individually as in the case of furs and the bow. 12 The family is at least in many instances matrilineal if not matriarchal. 1 " There is no absence of kindly familial feeling even where 1

HCS, pp. 202 et seq. ; PMPS,

ii, p. 328.

8

Ibid., pp. 123 et seq., 145. 275·

4

« Ibid., p. 121. 9 12

Ibid., pp. 122,137.

' PMPS,

HCS, p. 188.

¡bid., pp. 49,275 et seq.

i, p. 198.

" Ibid., pp. 131 et seq.

HCS, pp. 121 et seq., 126 et seq.

»» Ibid., p. 133.

2

11

Ibid., p. 26.

» HCS, pp. 131 et seq. 11

PMPS,

i, p. 23.

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

83

men are otherwise fierce and warlike 1 nor of unflinching loyalty and devotion to a friend. 2 Political establishments are few and simple or entirely absent 8 largely because of the relative absence of property. Control outside the family group is wielded by casual leaders, by men of esteem, or by the old men.4 Or where there is a more definite organization short of a settled form of government, it resembles more the suggestion of instinct than of invention and reason.5 Such political establishments as exist are such as would seem to place them " on the eve of erecting republics ".* BARBARISM

7

In the course of time, societies advance in the arts (i.e. first of all techniques) thus improving their situation amassing wealth and establishing property. With increase of wealth and division of functions there is growing inequality 8 of status and increasing occasion for strife within and without. Possessions descend and the luster of family grows brighter with age. Hercules becomes a God, Achilles and Uylsses become illustrious warriors even while they may feed from the same dish with their followers, sleep together on the ground, and permit their children alike to be employed in tending the stock, and while the prime counsellor at the court of Ulysses may be a keeper of the swine. 9 Hostilities tend to become perpetual and society takes on a military character. Warlike habits prevail though there is hospitality and kindness to the stranger as an individual. 10 Even sport takes on a warlike character. 11 There is a strengthening of 1

HCS,

p. 150.

2

Ibid., pp. 25 et seq.

* Ibid., pp. 124 et seq., 181 et seq. T 10

Ibid., pt. ii, sec. iii. Ibid., p. 150.

8

PUPS,

"Ibid.,

8

8

Ibid., pp. 1 1 9 et seq.

Ibid., p. 127. ii, p. 422.

p. 155.

· Ibid., p. 147. · HCS, p. 149.

ADAM

84

FERGUSON

the bands o f society within the group; alliances are formed between neighboring groups against a common enemy. . . . the practice of depredation itself engages men in trials of mutual attachment and courage. What threatened to ruin and overset every good disposition in the human breast, what seemed to banish justice from the societies of men, tends to unite the species in clans and fraternities ; formidable indeed and hostile to one another but in the domestic society of each, faithful, disinterested and generous. 1

" civility " O n the more advanced stages it becomes more difficult to generalize and " it is necessary to hold oneself more to particular subjects and particular societies."

2

B u t here too society is continually undergoing change. T h e desire f o r improvement leads to the development of the arts, and this to growing complexities o f economic organization. 8

Class lines are at least f o r a time more sharply

drawn.*

" Subordination " and military establishments and

the need o f protecting property, lead to political establishments. and

Societies tend to become larger, more differentiated

more

diversified.

Political

boundaries are drawn and redrawn. becomes a controlling motive.

fortunes

vary,

political

Commerce frequently

W i t h increasing prosperity

and the enlargement o f political bounderies there is

fre-

quently a loosening o f the bands of affection and communal obligation and a decay o f the national spirit.

Social dis-

integration sets in and the torch is frequently handed on to another. 5 T h e r e would seem to be, on the whole, a movement from small to large societies,® from cruelty and inhumanity to 1

HCS, p. 149.

2

Ibid., p. i6i.

* Ibid., pt. iv, secs, ii-iv.

* PMPS, i, p. 33; HCS, p. 188.

5

8

Ibid., pt vi, secs, iii, iv.

HCS, p. 3 1 5 ; cf. infra.

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

85

mercy and humanity, from the predominence of military to that of industrial establishments, 1 and wars when they do occur come to be tempered by humanity, and governed in a measure by law. 2 But on this as on many other contrasts between ancient and modern society generalizations are made with caution. It is to be noted, however, that in early society group solidarity is strong, the group counts for everything, the individual for nothing; while in later society group solidarity tends to weaken, the individual counts for everything, the group for nothing. 5 With differentiation there is individuation and individualization and a movement from what has later been called a component to a constituent basis of social organization, from community to society; but these distinctions, while intimately a part of his conception of social evolution, are not so named and do not receive intensive development.4 This process, as has appeared from a number of quotations, is after the fashion of his time conceived usually as a gradual one, with a tendency to minimize those more or less sudden upheavals, those revolutionary transformations, or at least accelerations of social change that his own familiarity with history must amply have suggested to him. There is a tendency " to move with equal pace and to creep in making the last as well as the first step." " It is, however, not always equable or excepted from interruption " , nor always slow. There is also a certain " naturalness " in the order of de1

HCS, pp. 292-300, vide infra, p. 240. 2 Ibid., p. 233 ; PMPS, ii, p. 313. HCS, p. 82 ; cf. infra. 4 PMPS, i, pp. 58, 194 et seq., 281, 310; HCS, p. 272. Buddeberg emphasizes this feature to a seeming emancipation of the individual from society though he admits that it may be rather a transfer from communal to societal controls that comes with individuation. At any rate Ferguson sees in emancipation from all social constraints and obligations a sign of decadence and not the inevitable price of progress. 3

86

ADAM

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velopment, founding in the nature of man and the environment to which he must adapt himself, making for relative uniformity alike in the order or development and in the characteristics of various societies at any given stage. There is every reason to believe that with a colony of children transplanted f r o m the nursery, and l e f t to f o r m a society apart, untaught, and undisciplined, w e should only have the same things repeated, which in so many different parts of the earth, have been transacted already. T h e members of our little society would feed and sleep, would herd together and play, would have a language of their own, would quarrel and divide, would be to one another the most important objects o f the scene, and, in the ardour of their friendships and competitions, would overlook their personal danger, and suspend the care of their self-preservation. . . . 1 " M a n k i n d , w h e n in their rude s t a t e , " w e m a y s u m m a r i z e , have a great uniformity of manners; but when civilized they are engaged in a variety of pursuits ; they tread on a larger field and separate to a greater distance. If they be guided, however, by similar dispositions, and by like suggestions of nature, they will probably in the end, as well as in the beginning of their progress, continue to agree in many particulars ; and while communities admit, in their members, that diversity of ranks and professions which we have already described, as the consequence or the foundation of commerce, they will resemble each other in many effects of this distribution, and of other circumstances in which they nearly concur.M O T I V E FORCES I N SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

I f , n o w , w e ask F e r g u s o n h o w these c h a n g e s c o m e t o take place, he m a y b y w a y o f a kind o f lip service a n s w e r that P r o v i d e n c e h a s so ordained.

H e will m o r e likely a n s w e r

that it f o l l o w s inevitably f r o m the nature o f m a n a n d the 1HCS,

p. 6.

2

Ibid.,

p. 281.

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

s i t u a t i o n s in w h i c h h e is placed.

87

O n t h e implications o f

s u c h a p o s i t i o n h e is s o explicit a n d his e x p o s i t i o n f o r his d a y s o s t r i k i n g , t h a t w e c a n d o n o better t h a n q u o t e h i m at considerable l e n g t h . Destined to cultivate his own nature, or to mend his situation, man finds a continual subject of attention, ingenuity, and labour. E v e n where he does not propose any personal improvement, his faculties are strenghtened by those very exercises in which he seems to forget himself : his reason and his affections are thus profitably engaged in the affairs of society; his invention and his skill are exercised in procuring his accommodations and his f o o d ; his particular pursuits are prescribed to him by circumstances of the age and of the country in which he lives : in one situation he is occupied with wars and political deliberations ; in another, with the care of his interests, of his personal ease, or conveniency. H e suits his means to the ends he has in v i e w ; and, by multiplying contrivances, proceeds, by degrees, to the perfection of his arts. In every step of his progress, if his skill be increased, his desire must likewise have time to extend : and it would be as vain to suggest a contrivance of which he slighted the use, as it would be to tell him of blessings which he could not command. 1 A g a i n he s a y s , Mankind, in following the present sense of their minds in striving to remove inconveniences, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate, and pass on like other animals in the track of their nature without perceiving its end. H e who first said, " I will appropriate this field ; I will leave this to my heirs " did not perceive that he was laying the foundations of civil laws and political establishments. H e w h o first ranged himself under a leader did not perceive that he was setting the example of a permanent subordination under the pretence of which the rapacious 1

H CS,

pp. 251

et seq.

88

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FERGUSON

were to seize his possessions, and the arrogant to lay claim to his service. . . . Like the winds, that come we know not whence, and blow whithersoever they list, the forms of society are derived f r o m an obscure and distant origin ; they arise, long before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not from the speculations, of men. T h e crowd of mankind, are directed in their establishments and measures, by the circumstances in which they are placed; and seldom are turned from their way, to follow the plan of any single projector. 1 . . . Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. If Cromwell said, that a man never mounts higher, than when he knows not whither he is going ; it may with more reason be affirmed of communities, that they admit of the greatest revolutions where no change is intended, and that the most refined politicians do not always know whither they are leading the state by their projects. If we listen to the testimony of modern history, and to that of the most authentic parts of the ancient ; if we attend to the practice of nations in every quarter of the world, and in every condition, whether that of the barbarian or the polished, we shall find very little reason to retract this assertion. N o constitution is formed by concert, no government is copied from a plan. The members of a small state contend for equality; the members of a greater, find themselves classed in a certain manner that lays the foundation for monarchy. They proceed from one form of government to another, by easy transition, and frequently under old names adopt a new constitution. T h e seeds of every form are lodged in human nature; they spring up and ripen with the season. T h e prevalence of a particular species is often derived from an imperceptible ingredient mingled in the soil. 1HCS,

pp. 182-184; cf. PMPS, i, p. 314.

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

89

. . . The artifices of the beaver, and the bee, are ascribed to the wisdom of nature. Those of polished nations are ascribed to themselves, and are supposed to indicate a capacity superior to that of rude minds. But the establishments of men, like those of every animal, are suggested by nature, and are the result of instinct, directed by the variety of situations in which mankind are placed. Those establishments arose from successive improvements that were made, without any sense of their general effect ; and they bring human affairs to a state of complication, which the greatest reach of capacity with which human nature was ever adorned, could not have projected; nor even when the whole is carried into execution, can it be comprehended in its full extent.1 I N V E N T I O N A N D BORROWING

Peculiarly anticipatory, in conception and even in phrase, of the discussions of modern cultural anthropology are the following paragraphs on invention and diffusion or cultural borrowing, Ages are generally supposed to have borrowed from those who went before them, and nations to have derived their portion of learning or of art from abroad. The Romans are thought to have learned from the Greeks, and the moderns of Europe from both. In this imagination we frequently proceed so far as to admit of nothing original in the practice or manners of any people. The Greek was a copy of the Egyptian, and even the Egyptian was an imitator, though we have lost sight of the model on which he was formed. It is known, that men improved by example and intercourse; but in the case of nations, whose members excite and direct each other, why seek from abroad the origin of arts of which every society, having the principles in itself, only requires a favourable occasion to bring them to light ? When such occasion presents itself to any people, they generally seize it; and while ι H CS,

pp. 270-272; cf. PMPS, i, 201.

90

ADAM

FERGUSON

it continues, they improve the invention to which it gave rise among themselves, or they willingly copy from others : but they never employ their own inventions, nor look abroad, for instruction on subjects that do not lie in the way of their common pursuits ; they never adopt a refinement of which they have not discovered the use. Inventions, we frequently observe, are accidental; but it is probable, that an accident which escapes the artist in one age may be seized by one who succeeds him, and who is better apprised of its use. Where circumstances are favorable, and where a people is intent on the objects of any art, every invention is preserved, by being brought into general practice ; every model is studied, and every accident is turned to account. If nations actually borrow from their neighbors, they probably borrow only what they are nearly in a condition to have invented themselves. A n y singular practice of one country, therefore, is seldom transferred to another, till the way be prepared by the introduction of similar circumstances. 1 F r o m the point of view of psychological analysis he perhaps nowhere more clearly portrays the evolution of culture than in the f o l l o w i n g passages dealing with the o r i g i n and development of language.

T h e selection may serve to illus-

trate his conception as applied to a n y other field. Such natural signs, and instinctive or conjectural interpretations, may be considered as the original stock which nature has furnished to man and with which he may proceed in concerting more arbitrary signs of speech, or of written characters, thereby to extend the means of communication, and enable him to express himself more fully, on all the subjects of observation or thought. In thus proceeding to enlarge the fund of expression, by 1 Many historical instances follow. HCS, pp. 252 et seq. T h i s is apparently an attack on current theories of extreme diffusion; cf. infra, pp. 211, R o b e r t s o n ; also T e g g e r t , Theory of History, pp. 89 et seq.

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

9*

adding the use of speech to the stock of instinctive or natural signs, the principle of life in man, by whatever name we may call it, of mind, or intelligence, has occasion to shew an extent or variety of powers, and to produce, in a form obvious to sense, a multiplicity of stores, whether of conception, sentiment, or will, greatly exceeding what any of the other animals appear to possess. . . . In the use of articulate sounds [a combination of circumstances affords such remarkable facility and efficiency] . . . that we may clearly perceive the ground of that preference which mankind have universally given to the practice of speech without supposing it otherwise natural, than as it is obviously expedient and recommended by its use. . . . instinct is uniform in its effects ; and if speech were instinctive, we should have all mankind speak the same language as every bird of the same species, has the same call, and repeats his song. The great diversification of language implies the same latitude of invention and choice, in this, as in other arts practiced by man. But how shall we conceive this invention to have been made, communicated, and adopted by all mankind? Whether, like that of other ingenious arts, may it be traced to the casual or special exertion of one or a few ingenious men? This we are told by tradition was the origin of letters or written characters. But the poets alone venture to tell us that speech was taught in the same manner, by some founder of rationality and civilization. . . . If we are asked, therefore, who was the inventor of articulate sounds ? and, without being led by any degree of connection between the sign and the thing signified, taught mankind a name for every known subject, a name for every known quality, for every relation of things, . . . ? who taught the tongue to vary the inflections of sound, to keep pace with the variations of meaning? We may venture to answer, that Mind, or the principle of life in man, is competent to this effect; as fire when ever it be lodged in any corporeal mass, is competent

92

ADAM

FERGUSON

to expansion, fusion or evaporation. In natures stationary, like those of most animal species, an original stock of instinctive expression may be sufficient, for every purpose of life : But in the progressive nature of man, it is necessary that the stock of language should wax with the growing occasions on which it is employed. And, although no single genius, however vast, is equal to the invention of a language, such as even the vulgar speak, we may yet conceive that a talent for the use of arbitrary signs, such as the ordinary race of men possesses, operating in the detail of occasions, struggling to express a meaning in such signals as occurred, or were nearest at hand, has enabled the parties mutually to understand, and be understood, so as to give to the vernacular dialect of every society, in the result of their efforts, its degree of enlargement and use. When this end is obtained . . . the speculative mind is apt to look back with amazement . . . [as] from a precipice of an almost unfathomable depth, to the summit of which he could scarcely believe himself to have ascended without supernatural aid. . . . We are apt to treat the origin of language, as we treat that of society itself, by supposing a time when neither existed; but . . . there never was any such time; . . . both . . . are coeval with the species of man. There must have been society at the birth of a (?) man, and some species of expression where any concourse of numbers took place, and mankind, from the first, had a stock at least of instinctive expression, on which they wrought, endeavouring to supply its defects by the addition of some farther sign, whether gesture or word. If we would know, therefore, by what process mankind have advanced in accumulating the parts of speech, we have perhaps only to observe what they are now actually performing; for, in the most accomplished state of any art, the highest attainment is no more than a mere continuation of the first attempts. Commerce, in the earliest period of its existence, consisted in the exchange of a commodity that could be spared for one that

SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

93

was wanted: When most extended by the use of tallies, money, bank paper, and bills of exchange, it is still the barter of what can be spared for what is required in return.1 SUMMARY

These quotations are perhaps more than sufficient to indicate Ferguson's conception of social evolution and its driving forces. W e find here, implicitly or explicitly, as in many other places a most crushing attack on the intellectualism or rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries that founded society and social change essentially on reasoned processes, the product of foresight and planning, and therefore easily subject to individual and state control. 2 W e find a vigorous and almost complete denial of the contract theory of society and the state. W e find a conception of evolution that is altogether cultural and in no sense biological; a conception that rests ultimately on a dynamic view of human nature itself and is self-contained. W e find at least a pointing of the way of much that has more recently engaged us under such culturo-anthropological terms as invention, borrowing, diffusion, cultural base, and cultural accumulation. In short, we find a thoroughgoing and consistently evolutionistic view of society if not a theory of social evolution, that is, to say the least, surprising f o r the middle of the 18th century. This outline might be considerably elaborated and its application in various fields shown, but we can turn more profitably now to a sketching of the principal factors entering dynamically into the process. 1 PMPS, i, pp. 37-44, sel. ; cf. Inst., ch. i, sec. xii. Cf. Monboddo, Of the Origin and Progress of Language, Edinburgh, 1773, where a similar position is taken, but without the same subtleness of analysis. 2 By far the most daring attack that had been made up to this time on the theory of contract. Huth, op. cit., p. 46.

CHAPTER

VII

FACTORS IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION

IN a functional view of society we cannot strictly separate causes from effects, or the totality of dynamic factors from the process itself. Nor is the distinction between society as a dynamic process or a complex of interactions and relationships on the one hand, and as a kind of formal objectification of activities and relations on the other, the distinction, that is, between function and structure, other than a methodological one. If we, nevertheless, make such distinctions m the following paragraphs, it is with no pretense of rigidly reproducing Ferguson's own categories, but in the hope of effecting a more clear and yet in no way less objective presentation of his thought. Ferguson has more to say about activities than about institutions, but they are activities of men in groups, and conditioned by the ways of the group. On " principles " underlying the actions of men and the fortunes of nations, he is fairly explicit. These we may arrange in what would seem to be approximately the order of their importance in Ferguson's interpretation : race, climate and situation, conflict between groups and individuals, social organization in the form of economic and political establishments, technology and the division of labor, dynamic aspects of human nature itself in its animal needs, its instinctive urges, its moral drives and its intellectual controls. RACIAL D I F F E R E N C E S

The factor of racial differences can almost be dispensed with in a single sentence : it does not exist. Whether it is 94

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

95

because he is a child of the i8th entury with its passion for universale and its more or less static view of nature ; or because biology and its human applications was still somewhat in its i n f a n c y ; 1 or whether it is merely a part of his general reaction to the theory, that " rude " peoples are such because of an inferiority of native equipment ; at any rate he makes little of it except by way of denial. T o be sure he recognizes distinct races (six in number) 2 and yet humanity is essentially one and not many. There is also some recognition of organic adaptation to varying environments. 3 H e speaks frequently of races with their own national genius ; he does once refer specifically to the genius of the Greeks and Romans as something distinct from the actual possession of the arts, science or policy, and would see a temperamental likeness resting on racial identity between ancient and modern Greeks, between ancient and modern Italians. 4 But the distinction between race and nationality, and between temporary and permanent, that is hereditary, environmental adaptations is not clearly drawn. A statement like " T h e genius of political wisdom and civil arts appears to have chosen his seat in particular tracts of the earth and to have selected his favorites in particular races of men," is also more rhetorical than informing. 5 C L I M A T E AND S I T U A T I O N "

"Climate and situation" are given considerable prominence as determiners of social life, and Ferguson has been held to break new ground here, 7 but there is after all little that is 1

Cf. supra, pp.

* but., p. 22. rei. Buffon. 3

.

European, Samoeide, Tartar, Hindoo, Negro, American ;

Supra, pp. 72 et seq. ; Inst., pt. i, ch. i, sec. iv.

* HCS,

pp. 162 et seq.

T Buddeberg,

' Ibid., p. 161.

6

Ibid., pt. iii, sec. i.

op. cit.; Robertson, Buckle and his Critics, p. 51.

φ

ADAM

FERGUSON

unique or ingenuous and little o f that refinement o f analysis that could take us f a r beyond commonplaces and half truths. 1 W h i l e insisting that man is uniquely among animal kinds able to adapt himself to every climate and situation, 2 he repeats the usual generalizations about the temperate zone as the home o f the great historical cultures.

T h i s he attributes

in considerable part uncritically, though not without allowing f o r exceptions and f o r the operation o f other factors, to the direct influence o f climate upon temper and disposition. . . . Under the extremes of heat or of cold, the active range of the human soul appears to be limited ; and men are of inferior importance, either as friends, or as enemies. In the one extreme, they are dull and slow, moderate in their desires, regular and pacific in their manner of life ; in the other they are feverish in their passions, weak in their judgments, and addicted by temperament to animal pleasure. In both the heart is mercenary, and makes important concessions for childish bribes ; in both the spirit is prepared for servitude ; in the one it is subdued by fear of the future; in the other it is not aroused even by its sense of the present. 3 Temperate climate produces temper more favorable to a vigorous and balanced life.

T h e horse ( a t home in A r a b i a )

is a fit symbol of the fiery Arab, and the reindeer of the hardly, dull, unchanging Laplander.*

Climate affects not

only the temper of the people but also its mental reactions and intellectual pursuits. tional

genius

latitude.

Differences of temper and na-

are correlated

largely with

differences

of

W e hear much about melting desires, fiery pas-

sions, sober considerations, patience or mutual disgust, resistance to social change, each in their own climate. 5

Rule by

women and family servitude are also correlated with climate 1 4

Infra, p. 188. Ibid., pp. 169 et seq.

2 HCS, p. 162. Ibid.

8

a /{,,·^ p_

ι(η

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

97

and situation. 1 These correlations are, however, merely asserted and abundantly illustrated from history, with little attempt at critical analysis or at integration of this factor with other factors elsewhere considered. He does, however, give some attention to indirect influences, " circumstances which, by determining [men's] pursuits, regulate their habits and their manner of life ". 2 Characteristically, though not perhaps inconsistently, he finds an important influence of environment not in its " favorable " aspects, but in presenting obstacles, the overcoming of which is the stimulus to greater achievement. . . . while dry, tempting and healthful lands are left uncultivated, the pestilent marsh is drained with great labor. . . . Elegant and magnificent edifices are raised on foundations of slime, and all the conveniences of human life are made to abound where nature does not seem to have prepared a reception for men. . . . Men do more when they have certain difficulties to surmount than when they have supposed blessings to enjoy: and the shade of the barren oak and the pine are more favorable to the genius of mankind, than that of the palm or the tamarind.' Topographic features, such as " natural boundaries " , mountains, rivers, island position, etc., are important in relation to the contact of peoples and resulting political life. . . . clusters of islands, a continent divided by many natural barriers, great rivers, ridges of mountains, and arms of the sea, are best fitted for becoming the nursery of independent and respectable nations. The distinction of states being clearly maintained, a principle of political life is established in every division, and the capital of every district, like the heart of an animal body, communicates with ease the vital blood and the national spirit to its members.'' 1

HCS,

p. 172.

2

Ibid., p. 176.

» Ibid., pp. 177 et seq.

* Ibid.

98

ADAM

FERGUSON

T h i s pertains, however, particularly to early stages; in their later development nations lean but little on these supports. 1 W h i l e these brief paragraphs scarcely do justice to the importance Ferguson lends to this factor in social evolution, his analysis of the subject does not go beyond what is here briefly indicated, except for a f e w references on the relation of physical environment to population and wealth. 2 THE ROLE OF CONFLICT IN SOCIETY

More vital is his discussion of conflict in relation to society, so much so that Gumplowicz, the arch-exponent, along with Novicow, of group conflict, has insisted, on this very account perhaps, that Ferguson be counted the father of modern sociology. 8 W e have already seen something of the prominence he gives to war in the history of civil society, and even of the significance he imputes to it in the building of society. 4 He makes much of " animosities that dwell in the human breast ". e T h e subject is, however, much wider in its scope and much more significant in its influence than such casual references would indicate, and so merits a separate treatment. T h e principle of conflict manifests itself in the greatest variety of ways, in actual warfare between groups, in jealousies and animosities, in peaceful " rivalship " and friendly competition; in destructive combat between individuals, in mutual recriminations, rivalship, and heated or calm discussion ; in warlike sports ; 8 in struggle with difficulties, and in conflict and struggle within the individual, or against subhuman opponents. A l l of them alike are characteristic of the scene of human life and important in determining its character. Not that it constitues the whole scene. International and inter-tribal wars are often greatly subordinated 1

*

H CS,

p. 179.

Supra.

2

Ibid., p t i i i , s e c . i v .

5

HCS,

pt. i, sees, ii, iii.

3

β

Infra,

p . 238.

Ibid., p. 155.

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

99

to peaceful activities both in early and late stages of social evolution. 1 " If war, either for depredation or defence, were the principal object of nations, every tribe would from its earliest state aim at the condition of a Tartar horde ; and in ell its successes would hasten to the grandeur of a Tartar empire. T h e military leader would supersede the civil magistrate ; " all public arrangements would revolve about defense or attack ; all inventions and improvements in the arts would be judged from the military point of v i e w ; the inventor or improver of horse culture would be a god, Hercules and Jason might be heroes, Lycurgus and Solon would be quite forgotten. 2 If rapine were the rule, property institutions would have no chance to develop. I f all were a " bellum, omnium contra omnes," such society as we everywhere find would be rendered impossible. 3 Peace groups exist alongside of war groups or as a part of war groups. T h e principle of union is just as real in society as the principle of dissension. " Everyone has his friends as well as his enemies, and men unite from affection as well as from fear ; the very mind of man seems to carry the seeds of amity as well as of animosity". 4 O u r very animosities seem often to " a r i s e from a zeal in behalf of the side we espouse, and from a desire to vindicate the rights of our party ", 5 A n d yet, on the other hand, our attachment to one division or to one sect seems often to derive much of its force from an animosity conceived to an opposite one; cooperation grows out of the exigencies of strife; many of the exercises of peace are borne and bred of war ; civil institutions grow largely out of the needs of defense and the adjustment of disputes. 6 T o expand in all its implications the position thus briefly 1PMPS,

i, pp. 197 et seq.

« Ibid., p. 202.

2

HCS, pp. 231 et seq.

* Ibid., pp. 23, 30.

• Ibid., pp. 35 et seq., 149, 202.

' Ibid., pp. 23 et seq.

100

ADAM

FERGUSON

stated, would be to give half of Ferguson's " sociology ". W e can hope here only to quote a few passages and briefly to summarize the various bearings of conflict as Ferguson views them. First of all, as to the fact and the all but universality of the process. If not savages, at least barbarians are engaged in almost perpetual hostilities,1 and even small and simple tribes, who in their domestic society, have the firmest union, are in their state of opposition as separate nations, frequently animated by most implacable hatreds. Among the citizens of Rome, in the early ages of that republic, the name of a foreigner, and that of an enemy, were the same. Among the Greeks, the name of barbarian, . . . became a term of indiscriminate contempt and aversion. Even where no particular claim to superiority is formed, the repugnance to union, the frequent wars, or rather perpetual hostilities, which take place among rude nations and separate clans, discover how much our species is disposed to opposition, as well as to concert.1 The very name of " countryman " implies its opposite " foreigner ", and hence frequently " enemy In barbarism, he says, men " join the desire of spoil with the love of glory; and from the opinion that what is acquired by force, justly pertains to the victor, they become hunters of men, and bring every contest to the decision of the sword." 4 Every nation [i. e. in barbarism] is a band of robbers who prey without restraint or remorse upon their neighbors. Cattle, says Achilles, may be seized in every field; and the coasts of the Aegean Sea were accordingly pillaged by the heroes of Homer, for no other reason than because those heroes chose to possess themselves of the brass and iron, the cattle, the slaves, 1

HCS, p. 220.

* Ibid., p. 3i ; PMPS, i, p. 33·

ζ Ibid., p. 30. * HCS, p. 145.

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

ior

and the women, which were found among the nations around them. . . . A similar spirit reigned, without exception in all the barbarous nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa. . . . 1 And Gauls, German invaders, Tartars, Caribbees, and even the Crusaders; Caesar, Tacitus, Livy, Rubruquis, Lafitau, Kolbe, Chardin, are abundantly cited in evidence. " We do not submit our difference to the judgment of men," two Spaniards reply to Scipio's proffered arbitration, " and even among the Gods, we appeal to Mars alone." 2 Of the Romans among civilized nations Ferguson says, . . . In prosecution of their wars, from the earliest to the latest date of their history, without intending the very conquests they made, perhaps without forseeing what advantage they were to reap from the subjection of distant provinces, or in what manner they were to govern their new acquisitions, they still proceeded to seize what came successively within their reach; and, stimulated by a policy which engaged them in perpetual wars, which led to perpetual victory and accessions of territory, they extended the frontiers of a state, which, but a few centuries before, had been confined within the skirts of a village, to the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Weser, the Forth and the Ocean. It is vain to affirm, that the genius of any nation is adverse to conquest. Its real interests indeed most commonly are so; but every state which is prepared to defend itself, and to obtain victories, is likewise in hazard of being tempted to conquer.8 In modern times, it is true, " we have reason to congratulate ourselves upon this that [with the advance of international law and understanding] conquests are seldom undertaken, and acquisitions seldom retained, except upon the 1

HCS,

p. 146.

2

Ibid., p. 155.

3

Ibid., p. 229.

ADAM

102

FERGUSON

ground of some plausible or probable claim, on which the subject in question was originally ceded or demanded " , 1 but nations are as a rule still objects of jealousy and distrust, and while international law is a reality, peace remains still a chimera. In the same way economic life is still everywhere based upon " interest ", though this interest need not be pursued by militant methods, and all society may not improperly be looked upon as a field of rivalry, emulation and strife. T h e sources of strife need but passing mention here. W a r s are by no means always due to " interest " . T h e Hottentots often went on cattle-stealing raids for no other purpose than to provoke war. 2 N o r are wars always due to supposed previous offense. Hear the peasants on different sides of the Alps, and the Pyrenees, the Rhine, or the British Channel, give vent to their prejudices and national passions; it is among them we find the materials of war and dissension laid without the direction of government, and sparks ready to kindle into a flame, which the statesman is frequently disposed to extinguish. The fire will not always catch where his reasons of state would direct, nor stop where the concurrence of interest would produce an alliance. " My father," said a Spanish peasant, " would rise from his grave, if he could foresee a war with France." What interest had he or the bones of his father in the quarrels of princes ? 3 T h e ultimate origin of war, strife and conflict generally, are in human nature itself, as even a study of the animal world would indicate. 4 1

PMPS,

3

ii, p. 313.

Ibid., pp. 33 et scg.

2

HCS,

pp. 27, 32 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 34.

FACTORS IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

CONSEQUENCES A N D F U N C T I O N S OF CONFLICT

More to our present purpose is it to ask, W h a t are the consequences of conflict, what its essential relation to the history of civil society ? Conflict is looked upon as primarily a constructive force both in the development of the finest qualities within the individual and in the gradual formation of the institutions which constitute civil society. Without the rivalship of nations, and the practice of war, civil society itself would scarcely have found an object, or a form. Mankind might have traded without any formal convention, but they cannot be safe without a national concert. The necessity of a public defense, has given rise to many departments of state, and the intellectual talents of men have found their busiest scene in the wielding of their national forces. To overawe or intimidate, or, when we cannot persuade with reason, to resist with fortitude, are the occupations, which give its most animated exercise, and its greatest triumphs, to a vigorous mind; and he who has never struggled with his fellow creatures, is a stranger to half the sentiments of mankind. 1 . . . The society and concourse of other men are not more necessary to form the individual, than the rivalship and competition of nations are to invigorate the principles of political life in a state. Their wars, and their treaties, their mutual jealousies, and the establishments which they devise with a view to each other, constitute more than half the occupations of mankind, and furnish materials for their greatest and most improving exertions. 2 W a r serves also " by the variety of its events," to diversify the fortunes of nations, bringing some to eminence and dominion, and others to subjection and decadence. And this latter too, often, without any previous sign of internal decay.* T o be sure. ι

HCS,

p.

35·

2

Ibid., p. 178.

3

Ibid., p. 309.

ADAM

I 0 4

FERGUSON

Peace and unanimity are commonly considered as the principal foundations of public felicity ; yet the rivalship of separate communities, and the agitations of a free people, are the principles of political life, and the school of men. . . . The pacific may do what they can to allay the animosities, and to reconcile the opinions of men; and it will be happy if they can succeed in repressing their crimes, and in calming the worst of their passions. Nothing in the mean time but corruption or slavery can suppress the debates that subsist among men of integrity, who bear an equal part in the administration of the state.1 In our endeavor to promote amicable relations, . . . we may hope in some instances, to disarm the angry passions of jealousy and envy; we may hope to instill into the breasts of private men sentiments of candour toward their fellow-creatures, and a disposition to humanity and justice. But it is vain to expect that we can give to the multitude of a people a sense of union among themselves, without admitting hostility to those who opposed them. Could we at once, in the case of any nation extinguish the emulation which is excited from abroad, we should probably break or weaken the bands of society at home, and close the busiest scenes of national occupations and virtues.2 Not only are wars of conquest or defense an important factor in nation building, and in the re-alignment of national boundaries, but they of necessity also have an important influence on the forms of government, the external structure of the state, and the general temper of political institutions.® The military establishments of Sparta are cited as an outstanding example of a whole nation taking on a military character, at first perhaps as a matter of necessity, but afterward as a matter of deliberate policy.4 Perpetual hostility 1

HCS,

p. 91.

» Ibid., p. 203.

2

Ibid., p. 36.

* Ibid., pp. 219 et seq.

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

" gives the military leader a continued ascendant in his country, and inclines every people, during warlike ages, to monarchical government." Republics themselves under such circumstances come to take on a monarchical character, or become actual monarchies, as the evolution of the Roman Empire abundantly testifies. 1 W a r s beget militarism, and militarism begets wars, and nations are easily set on the path of empire. 2 A l o n g with distinctions of property, war and other forms of conflict are the most important factor in the formation of social classes, or " subordinations " , that is of the vertical organization of society. " Slave and free " can be traced at first almost entirely to this source, and even in modern society, when the rigors of established slavery have abated, and property institutions have come to be more highly established, the basis of distinctions between noble and base, with its political accompaniments, is still at bottom a military one.* Conflicts within and without may, however, also lead to the imposition of restraints, the formation of law, and the building of civil society. 4 S o too, contentions within a state, insistence of subjects and equals on their mutual rights may be a real source of freedom. Amidst, the contentions of party, the interests of the public, even the maxims of justice and candor, are sometimes forgotten ; and yet those fatal consequences which such a measure of corruption seems to portend, do not unavoidably follow. The public interest is often secure, not because individuals are disposed to regard it as the end of their conduct, but because each in his place, is determined to preserve his own. Liberty is maintained by the continued differences and oppositions of numbers, not by their concurring zeal in behalf of equitable government. In free states, therefore, the wisest laws are never 1HCS,

3

pp. 221-223.

Ibid., p. 22s.

2

Ibid., pp. 226 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 187.

ADAM

ιο6

FERGUSON

perhaps, dictated by the interest and spirit of any order of men ; they are moved, they are opposed or amended, by different hands; and come at last to express that medium and composition which contending parties have forced one another to adopt.1 It is in conducting the affairs of civil society, that men can find the exercise of their best talents, as well as the object of their best affections. It is in being grafted on to the advantages of civil society, that the art of war is brought to perfection; that the resources of armies, and the complicated springs to be touched in their conduct, are best understood.2 ". . . Mutual jealousies lead to the maintenance of a balance of powers, and this principle more than [natural boundaries tended among the Greeks and other peoples] to prolong the separation to which [they] owed their felicity as nations, the lustre of their fame, and their civil accomplishments." ' Conflict is thus seen to be everywhere present, but its forms vary. There is a transformation of methods from those likely to be destructive to those more purely constructive. It is one—and yet only one—of the major factors in the building of society. ECONOMIC

A N D P O L I T I C A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N AS

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL E V O L U T I O N

This has already led us into what might be treated as another set of factors in social evolution, the organization of habits and attitudes in the fields of political and industrial life. A s this topic will need to be taken up separately, however, from a slightly different point of view, 4 it need receive no further attention here except as it is indirectly involved in what immediately follows. 1

HCS,

p. 191.

O n e is reminded here of B a g e h o t ' s " D i s c u s s i o n " and

Spencer's and Giddings's " E q u i l i b r a t i o n ". - HCS,

p. 232.

8

Ibid., pp. 179 et seq.

4

Infra,

ch. χ .

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

T E C H N I Q U E S AND T H E DIVISION OF LABOR

O f primary significance in the development of civil society are the development and the accompanying separation of the arts and professions, or as we should say, the development of techniques and the division of labor in industry and society. Whether mechanical inventions result from a division of labor or vice versa, or both together from a desire for greater profits, at any rate they are a fact. They " arose from successive improvements that were made without any sense of their general effect ; and they bring human affairs to a state of complication which the greatest reach of capacity with which human nature was ever adorned could not have projected . . ." 1 N o one could " anticipate or even enumerate the separate occupations and professions by which the members of a commercial state are distinguished; the variety of devices which are practied in separate cells and which the artist, attentive to his own affairs, has invented to abridge or to facilitate his separate task." T h e y condition the whole industrial process and are of most far-reaching consequence for the whole development of social life. It is evident, that however urged by a sense of necessity, and a desire for convenience, or favored by any advantages of sitution and policy, a people can make no great progress in cultivating the arts of life until they have separated, and committed to different persons, the several tasks, which require a peculiar skill and attention. . . . The enjoyment of peace, however, and the prospect of being able to exchange one commodity for another, turns by degrees, the hunter and the warrior into a tradesman and a merchant. The accidents which distribute the means of subsistence unequally, inclination, and favorable opportunities, assign the different occupations of men; and a sense of utility leads them, without end, to sub-divide their professions. 2 1H

CS, p. 272.

2

Ibid., pp. 269 et seq.

ιο8

ADAM

FERGUSON

SpeciaKzation, by concentration of attention and frequent performance lead to increased skill and increased output by each artisan, and the undertaker in manufacture finds, that the more he can subdivide the tasks of his workmen, and the more hands he can employ on separate articles, the more are his expenses diminished, and his profits increased. The consumer, too, requires, in every kind of commodity, a workmanship more perfect than hands employed in a variety of subjects can produce; and the progress of commerce is but a continued subdivision of the mechanical arts.1 The increase of wealth leads to increased diversity of wants on the part of the consumer, 2 its revenues lead to increased resources for the state,3 improvement in the arts, and growth of industry and extension of commerce together with security of possessions and the establishment of rights, are the primary even though unrecognized causes of the growth of population.4 This in turn has far-reaching consequences for both the state and society generally. 6 Founded in part upon differences of native capacity,® the division of labor tends in turn to increase those differences and enables the individual workman by developing his special capacities to enrich his own life, and so without intending it to add to the material and spiritual enrichment of the nation.7 The same process extends to the division of labor between nations themselves in the life of humanity. 8 B y increasing wealth, the division of labor also increases the attention given to wealth getting, and the care given to 1

HCS, p. 270 ; cf. PMPS, ii, pp. 422-424.

2

Ibid., i, p. 242 ; ii, pp. 420 et seq.

* HCS, p. 209. T

8

Ibid., ii, pp. 431-456.

« PMPS, ii, pp. 253, 422.

PMPS, i, p. 250; ii, pp. 423 et seq.

«H

C S

» HCS, p. 270.

p. 37.

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

the establishment of property institutions and of political institutions to secure them. 1 A s a result of this increase of wealth and this differentiation of individuals and professions, we get economic inequalities, and these lead together with conquest and other forms of conflict, to a stratification of society, a building of classes and " subordinations " with corresponding controls. 2 The resulting emulation and the increase of " bustle " may also lead to a stimulation and development of science, literature, and " elocution ", and the higher arts of life,® and " we look for elevation of sentiment and liberality of mind, among those orders of citizens, who, by their conditions, and their fortunes, are relieved from sordid cares and attention." 4 Thus we get an ever-widening division of labor, beginning with the purely mechanical and commercial, but ending in an increasing differentiation of the whole social structure, offering an ever-widening field f o r the exercise of human capacities and leading to a state of society where the savage would feel completely bewildered and astonished to find that " h i s being a man " , merely, " does not qualify him for any station whatever." 5 DISRUPTIVE CONSEQUENCES OF DIVISION OF LABOR

But on the other hand—and it is this that M a r x particularly writes to Ferguson's credit in comparing him with Adam Smith and later economists 9 —this rise of mechanical and commercial arts with their accompanying division of functions also have many deleterious effects and are perhaps 1Ρ

MPS,

ii, p. 422.

1H

CS, pp. 283, 325, etc. Of course we recognize the weakness of so long a chain where multiple factors may enter in at every link. 3

HCS,

pp. 264 et seq., 272 ; cf. p. 27.

* Ibid., p. 277. β

Marx, The Poverty of philosophy,

11bid., p. 271. Chicago, 1910, pp. 130 et seq.

ADAM

n o

FERGUSON

t h e ultimate, o r at least the p r i m a r y cause o f the d i s i n t e g r a tion and final decadence o f societies. 1 . . . M a n y mechanical arts require no capacity, they succeed best under a total suppression of sentiment and reason, and ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition. . . . Manufactures . . . prosper most when the mind is least consulted ; and where the workshop may . . . be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men. T h e g e n i u s of the inventor m a y be " cultivated, w h i l e that o f the i n f e r i o r w o r k m a n lies w a s t e ". 2

" T h e exaltation of

the f e w m u s t depress the m a n y " , w h o especially in populous cities are corrupted b y " an a d m i r a t i o n o f wealth unpossessed, b e c o m i n g a principle o f e n v y or servility ; a habit o f a c t i n g perpetually w i t h a v i e w to profits and under a sense o f subj e c t i o n ; the crimes t o w h i c h they are allured in order to f e e d their debauch or t o g r a t i f y their a v a r i c e " . 3

I n g e n u i t y , and

ambition are driven, " t o the counter and the w o r k s h o p . " . . . in its termination and ultimate effects the separation of professions serves, in some measure, to break the bands of society, to substitute f o r m in place of ingenuity, and to withdraw individuals f r o m the common scene of occupation, on which the sentiments of the heart, and the mind, are most happily employed. 4 1

H CS, p. 326; in general parts v, v i ; vide infra, pp. 151 et seq.

* Ibid., pp. 273 et seq. ' Ibid., p. 278. T h e f o l l o w i n g also deserves quotation here : " In the several departments into which the business of trade is distributed, it may be observed that variety of talents being required, the faculties of mind are unequally cultivated. W h i l e invention employs the superior genius, and while the direction of a work requires the enlargement of k n o w l e d g e ; the execution of a single part, consisting perhaps in the mere movement of the hand or the foot, supersedes every act of thought or exercise of ingenuity : insomuch that the human faculties seem to be as much depressed in the one case as they are raised and invigorated in the o t h e r : but as the lot of man is never free of inconvenience, so the inconvenience he suffers is never deprived of all compensation." PMPS, i, p. 351. *HCS,

p. 326·

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

ι1 χ

Particularly in public life, to separate the arts which form the citizen and the statesman, the arts of policy and war, is an attempt to dismember the human character, and to destroy those very arts we mean to improve. By the separation, we in effect deprive a free people of what is necessary to their safety; or we prepare a defense against invasions from abroad which gives a prospect of usurpation, and threatens the establishment of a military government at home.1 D Y N A M I C A S P E C T S OF H U M A N

NATURE

Finally, it would be difficult to overstate the importance Ferguson ascribes to human nature itself in its dynamic aspects, as a factor in social evolution. In fact, this is the bedrock upon which all of Ferguson's interpretations finally rest. A l l other factors and forces in societal functioning and society building imply this one. Physical environment is but the field for the operation of the instinct particularly of self preservation; conflict is continually related to the " principle of union and dissension," and to that of struggle and of emulation in man. W e have already noticed Ferguson's keen attack upon the intellectualism that had up to his time so largely held the field.2 Men are determined in their actions not primarily by cold intellectual analysis and calculating interest, but by all but compelling drives and urges from within. These drives rest essentially on instinctive tendencies, and frequently bear the marks of the brute, though they are ever so much modified by habit and do not preclude the guidance of man's rational nature and the refinements of his moral judgments. Such drives and dispositions in man may be classified as the selfish and the social, 3 the former leading 1

HCS, pp. 344 et seq.

2

Sufra, pp. 71-76, 87-93.

3

HCS, pp. 75-78.

FERGUSON

ADAM

112

either to solitude or to emulation and strife, the latter to social responsibility and social enjoyment, to family life, to national union and so forth.

A s this classification is h o w -

ever too general to be useful and as even the selfish and the social can be reduced to a single principle, another classification may be attempted. 1 There are then, first of all, the more or less animal sires

of

self

preservation,

sex,

security,

and

de-

comfort. 2

These desires, and particularly that of self-preservation, are continually in operation even when greatly overlaid counterchecked by other tendencies.

In the f o r m of

and in-

terest they lead to the mechanical and commercial acts; in the form of " love " to the establishment and maintenance of family life."

T h e y frequently need restraint, lest they

lead to conduct that is anti-social, but they are also capable of restraint.

W i t h o u t them the very foundations of social

life would be completely altered. 4 H o w both the earliest bandings together of men into a kind of primitive, undifferentiated community, as well as their separations or dissensions and hostilities, rest on a duality of native equipment, " the principle of union and dissension,"

has already been indicated. 5

In all their modifica-

tions these native drives toward union and division are still important, sometimes the one, sometimes the other predominating.

A n d any effort at r e f o r m that fails to reckon with

1 Ferguson makes several classifications. One is : Dispositions leading to animal preservation ; dispositions leading to society ; intellectual faculties ; disposition to praise and blame ; modification of these in habit HCS, pp. i s et seq. ; cf. Ρ MP S, i, ch. ii, sec. χ ; c. Inst., pp. 69 et seq. 2

H CS, pp. 63 et seq. ; PMPS,

'HCS, 4

HCS,

p. 17; PMPS,

i, pp. 205.

i, p. 27.

pp. 63-65.

Ibid., pt. i, secs, iii, iv ; PMPS, ii, p. 293. " The human species though disposed to associate, is disposed to separate also." s

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

them is destined to failure. 1 Interested competitions with their attendant passions of jealousy, envy, resentment, malice, and rage, are powerful principles in the human breast Love and compassion are more powerful still; they hurry the mind into the sacrifice of interest and bear it undismayed through every hardship and danger.2 Another " principle " of human nature made much of by Ferguson, is what we might call the principle of activism. Man is above all things an active being, he lives by doing, he thrives in struggle and in overcoming difficulties, he glories in achievement; he languishes in mere passive enjoyment; he is near the brink of ruin when, having achieved, he wears his laurels and is no longer building his fortune.* He is always more than a mere passive recipient and transmitter of the stimuli that play upon him.4 The most animating occasions of human life are calls to danger and hardship, not invitations to safety and ease: and man himself in his excellence is not an animal of pleasure, nor destined merely to enjoy what the dements bring to his use; . . . his disposition to action only keeps pace with the variety of powers with which he is furnished ; and the most respectable attributes of his nature, magnanimity, fortitude, and wisdom, carry a manifest reference to the difficulties with which he is destined to struggle." Providence has fitted mankind for the higher engagements which they are sometimes obliged to fulfill; and it is in the midst of such engagements that they are most likely to acquire or to preserve their virtues. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties, not in enjoying the ι

HCS,

p. 36.

» Ibid., pp. 51-53, 28, 36.

» Ibid., pp. io, 382 et seq., 66 et seq. ; PMPS, et seq. 4 6

PMPS,

i, p. 12 ; infra, p. 174.

HCS, p. 66; Inst., pp. 158 et seq.

i, pp. 204 et seq., ii, 323

ADAM

114

FERGUSON

repose of a pacific station; penetration and wisdom are the fruits of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure ; ardour and generosity are the qualities of a mind roused and animated in the conduct of scenes that engage the heart, not the gifts of reflection or knowledge. The mere intermission of national and political efforts is, notwithstanding, sometimes mistaken for public good; and there is no mistake more likely to foster the vices, or to flatter the weakness, of feeble and interested men.1 It is this impulse to action, this aptness to struggle, this desire for mastery, along with man's desire to satisfy his own interests, that lead men ever into new paths of achievement. In satisfying one impulse, men create new interests and thus without intending it ever enlarge their own world and that of their fellows. 2 Then, finally, there is the principle of ambition or perfection, which is perhaps at once the most central and the most distinctive element in Ferguson's social philosophy. It is " the desire for something higher than is possessed at present ; " 8 that element in his nature which makes man impatient of limitations and imperfections, and ever ready to strive and contrive to remove these limitations and to improve his condition and add to present achievements, whether it be in the field of the commercial or political arts, in his social standing, or in his mastery of the field of knowledge.4 " This principle . . . is beneficently made one of the most powerful motives of action in human nature " it engages men " in never-ceasing pursuits and exertions which . . . occasion the improvement of faculties so intensely applied. . . . even in its most signal aberrations " it is " a material prin1

HCS,

p. 382.

*Cf. ibid., pp. 307, 309, 59 et seq.; Ρ MPS, i, pp. 249 et seq. * PMPS,

i, pp. 207, 235-241.

* Ibid., p. 207 ; cf.

HCS,

p. 9, 10.

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

I I S

ciple in the progressive nature of men ; operating in all his pursuits ; and denying him even in search of a supply of his animal wants, that repose which nature, as often as an appetite is fully gratified, seems to allow throughout every other part of the animal kingdom ", 1 . . . From these motives [necessity and the principle of ambition] accordingly we admit the arts of human life, whether commercial or political, to have originated, and suppose that the consideration of necessity must have operated prior to that of convenience, and both prior to the love of mere decoration and ornament [while yet in all of them the principle is ever operative]. T H E FUNCTION OF INTELLIGENCE

And yet Ferguson's emphasis on the " promptings of the h e a r t " does not blind him to the significance of the guidance of the head, the functions of the understanding. In fact the genius of nations and ages is most prompted when the two function most intimately together. 8 Intelligence is essentially functional; men are estimated not by what they know but what they are able to p e r f o r m ; learning must justify itself in the conduct of life; the school is tested by the market place; the physicist in the laboratory is finally crowned in the workshop.* Hence, too, science and speculation thrive best " in the bustle of an active life ". 5 But for this very reason it has become an important factor in social evolution. If the arts find their drive in instinctive promptings and in the emotional nature, intelligence is yet essential to their direction. If men do not forsee distant ends and * HCS, pp. 238 et seq. 2 4

PlíPS,

i, p. 239 ; c f . pp. 241,249 ; ii, p. 403.

Ibid., pp. 43-45, 264; cf. PMPS,

» HCS, p. 264.

ii, 327.

» HCS, p. 42·

ιι6

ADAM

FERGUSON

plan the remote consequences that follow for all society from present actions, they still do not as a rule take blindly the steps that immediately lead them on. If when " a finger burn we care not for information on the properties of fire; if the heart be torn, . . . we have not leisure for speculations on the subject of moral sensibility," or if the child can reason, subtly before he knows logic, 1 men yet have a facility with which they " extricate themselves on every trying occasion," a promptitude with which they apprehend what is important in every subject. 2 " T h e bulk of mankind are like other parts of the system subject to the law of their nature, and without knowing it are led to accomplish its purposes ". Y e t man is uniquely among the animals endowed with ingenuity, discernment and will. " I f he may work on the clay that is placed under his foot and form it into models of grace and beauty, if he may employ the powers of gravitation, elasticity and magnetism as the ministers of his pleasure, we may suppose that the knowledge of the laws operating upon himself should . . . . enable him to hasten the advantages to which his progressive nature is competent." " While it may not be in the power of the individual greatly to promote the advancement or to retard the decline of his country ", 3 it is still " the first object of concert or convention " by intelligent political action " to perfect the society in which [man] finds himself already by nature placed ".* In fact that which above all else distinguishes the life of humanity from that of other kinds, the building of an accumulating and diversified social heritage, is a function of such an intelligence as is possessed by man alone. 5 ι HCS, s 4

PMPS,

p. 49· i, pp. 201 et seq.

Ibid., pp. 48 et seq. ; HCS,

2

Ibid., p. 40.

* Ibid., p. 262. pp. 6 et seq.

The conflict between these

statements and the position earlier taken is more apparent than real.

FACTORS

IN SOCIAL

EVOLUTION

117

T H E M O R A L FACTOR

Finally, moral apprehension, the discernment of right and wrong, of good and evil, censure and approval, which have always been a part of the life of man, share equally w i t h other pursuits in his progress.

Conduct standards are ever

undergoing their o w n evolution with the changing f o r m s and complexions of society itself, and in the advance of science, moral science has had a prominent part.

A n d in that com-

bination of moral purpose and moral apprehension and reflection man " can not only view himself as but a part in the community of living natures " , but become a willing instrument in combining of the parts together f o r the common benefit of all."

1

It is, then, in the united, balanced operation of these drives or tendencies of human nature, in their reaction upon man's material and social environment, that F e r g u s o n finds the main-springs of social evolution. SUMMARY

W e have thus seen not only the general outlines of the drama of human progress as Ferguson envisages it, f r o m savagery through barbarism to civil society, w i t h portents of " naturalistic

decay,

but

also

some

of

the

many

spontaneous,

and so far as human planning and

fore-

sight are concerned, undirected manner of its unfoldment. A s the springs of its unrolling w e have noticed man

fitted

by nature f o r the scenes in which he is placed, and, little affected by differences of race, adapting himself

first

of

No doubt Ferguson's anti-contract position and his attack on rationalism was by 1792 mellowed by experience, yet his was always an attack on an exaggeration and never a complete denial of " telesis " in favor of " genesis ". 1PMPS, i, pp. 159, 313; ch. ii, sec. x i v ; ch. iii, sec. xiii, x i v ; vol. ii, ch. τ, sec. vii ; HCS, pp. 47 et seq.

ιι8

ADAM

FERGUSON

all to his material environment, and then, through ceaseless conflict, though not without union with his near associates, to his human environment. Both are accomplished by an apparently ever-increasing division of labor in the arts and professions and in the wider functions of society and the state, which constitutes at once an important drive and the unique character itself of society. Through it all we saw operating an essentially dynamic human nature which can most nearly give us the key to the heights attained, but also to the decadence that is always hanging like Damocles' sword over an advanced civil society.

C H A P T E R

VILI

T H E O R G A N I Z A T I O N OF H U M A N

RELATIONSHIPS

W E have thus far presented Ferguson's conception of society and societal relationships almost entirely from a dynamic or evolutionary point of view. This, as previously indicated, 1 is easily justified by the whole orientation of his thought. It would be impossible, however, not to advert at least briefly to his conception of human relationships f r o m a more static point of view, to the question of social organization, of the forms of human association, and the nature of human inter-stimulation. O f course such a distinction is chiefly a methodological, though not an unimportant one, and to treat adequately at this point the topic suggested by our chapter heading would involve intolerable repetition. We need only outline here what is most essential. K I N D S OF SOCIETIES

Ferguson gives us no formal description of societal structure, or classification of the forms of human association, and Men are yet he does not neglect the subject entirely. 2 grouped first of all into families, tribes, nations, and humanity, or elsewhere, families, companies, nations, and empires. 8 O f these the nation, or somewhat more accurately the nationstate receive far and away the greatest emphasis. In fact, civil society is often almost completely identified with the nation. There is an occasional gleam of an international 1

Supra, p. 23.

' Huth, op. cit., pp. 112-115. s

Infra, ch. xi ; PMPS,

i, pp. 27 et seq. ; Inst., p. 24. 119

ADAM

120

FERGUSON

society or of humanity, but his thought not only seldom reaches this level ; 1 rather he can hardly conceive of a society that does not receive its strength from being set over against some rival group. 2 In rude society, of course the highest form is some form of tribal group. T h e family and its various forms, particularly in primitive society, receive some attention. It is looked upon as basic and universal. They [families] are the elementary forms of society, or establishments, the most indispensably necessary to the existence and preservation of the kind. . . . They are nurseries of men; the basis of empires, as well as of nations and tribes ; and the compartments of which the greatest fabrics of political establishment are composed . . . the principles on which they are formed [are], as the constituents of a social character, indelible in every age and in every state of society, whether voluntary or forced.3 T h e family rests originally no doubt, " on mutual inclination of the sexes," that strongest of human affections or passions. Its biological function is performed " without consulting the mind or the intention of the parents," being " too necessary to the preservation of nature's works, [race maintenance] to be entrusted to the precarious will or intention of those most nearly concerned." 4 T h e family group not only affords to the child his first experience of society, but forms the whole matrix of his development to maturity and builds associations which make him " feel, through life, whatever may affect the honor or welfare of his family, as the most serious concern of his own T h e pains of childbirth, the solicitous and anxious 1

PMPS,

2

See however section on international law, PMPS,

i, p. i o ; ii, ch. iv, pt. ii, secs, iv, v.

3

Ibid., i, pp. 27 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 28.

HCS, p. 31. ii, pp. 293-311. 5

Ibid., p. 30.

SOCIAL

ORGANIZATION

121

care for the long helpless infant, serve to rivet a tender affection, bring joy into human life, and effect a dependence which is the germ of that social connection which man is destined to have with his kind in a much higher form than is known in any other species of animals.1 Historically, furthermore, the growth of families leads to the founding of tribes or clans.2 On the whole however, it is surprising how greatly his treatment of the family is overshadowed by that of industrial society and the nation-state. Each of these societies may also be said to have characteristic ties ; " families are united by affection ; companies by desire for society; nations by desire for security; empires by force." s Occupational, commercial, and professional groups are of course everywhere implied in his discussion of the division of labor, but they shade imperceptibly into a kind of socioeconomic grouping that is also at once the basis for political organization, that is, for "ranks", or "subordinations", or as we should say, a vertical organization of society. There are parties and classes, slaves and free, rich and poor, rulers, or ruling classes, and subjects. Occupational and professional groups each have their own class spirit or morale.4 Religious or educational groups or institutions are given only passing mention, though theologies receive their due attention s and educational policies are occasionally discussed.® THE BASES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The basis for social organization may, especially in rude societies, be one of kinship or general proximity ; or it may, in 1

PMPS,

'Ibid., 4 6

i, pp. 27-29.

2 Ibid., p. 30.

pp. 32, 36; Inst., p. 24.

HCS, p. 275 ; Inst., ch. i, secs, χ, xii ; HCS, p t iii, sec. ii, pt. iv, sec. ii. PMPS,

'Ibid.,

i, ch. i, secs, xv, xvi ; ch. iii, sec. xiv.

i, p. 271 ; HCS, pp. 43-45, 256-268.

ADAM

122

FERGUSON

polished o r mercantile states, be one of territory combined with landed interests and possessions generally; again, within an advanced state it may be one partly of interests and partly of status. 1 Fundamentally, however, it seems to lie in an original selectivity by which men select or reject among possible associates on the basis of a more or less instinctive appeal, of likeness and difference. 2 In the promiscuous concourse of men, it is sufficient that we have an opportunity of selecting our company. W e turn away from those who do not engage us, and we fix our resort where the society is more to our mind. W e are fond of distinctions ; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denomination of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy. Aversion, like affection, is fostered by a continued direction to its particular object. Separation and estrangement, as well as opposition, widen a breach which did not owe its beginnings to any offence. And it would seem, that till we have reduced mankind to the state of a family, or found some external consideration to maintain their connection in greater numbers, they will be forever separated into bands, and form a plurality of nations.3 A n d again, animals are gregarious without selection, but With man, the fact is different: H e is ever disposed to select his company, and to shun, as well as to embrace an acquaintance. The characters of men are unequal ; and the choice of one frequently implies the rejection of another. But, to select a companion, or a friend, is not to be unsociable : It is to affect society, 1

HCS,

p. 341·

PMPS,

i, pp. 26 et seq.

» One cannot but remark here a striking anticipation, in ovo, of Dr. Giddings's theories of " consciousness of kind ", including the conception of polarity of in- and out-group relationship. 'HCS,

p. 31.

SOCIAL

ORGANIZATION

123

but [ ?] to know the distinction of good and evil in this important connection . . . Mere estrangement approaches to jealousy; and men do not desire to associate with persons entirely unknown. Hence the species is never observed to act in one, but in manifold troops and companies; and, although without any physical bar to prevent their union, are still observed, under the notion of independence and freedom, to affect separation. 1 T h i s dual reference of human relationships, attachment to one g r o u p at the expense of hostility to another, and as a result of such hostility, this polarity of in-group and outgroup attitudes, he conceives as central in social

organ-

ization, if not inevitable in the very nature of society. 2 O n these foundations rest, on the one hand, those various " bands of society " that unite men on friendly terms w i t h their fellows and those separations which divide them as enemies, as w e have previously seen; and on the other hand those groupings themselves into families, hordes, tribes and nations, that w e have just noticed. KINDS OF SOCIAL TIES

T h e increasing complexity of social organization with the development of the arts and with the division of labor has already been sufficiently indicated.*

Something still remains

to be said of the nature of the contacts that result in societies of various degrees of complexity.

W h e r e societies are small

and undifferentiated there is mutual acquaintance, common interests and a common point o f view. people live much on the same plane.

T h e leader and the T h e r e is likely to be

little inequality and every individual is jealous of the rights he possess as a man among men.

Frequent association, shar-

I P M P S , i, p. 32. 2

HCS,

3

p. 149 ; part i, secs, iii, iv ; cf. supra, pp. 49, 112.

Supra, pp. 84 et seq., 107-111.

ADAM

124

FERGUSON

ing of joys and sorrows, cement a strong bond of union. The result is a strong group solidarity. Such government as is found is likely to be democratic in character. Such inequalities as exist are likely to be natural inequalities. Contacts are intimate, passions easily communicate themselves throughout the whole group. Individuals can cultivate a sense of the unity of the group. A public spirit results.1 When societies grow larger and more complex in their organization, it is impossible to approach any kind of intimate acquaintance between all members of the group. Jealousies and rivalries between individuals no longer make for equality, kings and nobles are accepted, perhaps even idealized as a different order of being; public assemblies give way to representative governments if not to monarchies. Men become engrossed in specialized interests and activities; they know only their own corner of society, they are greatly in danger of becoming egoists, incapable of devotion and loyalty to the whole group, and therefore incapable of carrying on a vigorous public policy. Egoism in high places becomes fatal to those less strongly entrenched. When nations become too large they can no longer apprehend the common ties of society, nor be engaged by affections in the cause of their country. 2 It is for this reason that Ferguson is extremely skeptical of the tendency toward aggrandizement of societies, particularly the building of great empire-states. In small communities the " members crowded together and contiguous to the seats of power never forget their relation to the public; they pry with habits of familiarity and freedom into the pretentions of those who would rule," either from love of equality and justice or from motives of faction, emulation 1HCS,

p. 192.

*Ibid., p. 329.

SOCIAL

ORGANIZATION

125

and envy.1 But with enlargement, the parts of the community " lose their relative importance to the whole." Bands are loosened, disorder sets in unless force rules. Nothing leads with so sure an aim to despotism as perpetual enlargement of territory. In the history of mankind, to conquer or be conquered has appeared in effect the same.2 That a distinct relation is frequently marked between the size of societies, in the sense of population increase and density, or of geographic distribution, on the one hand, and the increase of wealth, the division of labor, the forms of government, on the other, need only be mentioned here.® An interrelation between size and compactness of groups and mode of human response is at least indicated in this passage ; " When crowded together in cities or within the compass of a small territory, men act by contagious passions, and every individual feels a degree of importance proportioned to his figure in the crowd, and the smallness of its numbers," * but the thought is not developed to warrant more than this passing reference. PSYCHIC FACTORS I N T H E ORGANIZATION OF H U M A N RELATIONSHIPS

Brief reference may here be made to certain psychic factors in the organization of human relationships that have not been adequately stressed before, to the nature and forms of inter-stimulation, and to certain motives that operate characteristically in group situations. Various types of personal inter-relationship, such as acquaintance, esteem, family affection, friendly attachment, 1

HCS, pp. ? ; c f . 88 et seq., 189, 197.

2

Ibid., pp. 89 et seq., 152 et seq., 189 et seq., 328 et seq., 404-406.

* Ibid., pp. 40, 209, 192 et seq. ; PMPS, *HCS,

p. 192.

i, p. 253.

I2Ó

ADAM

FERGUSON

love of company, hostility, rivalry, estrangement, subserviency, domination, force, cooperation, are of course frequently noted, but scarcely given scientific analysis. Society is recognized as in its very nature association.1 Only figuratively can beasts be said to associate, or men to be gregarious. Association, or participation with others, involves communication and the power of expressing and interpreting meanings,2 either with or without pre-arranged conventional symbols. Such communication may, with the development of language in its various forms " extend from nation to nation, and from age to age at any indefinite distance of place and time, and the society or cooperation of many may be conceived or extended accordingly." 8 Imitation, we have previously seen, is an important factor in human association, particularly where there is prestige or the approval of one's fellows. Especially " the vulgar are taken up with any trifles that happen to be in repute Emulation or the principle of estimation or prestige is another fundamentally important form of human interstimulation : . . . In the ordinary competitions for rank, precedence, or consideration, [the vulgar particularly] are so much occupied with these supposed comparative advantages, that the real and absolute blessings of a happy nature are overlooked; and, in the course they pursue men appear to profit no less by the depression of others than they do by their own advancement. . . . [The passion for power, preferment or fame] is known to be an unremitted as well as a forcible motive, of action: in frequency it is equal, in force it is superior to interest itself.® This principle of estimation, indeed, whether well or ill 1

Infra, p. 155-

s

Ibid., p. 47; cf. pp. 36, 219.

» PMPS, i, p. 136, 148.

2

PMPS,

i, pp. 20, 36 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 36 ; cf. supra, p. 72.

SOCIAL

ORGANIZATION

127

applied, is known to be of sovereign influence in the government of mankind; and it is of the highest moment, in the policy of nations, that it should be directed aright. Wherever the standard of elevation and honour is erected, thither will the passions of men be pointed, and the most ardent efforts of fortitude and magnanimity be made.1 Superstition and honor have a similar compelling force. 2 More than passing mention, finally, is made of the role of passion generally in social life and the resulting contagion or crowd-mindedness that characterizes much of human behavior. Strong passions [whether of superstition, enthusiasm, ardent ambition] once entertained seem to shut up the mind against conviction of error. . . , s A whole people, like the individuals of whom they are composed, act under the influence of temporary humours, sanguine hopes or vehement animosities. They are disposed, at one time, to enter on national struggles with vehemence; at another, to drop them from mere lassitude and disgust. In their civil debates and contentions at home they are occasionally ardent or remiss. Epidemical passions arise or subside, on trivial, as well as important, grounds. Parties are ready, at one time, to take their names, and the pretence of their oppositions, from mere caprice or accident; at another time, they suffer the most serious occasions to pass in silence. If a vein of literary genius be casually opened, or a new subject of disquisition be started, real or pretended discoveries suddenly multiply, and every conversation is inquisitive and animated. If a new source of wealth be found, or a prospect of conquest be offered, the imaginations of men are inflamed, and whole quarters of the globe are suddenly engaged in ruinous or in successful adventures. . . . Men engage in pursuits with degrees of ardour not proportioned to the importance of their object. When they are stated in opposition, or joined in confederacy, they only wish 1

P M P S , i, p. 150.

2 Ibid., p. 147.

3

Ibid., p. 145.

128

ADAM FERGUSON

for pretences to act. They forget, in the heat of their animosities, the subject of their controversy; or they seek, in their formal reasonings concerning it, only a disguise for their passions. When the heart is inflamed, no consideration can repress its ardour; when its fervour subsides, no reasoning can excite and no eloquence awaken, its former emotions.1 W e see, thus, in Ferguson the foundations laid for a static as well as for a dynamic approach to the study of society. 1

HCS, pp. 316-318; cf. p. 262.

CHAPTER

IX

LANGUAGE, SCIENCE, A R T , LITERATURE, RELIGION IN R E L A T I O N TO S O C I E T Y

THE preceding chapter has suggested a number of institutions and functions of society that, while they can hardly be called subsidiary, are at least removed from that focus of attention which will engage us in the next chapter. LANGUAGE

Most basic of these is language, which, as the instrument of communication, is fundamental to all society. Its very presence in man's repertoire of talents " is no doubt to be conceived the most irrefragable proof of [men's] destination to live in society, and to even render this society in some respects universal." 1 Language may of course take on a great variety of forms. The very human figure " by every action, and every gesture, is significant of meaning and will ". 2 Of unconventional signs such as looks and gestures, tones of the voice, smiles and frowns, both the employment and the interpretation proceed from " original faculty, . . . equally prior to experience or instruction of any sort Actions may also have a communicative value that rests neither on instinct nor on convention, as when the movement of an army becomes the sign of a counter movement. Conventional language, too, may be mute and yet along with natural signs be richly ex1

PMPS, 2

i, p. 47 ; cf. p. 269-

Ibid., p. 37.

* Ibid., p. 38 ; Inst., p. 45.

lag

IßO

ADAM

FERGUSON

pressive, as in pantomime. But man's communicative ability finds its characteristic and most significant development in the conventional " arbitrary signs of speech, or of written characters " , 1 The origin and development of speech as an extension and modification of natural signs and their meanings into an instrument at once bewilderingly complex, artlessly " natural " , and amazingly effective, and yet accomplished after the manner of every other art, has been previously indicated.2 Writing had an origin and development not unlike in kind to that of speech, except that it is less universal, and, perhaps because of its more " artificial " character was " not so often originally invented as speech. . . ." " Men have rather copied their original characters from the models of a few original inventions!", though the inventions " h a v e been separately made and often repeated," in the form either of ideographs or of phonetic symbols. 3 Like other social institutions language is, in spite of written monuments, sacred texts, or Homeric or Shakespearean " arrestings ", never static but always undergoing change. 4 Language not only serves the means of communication in a given group ; it bears an important relation to social organization, that is, to the preservation or extension of group lines. " The multiplicity of languages tend to form a boundary between separate societies or hordes and to retard the progress of unprofitable coalitions or enlargement of empires." And yet these are only a partial barrier, for " discoveries of science, models of invention, or attainments of genius, wherever they may have originated, find their way [by means of language], to the world, and become the property of mankind " ; and language thus serves indefinitely to bridge both time and space.5 1

PMPS,

' PMPS,

pp. 38 et seq. i, pp. 42 et seq.

2

Supra, pp. 90 et seq.

* Ibid., pp. 45 et seq.

5

Ibid., p. 47.

SOME

INSTRUMENTS

OF SOCIETY

131

T h e relation of language to conceptual thinking, to abstraction, imagination, science and literary expression, and indirectly thereby to social evolution is noted but need not further detain us here. 1 SCIENCE

The affairs of society require the light of science, as well as the direction of a virtuous conduct; insomuch that the recluse, by investigating the laws of nature, which relate to the concerns of men, is no less imployed for his country than the most active of its servants; or than those who are most occupied in discharging the functions of state.2 Ferguson's discussion of the nature and methods of science will, so far as they concern us at all, engage us briefly elsewhere.® W e are at present interested only in its larger social bearings. Its chief social importance lies in this that it leads to the possession of power or the command of events. For in proportion as men become acquainted with the circumstances required to the production of any natural effect, or know the law according to which any natural operation proceeds; if the subject be within their reach, or the circumstances under their command, they are thereby enabled to repeat the operation, and obtain its effect. 4 The lights of science, even in subjects the most abstruse, are in some measure diffused into every corner of a prosperous society. They direct the hand of the artist in his workshop. They are made a part in the course of every liberal education. They furnish the methods of thought and comprehension to those who deliberate on affairs, and, by entering into the ordinary conversations of men, become familiar in the commerce of life. So that the most retarded student of nature, in extending the limits of knowledge, works for his community; separate 1 PMPS,

pp. 260, 287 et seq.

* Infra, ch. xii.

2

Ibid., p. 269.

* PMPS,

i, p. 280.

ADAM

132

FERGUSON

communities mutually work for one another, for ages to come, and for mankind. And attainments in this branch, perhaps more than in any other, may be considered, not as local advantages gained to any particular society of men, but as steps in the progress of the human species itself. 1 T h a n the attainment of k n o w l e d g e there is no safer index of the progress of mind ; 2 than the achievements of science, nothing perhaps has been able more generally to survive the vicissitudes of history and the fortunes of nations : . . . It passes from one race to another and when it seemed to be extinguished, is perhaps about to be restored with additional force. T h e science of ancient Greece is lost to the modern inhabitant of that country ; but, transmitted to other nations, may yet extend beyond its former or its present limits ; continue to pervade the forests of America ; and make its way to regions yet unexplored, beyond the southern tropic. 3 W h i l e by science F e r g u s o n here means mainly the physical sciences, he grants its application to the realm of mind and society as well. 4 ART

T h e nature and f o r m and even the function of art, that is, of the fine arts, can receive but passing mention here.

By

very definition as " w o r k s in which man gives scope to his own faculties and e n j o y s the fruits of his own ingenuity in its mere application or exercise " out of the field of social life.

5

he would seem to l i f t art

A n d yet " the fine arts too,

with all the elegant productions of f a n c y or taste, spring f r o m the stock of society, and are the branches or foliage which adorn its prosperity, or actually contribute to the 1

Ρ M PS, p. 281.

'Ibid.,

p. 282.

* Ibid., p. 284.

Italics ours.

2

Ibid., p. 271.

Cf. pp. 272 et seq. 5

Ibid., p. 285.

SOME

INSTRUMENTS

OF

g r o w t h and v i g o r of the plant ", 1

SOCIETY

T h e y serve " to a d o r n

what is u s e f u l , " are " conjoined with the supply of m a n ' s necessities or accommodations " , are super-added to w h a t is at first intended merely f o r the communication of k n o w l edge, or they are cultivated in elegance of manner ; 2 thus being linked up with more directly social concerns.

They

take both their motives and their materials f r o m social l i f e and o f t e n serve the purpose of discernment of truth, or correction of error, or the commendation of virtue. 1

They

bear, moreover, an important relation to the whole evolution of culture. In the progress of prosperous nations, every individual, having his own objects to pursue, bears a part in the active exertions by which the whole is advanced. The poet, the historian, or the fine artists of any description, are but few, compared to the numbers of the people; but there are none whose apprehensions or thoughts communicate more effectually with the minds of their countrymen : Insomuch that attainments of the sort we are now considering, although they originate with a few, actually pervade the whole ; become an article of the national character; are justly ranked with the materials of history; and furnish a test of what nations, long since extinct, actually became in the result of their progress. The monuments of art produced in one age remain with the ages that follow; and serve as a kind of ladder, by which the human faculties, mounting upon steps which ages successively place, arrive in the end at those heights of ingenious discernment, and elegant choice, which, in the pursuit of its objects, the mind of man is qualified to gain. 4 It is significant that to look for the accomplishments of a human character in the ι PMPS, s

i, p. 269.

Ibid., pp. 290 et seq., 298.

2 Ibid., pp. 285 et seq. * Ibid., pp. 298 et seq.

134

ADAM

FERGUSON

mere attainments of speculation, while we neglect the qualities of fortitude and public affection, which are so necessary to render our knowledge an article of happiness or of use [is the] most glaring of all deceptions; [while on the other hand] we may safely conclude that although business is sometimes a rival to study, retirement and leisure are not the principal requisites to the improvement, perhaps not even to the exercise, of literary talents. The most striking exertions of imagination and sentiment have a reference to mankind : they are excited by the presence and intercourse of men: they have most vigour when actuated in the mind by the operation of its principal springs, by the emulations, the friendships, and the oppositions, which subsist among a forward and aspiring people. Amidst the great occasions which put a free, and even a licentious society in motion, its members become capable of every exertion ; and the same scenes which give employment to Themistocles and Thrasybulus, inspired, by contagion, the genius of Sophocles and Plato. . . . 1 LITERATURE

Particularly is this noted f o r the art of poetry or literature. T h i s art too " is a natural produce of the human mind [which] will rise spontaneously wherever men are happily placed ". It is " promoted by circumstances that suffer the mind to enjoy itself." 2 . . . the poet is [in every nation] the first to offer the fruits of his genius, and to lead in the career of those arts by which the mind is destined to exhibit its imaginations, and to express its passions. Every tribe of barbarians have their passionate or historic rhymes, which contain the superstition, the enthusiasm, and the admiration of glory, with which the breasts of men, in the earliest state of society, are possessed. 3 The most admired of all poets [Homer] lived beyond the 1

HCS, pp. 266, 268.

' Ibid., p. 257 ; Inst., p. 47.

2

Ibid.,

p. 256.

SOME

INSTRUMENTS

OF

SOCIETY

reach of history, almost of tradition. The artless song of the savage, the heroic legend of the bard, has sometimes a magnificent beauty, which no change of language can improve, and no refinements of the critic reform. 1 Moreover, in Rome or in modern Europe " where the learned begin early to practice on foreign models, we have poets of every nation, w h o are perused with pleasure, while the prose writers of the same ages are neglected." 2 These facts Ferguson is at great pains to explain, but we are more interested in the note that gradually, The talents of men come to be employed in a variety of affairs, and their inquiries directed to different subjects. Knowledge is important in every department of civil society and requisite to the practice of every art. The science of nature, morals, politics, and history, find their several admirers ; and even poetry itself which retains its former station in the region of warm imagination and enthusiastic passion, appears in a growing variety of forms. 3 The bustle of an active life, . . . society itself is the school, and its lessons are delivered in the practice of real affairs. A n author writes from observations he has made on his subject, not from the suggestions of books ; and every production carries the mark of his character as a man, not of his mere proficiency as a student or scholar.4 T h e forms that literary endeavor will take are moreover closely related to institutions and ideals of a people. In Sparta all arts not directly ministering " to improve and preserve the courage and the disinterested affections of the human heart " were classed with the arts of the cook and the perfumer, while " their rivals the Athenians gave a scope to refinement on every object of reflection or passion." 1 1 HCS, p. 259.

2 Ibid., p. 261.

* Ibid., p. 264.

* Ibid., p. 265.

» Ibid., p. 263.

136

ADAM

FERGUSON

RELIGION

Ferguson's treatment of religion is from a sociological point of view frankly disappointing.

In the first place, he

seems to see little more in religion than a way of belief, a doctrine of the supernatural, a theology ; in the second place, he scarcely achieves here that emancipation, that scientific objectivity, that his writings elsewhere lead one to expect and that would permit him to measure the religion of the savage by the same standard he would apply to the faith of and 18th century D e i s t ; 1 in the third place, so far as it is related to conduct at all, religion is made a part of morals, and yet one somewhat unworthy o f an enlightened age.

" The

perception of intelligent power operating in nature," " superstitions [that a r e ] groveling and mean " what we mean.

2

are instances of

O r again,

The will of God is, no doubt, of supreme authority; and where it is known, we need not recur to any other. But, it has pleased him that his will, at least in the first intimation of it, should be declared by means of the order established in his works. And in our conduct of life the opposite natures of right and wrong are our safest guides, in every particular instance, to the performance of what the will of God has required. It is in search of a model, and of a patron of what is previously known to be right, that we arrive at our best and our highest conceptions of the Supreme Being. 8 Arguments of

design, the immutability of

God and the

orderliness of his universe, the reasonableness of belief in the immortality of the soul, the nature and origin of evil, fill most of his pages on the subject.

His orientation, in short,

is deistically theological, and not sociological. 4 1PMPS, i, pp. 169, 304 ; HCS, p. 132. t PMPS, i, p. 334; ibid., p. 163; HCS, p. 133. 4 Ibid., p. 163. « PMPS, i, p. 167.

SOME

INSTRUMENTS

OF SOCIETY

137

True, there is some reference to the evolution of religious conceptions along with social evolution generally. Crude conceptions may be " valued as indicating a capacity of farther attainment, a germ which . . . may w a x to indefinite magnitude and strength "- 1 A n d yet in the main in what depends on the known or the regular course of nature, the mind trusts to itself; but in strange and uncommon situations it is the dupe of its own perplexity, and instead of relying on its prudence or courage, has recourse to divination, and a variety of observances, that, for being irrational are always the more revered. Superstition, being founded in doubts and anxiety, is fostered by ignorance and mystery. Its maxims, in the meantime, are not always confounded with those of common life; nor does its weakness or folly always prevent the watchfulness, penetration, and courage, men are accustomed to employ in the management of common affairs. A Roman consulting futurity by the pecking of birds [and other examples] . . . prove, that a childish imbecility on this subject is consistent with the greatest military and political talents.2 A n d religion presents many instances of arrested development. T h e role of a priestly class in history is frequently remarked. 4 There is a due appreciation of the civilizing role of Christianity and the church in the Middle A g e s in enjoining meekness, softening the manners of a barbarous age and building up the spirit of chivalry. 4 Note is made of the use of superstition and religious enthusiasm for purposes of social control, often for selfish exploitation. 5 But 1

PMPS,

p. 167; cf. pp. 304 et seq.

*HCS, p. 132; cf. Radin, P., Primitive 1927, passim. 3

HCS,

Ν. Y.,

pp. 156, 158.

« Ibid., p. 301. Cf. Roman Republic iPMPS,

Man as Philosopher,

(Philadelphia, 1811), vol. iii, p. 473.

i, pp. 147, 304 et seq.; ii, p. 176.

I38

ADAM

FERGUSON

its role in present-day concerns of social l i f e is passed over in almost complete silence. These paragraphs will give some indication of the range of Ferguson's sociological interest and of the application of his sociological categories both static and dynamic.

T h e s e topics

are however distinctly subordinated to another set of interests, to another problem, to which we now turn.

CHAPTER

Χ

T H E COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL A R T S IN RELATION

TO

PROGRESS A N D D E C A Y

IN previous chapters reference was frequently made to Ferguson's treatment of the commercial and the political arts. 1 Independent treatment of these subjects, highly desirable in itself, cannot be given here; yet this study could not be complete without making stand out his conception of their essential relationships and of their relation to the question of the progress and decay of societies. W E A L T H A N D SOCIETY

Wealth, wealth-getting activities, division of labor in the productive process, commerce, money, credit facilities, property institutions, principles of taxation, standards of consumption, are even in the " E s s a y " ( 1 7 6 7 ) but more particularly in the " Principles " ( 1 7 9 2 ) conceived, and often defined in terms entirely worthy of his more famous contemporary. They are primary functions in human society. T h e y are defined in essentially psychological terms. 2 T h e y T o separate Ferguson's " Economics " and his " Politics " from other elements in his writings were as impossible as undesirable, since the former is really a part of the latter and his " sociology " is largely contained in the relation of the two. One might, however, single out as of a more purely economic nature HCS, pt. iii, sec. iv ; pt. iv, secs, i, ii ; PMPS, i, ch. iii, sec. ix ; vol. ii, eh. vi, secs, iv, ν, vi ; Inst., sec. ix, pp. 29-38 ; and on the forms and functions of the state, HCS, pt. iii, sees, ii, iii, vi ; pt. i, sec. χ ; PMPS, i, ch. iii, sec. χ ; ii, eh. vi, secs, iii, v-xi ; also chs. iii, iv ; Inst., pt. i, ch. i, secs, χ, xi. 1

' It is significant in point of refinement that he distinguishes sharply between wealth and money, and in point of explanation that he derives commerce from differences of physical and social situation and individual sense of need, and not like Smith from a probably original " propensity to barter ". HCS, p. 350. 139

140

ADAM

FERGUSON

are seen in intimate relation to the whole of societal structure and function. Population in relation to wealth, receives an emphasis almost Malthusian, though increase of numbers, within limits, is still considered an economic, political, and ethical desideratum, its dangers little seen. 1 It responds so poorly to state policy that any effort to control it by subsidies, immigration policies, etc., is compared with the fable of the fly that, sitting on its rim, boasted it made the wheel go round. 2 T h e state need but perform its primary functions and " by desires the most ardent in the human frame " the numbers will come.* Wealth-exchange is also wealth-creation. Standards of subsistence, accomodation, adornment and display are relative terms. They are habits historically determined. W h a t is necessity to one may be luxury to another ; what is luxury today may be necessity tomorrow. 4 Moreover wealth never consists in its mere consumption ; this may but lead to satiety, gross and ungovernable passions, brutality of nature. 8 Such we may pronounce to be the effect of mere wealth, unattended with education, or apart from the virtues of industry, sobriety, and frugality, which nature has prescribed as the means of attainment: But in the use of these means, the industrious are furnished with exercises improving to the genius of man; have occasion to experience, and to return the offices of beneficence and friendship; are led to the study of justice, 1 HCS, pt. iii, sec. iv ; pp. 87 et seq. ; PMPS, i, pp. 242 et seq. ; ii, pp. 409 et seq. A measure of his discrimination here may be taken from his recognition of " birth control " among primitive peoples to accord with the means of subsistence. HCS, p. 208.

* Ibid., pp. 211 et seq. 'Ibid., p. 215; cf. PMPS, ii, pp. 409 et seq., and his Roman vol. iii, p. 320; cf. Inst., p. 314: population and social change. * HCS, pp. 213 et seq.

» PMPS,

i, p. 251.

Republic,

INDUSTRY,

GOVERNMENT

AND

PROGRESS

sobriety, and good order, in the conduct of life. And, thus, in the very progress with which they arrive at the possession of wealth, form to themselves a taste of enjoyment, a decency of manners, equivalent to a conviction that happiness does not consist in the measure of fortune, but in its proper use.1 It is in achievement itself, in the enrichment of social organization, in the adaptation of employment to individual disposition, capacity and genius, in the improvement of human nature, in the perfection of social institutions, the advancement of civilization, that wealth and the perfection and differentiation of the commercial arts find their highest social function. 2 ORIGIN, FORMS, AND FUNCTIONS OF T H E STATE

F a r from being primarily a contractual device, or an arbitrary assumption of power by the strong over the weak, the state as the formal institution with intent to regulate the distribution of power, is rather the organized expression at once of these interdependencies and necessities of cooperation among men that are present wherever there is society, and of those inequalities of station and pursuit, of those differentiations in society that have their origin " in the differences of natural talent and disposition, . . . in the unequal division of property, . . . in the habits which are acquired by the practice of different arts " , in the differences generally of attainment and fortune. 3 " A s the commercial arts originate in the necessities of man's animal nature, the arts which may be termed political, originate in the wants and defects of instinctive society " and develop under the stress 1

PMPS,

i, pp. 254 et seq.

Ibid., pp. 249, 255. See the whole passage, pp. 247-255 for a remarkable discussion of " w h a t does the species gain in the result of commercial arts and at the expense of so much invention and labor." 2

3

HCS,

p. 275 ; PMPS,

ii, pp. 404, 464; i, pp. 258 et seq.

ADAM

142

FERGUSON

of circumstances, the pressures of w a r and internal conflict, the demands of a commercial society," security and advantage.

1

and the desire for

T h e y have advanced together and

are usually so interwoven that w e cannot determine which was prior in the order of time, or derived most advantage f r o m the mutual influences with which they act and react upon one another. 2 T h e various forms of government : democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, their relative merits, and their several foundations would from the point of view of politics demand a separate chapter.

Here w e can only indicate that in this Ferguson

is under considerable and confessed obligations to Montesquieu."

There is no pure f o r m or type ; they merge ever into

one another ; they follow no logic of their own, though there may be some correlation between f o r m s of government and stages

of

civilization.

societal variables.

They

are

functions of

complex

N o forms have absolute merit in them-

selves ; their value lies in the performance of function, in the production of human values, in their essential integration with society, of which the state, is, a f t e r all, only a part or an aspect, and which in its general constitution and in its mental or spiritual temper is historically conditioned. 4 N o t exactly that " F o r f o r m s of government let fools contest ; T h a t best administered is a l w a y s best " . s

Ferguson has

his own leaning toward democracy, and the English constitution remains his ideal. 1

PMPS,

N o r would he measure a constitution

ii, p. 256.

* His position is well summarized in the sentence, " The relations of man and society, considered with respect to their origin, are frequently casual. In their progress they acquire the force of conventions ; and as constituting the form on which the peace and welfare of society depends, are to the benevolent the most real and the principal objects of respect and attention." PMPS, ii, p. 379. 3

HCS, p. 283.

s

PMPS,

ii, p. 500, quoting Pope.

* Ibid., pt. i, sec. χ ; p. 105.

INDUSTRY,

GOVERNMENT

AND

PROGRESS

merely by its efficiency or its perfect operation, without keeping in view the end of all government. But forms are related to external circumstance, to societal structure, to the temper of a people.1 A small society will tend strongly toward democracy ; a very large one toward monarchy. Carthage will have a form adapted to the needs of a commercial nation ; Sparta to a warrior people ; Rome to a great military empire. 2 Democracy is maintained with difficulty amidst the social inequalities that are inherent in any commercial state. The same forces which give rise to monarchy " create at the same time a nobility and a variety of ranks who have in a subordinate degree their claim to distinction . . . in aristocratic or mixed government, certain casual or hereditary distinctions of fortune being admitted, the inferior may yield and the superior assume a comparative advantage in perfect consistence with the order established. In proportion to the inequalities acknowledged, there is a habit of the person fitted to the rank, and in every condition a suitable character or manner. The habits of station are necessary to qualify the citizen to sustain the part which is assigned to him. Elevation and dignity are suited to the rank in persons of one condition ; deference and respect are suited to the rank of those in another ; and without suitable distinctions of character, different orders of men would be disqualified for their situations, and a community so made up of discordant parts would be unfitted to maintain the establishment in which the public order consists. The utmost to be expected among citizens in this state of disparity is that the superior should, by his noble qualities, merit the respect which is paid to him ; or earn the returns of affection and gratitude by the good he performs. 4 ι PMPS,

ii, p. 4 1 4 ; HCS, p. 91.

2 Ibid., pp. 284-6 ; PMPS, 8

HCS, pp. 189, 280.

*PMPS,

ii, pp. 415 et seq.

i, p. 253.

ADAM

144

FERGUSON

T H E STATE A N D ECONOMIC

LIFE

T h e relation of the state to economic life can best be approached through Ferguson's conception of the essential functions of the state. If population be connected with national wealth, liberty and personal security is the great foundation of both: and if this foundation be laid in the state, nature has secured the increase and the industry of its members; the one by desires the most ardent in the human frame; the other by a consideration the most uniform and constant of any that possesses the mind. The great object of policy, therefore, with respect to both, is, to secure to the family its means of subsistence and settlement; to protect the industrious in the pursuit of his occupation; to reconcile the restrictions of police, and the social affections of mankind, with their separate and interested pursuits. 1 T h e purpose of law is to enable the magistrate and the subject " to enjoy their rights and to maintain the peace of society. T h e desire of lucre is the great motive to injuries : law therefore has a principle reference to property ". 2 Again, " I t is the primary object of government . . . to secure the property of its subjects, to protect the industrious in reaping the fruits of his labor, in recovering the debts which are justly due him, and in providing for the fair decision of questions that may arise in the course of trade ", 3 . . . the objects that claim the attention of every government . . . are the national defence, the distribution of justice, the preservation and internal prosperity of the state. If these objects be neglected, we must apprehend that the very scene in which parties contend for power, for privilege, or equality, must disappear and society itself no longer exist.4 *HCS, 3

p. 215.

PMPS,

ii, p. 426; cf. 467.

2

Ibid., p. 233.

* HCS,

p. 202.

INDUSTRY,

GOVERNMENT

AND

PROGRESS

. . . it is a sacred object of policy to keep faith with the creditor; and, where the credit of state is interposed, and to give ready protection to the citizen where any abuse in the circulation of paper or promissory notes can be dreaded.1 Administrative consumption, principles of taxation, coinage, protection of property are discussed.2 For the encouragement of commerce and to facilitate communications, highways may be provided inland and sea navigation may be secured. In the interest of safety a maritime state may even in pursuit of its naval policy subsidize a merchant marine or at least encourage seamanship " and guard the manners of a brave and ingenuous people in preference to their numbers or wealth The state may even within limits consistently limit the increase of excessive private fortunes and prevent the ruin of modest ones by sumptuary laws.4 But in general in these matters the statesman " can do little more than avoid doing mischief . . . commerce, if continued, is a branch in which men committed to the effects of their own experience are least apt to go wrong Self-interest, with the private virtues of care, industry and skill, are the safer guide. GENERAL POLICY

In matters of general policy Ferguson is a moderate liberal; sometimes like Burke a philosophical conservative. But he never permits the state to become an object in itself. His historical orientation and perhaps his own inherent temper make him a political realist. Far fetched knowledge is not the most useful, either in the formation of theories, or in the conduct of life ; and it is in the common course of things we must look for the rule to direct 1

PMPS,

*Ibid., 8

ii, p. 429·

vol. ii, eh. vi, secs, iv-vi.

Ibid., p. 430.

* HCS, p. 236.

» Ibid., p. 214.

ADAM

146

FERGUSON

us in either . . . liberty or freedom is not . . . an exemption from all restraint, but rather the most effective application of every just restraint to all the members of a free state, whether they be magistrates or subjects. 1 Essentially democratic in outlook, he yet attacks the sacred idols of his day. Nay, but we shall be told, that all men are originally equal. This, in regard to property, can only mean, that, when no one had anything, all men were equally rich : but even this is no more than fancied equality in a single point. In respect to sex and age, strength of body and mind, individuals are destined to inequality from their birth; and, almost in the first steps of society bear the distinctions which industry and courage give in the different attainments of men, and lead in sequel to all varieties of profession and fortune. The only respect in which all men continue for ever to be equal, is that of the equal right which every man has to defend himself; but this involves a source of much inequality in respect to the things which every one may have a right to defend . . . and it is not possible to prevent the inequality of condition in the fortunes of men, without violating the first and common principles of right in the most flagrant manner.2 If it is misleading call Ferguson a political opportunist, he is at least a realist : To the question that may be asked in any particular case, to what government we should have recourse, or under what roof we should lodge? the first answer no doubt is the present. Nay, but the present government may have its defects, as the walls or roof of the building in which we lodge may be insufficient, or threaten to fall on our heads. Then, set about the necessary 1

PMPS,

il, p. 458.

* Ibid., pp. 462 et seq.; cf. pp. 414-17. HCS, pp. 93, 99, 130, 148; PMPS, ii, p. 463 ; cf. i, p. 262 ; also Remarks on a Pamphlet lately published by Dr. Price.

INDUSTRY,

GOVERNMENT

AND

PROGRESS

repairs. In respect to our dwelling, the walls may be renewed or rebuilt in parts successively; and, in respect to the administration of government, grievances may be redressed. But, in respect to the one, it is a wise maxim; Beware you take not away so much of your supports at once as that the roof may fall in : or, in respect to the other, Beware you do not overthrow so much of your government at once as that the innocent have no protection against those who may be disposed to the commission of crimes.1 The chief significance of his Economics and his Politics for sociology, let it be repeated summarizing, lies in their bearings, as Ferguson sees them, one upon the other and upon the problem of society. While the former is considered the more basic, and the latter the more important, the one is still a function of the other in point alike of origin, of development of present structure, and of essential functioning. A n d both together are in the same respects a function of society in its larger aspects. T h e rise of wealth and property institutions, for instance, the stratification of society and the rise of political establishments, can be separated neither in point of time nor of priority in a causal series. T h e commercial and the political arts are the scene, the school, the means, and up to a certain point the end or objective, of society, in the larger sense of men in association and in common creative endeavor building on the foundations of their social heritage toward the goal of a completer existence.2 T H E QUESTION OF PROGRESS AND DECAY OF SOCIETIES

This raises inevitably the question of the relation of the political and the commercial arts to the progress and decay of societies. 1 PMPS, ii, pp. 40-97 ; cf. p. 492. i. P- 149· Published 1792. Reaction to French Revolution, vide Small, Biogr. Sketch, p. 651. (Vide Bibliography.)

» HCS, p. 391 ; cf. PMPS,

i, pp. 239-341, 265.

ADAM

148

FERGUSON

It has already been indicated that Ferguson's whole conception of society, and particularly of " civil society " is oriented largely in the commercial and political arts, that, in fact, industry, and the state are sometimes almost identified with society. 1 W e have also seen that advance in these various arts and in society as a whole are in general intimately correlated.2 It has not yet been sufficiently stressed that Ferguson with all his faith in progress departs widely from the uncritical Condorcetian faith in progress as universal and inevitable. Not only does he admit that nations have achieved a high civilization " who have made little progress in commerce or the arts on which it proceeds " , witness Republican Rome or Sparta " ; that the Greeks and Romans achieved a higher civilization on almost every count than many of their successors * ; that in fact every civilization must be measured not merely by the multiplication of arts and appliances, commercial or political, but by some standard which is in last analysis an ethical one. Decadence has in fact a very real place in his scheme of evolution. " The progress of societies to what we call the heights of national greatness is [perhaps] not more natural, than their return to weakness and obscurity is necessary and unavoidable." 5 " The public safety and the relative interests of states ; political establishments, the pretentious of party, commerce, and arts, are subjects which engage the attention of nations. The advantages gained in some of these particulars, determine the degree of national prosperity. The ardour and vigor with which they are at any one time pursued, is the measure of a national spirit. When those objects cease to animate, nations may be said to languish; when they are 1

HCS,

2

p. 315.

s PMPS, i,

p.

* Ibid., p. 312.

252.

93-100. 291-297.

Ibid., pp. 66-71,

'HCS,

pp.

INDUSTRY,

GOVERNMENT

AND

PROGRESS

during any considerable time neglected, states must decline, and their people degenerate." 1 In fact Ferguson holds quite definitely to a cyclical view of history and devotes a very considerable part of the " Essay " to the question, " W h y nations cease to be eminent ; and why societies which have drawn the attention of mankind by great examples of magnanimity, conduct, and national success, should sink from the height of their honors, and yield in one age, the palm which they had won in a former." 2 Did we find, that nations advancing from small beginnings, and arrived at the possession of arts which lead to dominion, became secure of their advantages, in proportion as they were qualified to gain them ; that they proceeded in a course of uninterrupted felicity, till they were broke by external calamities ; and that they retained their force, till a more fortunate or vigorous power arose to depress them; the subject in speculation could not be attended with many difficulties, nor give rise to many reflections. But when we observe among nations a kind of spontaneous return to obscurity and weakness ; when, in spite of perpetual admonitions of the danger they run, they suffer themselves to be subdued, in one period, by powers which could not have entered into competition with them in a former, and by forces which they had often baffled and despised; the subject becomes more curious and its explanation more difficult.» H e proposes in explanation first the organismic theory of youth and old age, but only to dismiss it by saying that the case of nations and that of individuals are very different. The human frame has a general course ; it has, in every individual, a frail contexture, and a limited duration; it is worn by exercise, and exhausted by repetition of its functions : But in a society, whose constituent members are renewed in every generation, where the race seems to enjoy perpetual youth, and ac*HCS,

p. 315·

2

Ibid.

3

Ibid., pp. 310 et seq.

ADAM

FERGUSON

cumulating advantages, we cannot, by any parity of reason, expect to find imbecilities connected with mere age and length of days.1 He proposes the fickleness and inconstancy of mankind, who become tired of their pursuits and exertions, even while the occasions that gave rise to those pursuits in some measure continue [but he at once adds] the change of situations and the removal of objects which served to excite their spirit.® In the end he perhaps does not get far away from the position that " the wealth, the aggrandizement, and power of nations are commonly the effects of virtue; loss of these advantages, is often a consequence of vice " 8 a position not necessarily unscientific, but in just that form, at least, not really an explanation at all. His nearest approach, to an answer lies in his view of human nature which holds that " the virtues of men have shone most during their struggles, not after the attainment of their ends ", while " those ends themselves though attained by virtue, are frequently the causes of corruption and vice ".* Yet he continues to wrangle with his subject. " A change in national manners for the worse, may arise from a discontinuance of the scenes in which the talents of men were happily cultivated, and brought into exercise; or from a change in the prevailing opinions relating to the constituents of honor and happiness ".5 Under a happy domestic policy even madness and convulsions may subside into wisdom and a vigorous pursuit of policy, learning or arts.* But as a rule struggle, war, or at least emulation between nations are essential to vigor. " Long intermission of war ", or a surcease of emulation between states when their forces 1

HCS, pp. 312 et seq., 322 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 309.

5

2

Ibid., p. 315.

Ibid., pp. 356 et seq.

8

3

Ibid., p. 308.

Ibid., pp. 317 et seq.

INDUSTRY,

GOVERNMENT

AND PROGRESS

are no longer balanced, " suffer, equally in every period of civil society, the military spirit to languish." 1 The quest of science, discovery, commercial arts, etc., once a bare beginning is made, usually carry men irresistibly on and " admit of perpetual refinements. . . . refinement and plenty foster new desires, while they furnish the means or practice the methods to gratify them." 2 Yet men may pursue these merely to remove inconvenience or gain advantage that their labor may cease ; or they permit the lucrative arts to " gain an ascendant at the expense of other pursuits. The desire of profit stifles the love of perfection ".* And men are " led to rely on their arts instead of on their virtues, and to mistake for improvement of human nature, a mere accession of accomodation, or of riches ". Then decadence has definitely set in and national ruin may be in sight.4 The perpetual enlargement of territories, frequently industrial and commercial expansion, may lead to the loosening of the bands of society and to despotism and corruption. Above all the division of labor or " distribution of callings " may lead to an individualism where " none are animated by the spirit of society itself ", and thus directly or indirectly becomes perhaps the chief cause of decadence.5 Privileged classes, though capable of leadership and vital function in the social order, usually become exploiting classes. Occupations in the descending scale become degrading, and distinctions won in the actual creation and building of the arts and of wealth, give way to a mere passive parasitic, resting on laurels previously won, or won by former generations, with nothing remaining to tap the deeper resources of human nature.® Moreover, ". . . under the disparities of conditions and the unequal cultivation of the mind which attend the variety of pursuits and applications that separate ι HCS., p. 318.

2

Ibid., p. 325.

» Ibid., p. 327 ; cf. supra, pp. 109 et seq.

3

Ibid., p. 326. 8

« Ibid., p. 335.

Ibid., pp. 372 et seq., 382 et seq.

ADAM

152

FERGUSON

mankind in the advanced state of the commercial arts " , " democracy is preserved with difficulty T h e forms may persist, but the principle is gone. " T h e people in this case are . . . frequently governed by one or a few who know how to conduct them "- 1 The boasted refinements, then, of the polished age, are not divested of danger. They open a door perhaps, to disaster, as wide and accessible as any of those they have shut. If they build walls and ramparts, they enervate the minds of those who are placed to defend them ; if they form disciplined armies, they reduce the military spirit of entire nations; and by placing the sword where they have given a distaste to civil establishments, they prepare for mankind the government of force. 2 It appears, therefore, that although the mere use of materials which constitute luxury, may be distinguished f rom actual vice ; yet nations under a high state of the commercial arts, are exposed to corruption, by their admitting wealth, unsupported by personal elevation and virtue, as the great foundation of distinction, and by having their attention turned on the side of interest, as the road to consideration and honor.8 T h u s the commercial may join hands with the political arts to make possible the highest achievement of human society, but in the same union may also be found the open road to its greatest corruption. A n d historically both tendencies would seem sooner or later to find their realization. 1HCS,

pp. 279 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 380 ; PMPS,

2

i, p. 254.

Ibid., p. 347.

CHAPTER

XI

U L T I M A T E V A L U E S IN H U M A N

SOCIETY

IT remains to attempt here a summary and a more explicit statement of Ferguson's conception of society, of the relation of the individual and society, both psychologically and ethically speaking, and so of his own basic outlook with regard to the antithesis of individualism and socialism. SOCIETIES AND " SOCIETY "

It can hardly be said that Ferguson distinguishes sharply and consistently between such terms as society, the group, community, nation, etc. Thus the term ' social ' is made, even as it is today, to imply sometimes merely the fact of association, sometimes the ' love of company or again amicable relations, sometimes harmonious functioning of institutions, or again any kind of human interrelationship. The term ' nation ' sometimes indicates any culturally autonomous human group without any definite implications as to its boundaries in either an ethnic or a political way, 1 or again an ethnically autonomous group viewed in opposition to its neighbors, whether it be a small primitive tribe or a large modern national state. ' Civilization ' may mean either an advanced civil society, or a stage of culture characterized by refinement of the arts and sciences, or it may mean culture in its broader sociological sense. The term ' culture ' itself is never used in that sense. The term ' group ' is rather consistently used to indicate any plurality of men having some common tie, without any implications as to the nature or 1

HCS,

p. 31 ; PMPS,

ii, p. 294 ; Inst., p. 198.

153

ADAM

154

FERGUSON

extent of the relationship. ' Tribes ' and ' companies ' have a slightly more specific meaning. The term perhaps most frequently used to mark the group in any of its aspects in contrast with the individual is ' species which, while also used in the biological sense, is thus frequently used interchangeably with ' society '. More important here are the terms ' community ' and ' society The former is of course often used to indicate any kind of common life or sharing of interests and activities; more frequently is it used to describe a group that is more or less definitely localized and autonomous and opposed, or at least juxtaposed to neighboring groups 1 ; though in rude society a ' community a ' people ', a ' tribe ', and a ' nation ' are used quite interchangeably. ' Society ' is most variously used. It may first of all designate any kind of group, or any kind of association banded together for any purpose whatever.2 Or like ' species ' it may indicate any collectivity in contrast with the mere individual. Almost always, however, it implies some kind of intercommunication, some sharing of interests, some working together to a common purpose. It is unfortunate for theoretical analysis that these various terms are often so loosely and interchangeably used. Yet Ferguson does not entirely rest the matter there. It has been suggested that Ferguson not only clearly distinguishes between ' community ' and ' society ' in the sense of Toennies' Gemeinschaft ' and 'Gesellschaft ' but that this distinction is fundamental to his conception of social evolution.® W e have not been ablç ourselves to find such distinction in his use of the terms; but that the distinction itself is made between societies that are characterized by spontaneity, a strong sense 1HCS,

pp. 3i, 85, 89, 188, 191, soi, 204.

* Ibid., p. 341. 3

Buddeberg, Ferguson

als Soziologe,

p. 626.

INDIVIDUALISM

AND

SOCIALISM

of community or communal solidarity, a lack of differentiation, etc., and societies that are, in a measure the result of contract, or at least rest on a kind of planful organization, with a high differentiation of function, an elaboration of institutions, a certain artificiality, and often a weakening of the bands that unite the individual to the group as a whole; and that such a distinction is central to his whole treatment of social evolution, has, we hope, been sufficiently set forth throughout this analysis. With regard to the concept ' society ' furthermore, Ferguson has himself given the term a meaning much more specific than merely a group, or group life, or ' pluralistic behavior '. Perhaps the nearest he comes to a formal definition, is when, with reference to Aristotle's ' soon politkon ', he says, " Wherever there is a plurality of men, there is a society ; and, in society, there is a distribution of parts, and a cooperation of many, to some common purpose or end." 1 And again, " The name of society may be given to a mere family, a tribe, a select company of friends, and to a nation or empire. Of these each is an assemblage of men ; and the greater still comprehends many examples of the less. The principles that operate throughout are consistent, and, in order to form a complete estimate of man's associating nature, require to be enumerated and considered apart ".* Here he thinks merely of the subjective aspect of society in human nature. But when he concludes a chapter " of the Principles of Society in Human Nature ", which purposes not to evince the reality but " to specify the character of human society with the following paragraph, we can be doing him no violence by representing that as his conception of society, even though it emphasises certain aspects only : Man's specific talent for expression and communication, . . . 1

PMPS,

i, p. 2 i .

2

Ibid., p. 24.

3

Ibid., ch. i, sec. iii, p. 26.

ADAM

156

FERGUSON

notwithstanding the diversity of tongues, which, with other circumstances, contributes to keep separate hordes in a state of estrangement from one another, serves, upon the whole, to reunite the efforts of mankind to one common purpose of advancement in the progress of intelligence. The lights of science are communicated, from the parts in which they sprang up, to the remotest corners of the habitable world. The works of singular genius are a common benefit to mankind ; and the whole species, on every quarter, in every nation, and in every age, cooperates together for one common end of information, invention, science, and art. No one member of this great body is detached from the whole, or can enjoy his good, or suffer his evil, without some participation with others.1 T H E INDIVIDUAL A N D SOCIETY

This is the ' society ' in which the individual has his being and which many individuals help to constitute, as indicated at the outset. Its reality need not be further discussed here ; nor how the individual comes to be what he is in and by active participation therein ; nor yet how society, in one sense co-eval with man himself, in this more important sense comes into being by the activities and joint asperations of many individuals. It needs, though, to be emphasized that Ferguson nowhere gives this society any existence apart f r o m the individuals who constitute or have constituted it. T o be sure, individuals, generations, nations come and go or move from the periphery to the center, from the center to the periphery of the scene, while society lives on. Its forms and institutions have, in the midst of their own mutations, a certain permanence. Society has its length as well as its breadth. 2 Moreover nothing is more clearly perceived and more vigorously insisted upon than the determining influence of society upon the individual, though this is not conceived in 1

PMPS,

2

Supra, p. 57·

p. 36 ; c f . pp. 269, 329 et seq. Inst., p. 97.

Italics ours.

INDIVIDUALISM

AND

SOCIALISM

a narrowly mechanistic way that would deny individual freedom or even the creative role in history of great men.

So-

ciety is one of life's firmest realities; but this reality is conceptual, rather than ontological.

Society is a shorthand for-

mula for the complexly interrelated behavior of many individuals, not a superadded entity.

W h i l e using the language

of convenience, Ferguson guards carefully, when the question is raised, against the ' group fallacy ', 1 T h e relations of the individual and society need still to be considered from the point of view of values.

Society not

only in the psychological sense gives the individual his existence, and makes for his well-being ; it offers him as well the worthiest, if not the only worthy end of existence.

" It

should seem to be the happiness of man, to make his social dispositions the ruling spring of his occupations; to state himself as the member of a community, for whose general 2

Like

Kipling's law of the jungle the ' principle of society '

works

good his heart may glow with an ardent zeal . . . " forward

and back; or, in his own quotation of Pope,

" Man like a generous vine supported lives ; T h e strength he gains, is from the embrace he gives." In serving his own best interests, he serves society ; in meeting the demands of society upon him, he realizes his own highest self."

8

" Man is, by nature, a member of a community "

w e have already quoted, " and when considered in this capacity appears to be no longer made for himself.

H e must

forego his happiness and his freedom where this interferes with the good of society."

4

In fact in some societies no

other standard than this was recognized. But if the public good be the principal object of individuals, it is likewise true, that the happiness of individuals is the great end of civil society. . . . 1

HCS, pp. 8s, 312, 322-3, 337. » Ibid.

2

Ibid., pp. 79, 80. * Ibid., p. 85.

ADAM

FERGUSON

That is the most happy state which is most beloved by its subjects; they are the most happy men, whose hearts are engaged to a community in which they find every object of jealousy and zeal and a scope for the exercise of every talent, and of every virtuous disposition.1 Or with a somewhat clearer statement of the philosophical implications of his position, Man is by nature a member of society; his safety and his enjoyment require that he should be preserved what he is by nature; his perfection consists in the excellence or measure of his natural abilities and dispositions ; or, in other words, it consists in being an excellent part of the system to which he belongs ; so that the effect to mankind should be the same, whether the individual means to preserve himself or to preserve his community. With either intention he must cherish the love of mankind as the most valuable part of his character; as this is the foundation of probity, it is that which leads men to give to probity as such the preference to every other disposition of habit or mind.2 Again, from a political angle, he says, In every nation people may be considered in two respects. First, as forming the object for whose sake the society is instituted, and for whose sake it ought to be preserved. And next, as forming the means by which the society is so formed and preserved. In the first point of view, Salus populi suprema lex esto is the fundamental principle of political science. If the first be happy, we have no title to enquire to what other purpose they serve, for this itself is the purpose of all human establishments. At the same time the people may be considered as the strength and support of their community, . . . and, they must accommodate themselves to the interests of state; and if there be any paradox in this manner of stating the subject, 1

HCS, pp. 8s, 86; cf. PMPS, ii, p. 28.

2

Inst., pp. i l l et seq.

INDIVIDUALISM

AND

SOCIALISM

it arises from our considering the end of political establishments, and the means of obtaining that end, as separate or destinct, whereas they are in this case the same. . . . If it be the lot of the vine to bear fruit for its owner, fertility and abundance of clusters is the prosperity and beauty of the plant that comes so loaded to the vintage.1 This is all, in a sense of course, an a priori judgment, an ethical tenet resting on an article of faith, or a will to believe ; Really it is an ethical dualism that rests on the conflict on the one hand between the self-asserting and the benevolent impulses of human nature, and on the other hand between the actual strife that any social or economic situation presents, and the experience of mutual aid and its advantages ; and that finds its reconciliation only in that peculiar philosophy of nature which he shared with Adam Smith and many others, in which even an egoism is always overruled for the good of the whole.2 But at any rate it is not oblivious of conflicts, in the world of experience, between the interests of the individual and those of the group, particularly when the life of either is lived on a low plane. It seeks rather to transcend them by recalling the state, as the highest crystalization of society, to its essential functions, and by inviting men to seek their life in active achievement, which unites, rather than in mere passive enjoyment, which easily divides.3 INDIVIDUALISM

A N D SOCIALISM

Even these quotations have indicated, however, that Ferguson does not leave the subject entirely on this somewhat unsatisfactory plane of ethical theory or philosophical speculation. In the first place, society—and in logical consequence the most advanced society—offers to the individual undoubted advantages and a life enrichment that cannot be supplied in 1 PMPS, ii, p. 411 ; cf. p. 434. 2 Infra, p. 207 et seq.

3

HCS, parts v, vi, passim.

ι6ο

ADAM

FERGUSON

any other way. These are found not primarily in increased security and convenience, the joys of companionship or even the mere passive enjoyment of a great literary or ' cultural ' heritage, but most certainly in the opportunity for active exertion that society offers and in which man finds his highest self-realization.1 By offering such advantages to an everincreasing number of men in a given society, up to the limits of their varying capacities, and by permitting the increase of numbers (though the increase in the size of societies beyond a reasonable limit needs to be guarded against) societal advance is in itself an undoubted good. 2 In the second place, Ferguson grants not only the universal practice but the right of society, in the form of the state, to impose its will upon the individual even where it is contrary to his perceived interests. This is not in itself raised to an absolute right. It is " a force dangerously constituted even for the authority that employs it, and too often understood to be turned at discretion at those it is destined to protect ", and its justification lies only in " the security of justice [which] is, in every state the greatest interest of all parties, whether the governing or the governed ". 3 In the third place, with a man of so pragmatic a turn of mind as Ferguson, his conception of the nature of society must inevitably find expression in an attitude toward life and a policy for its conduct ;—and here it is impossible to maintain that dualism that may still by a metaphysical ruse be tolerated in theoretical ethics. It matters little that on this subject he speaks the language of politics rather than of society generally when he says, 1

PMPS,

2

HCS, pp. 87-90; PMPS,

i, pp. 249 et seq. i!, pp. 409, 410.

PMPS, ii, p. 494 ; cf. HCS, pp. 216-20, 238, 367. " The right of selfdefence is the specific principle of compulsory law." PMPS, ii, p. 183. s

INDIVIDUALISM

AND

SOCIALISM

i6r

Men . . . while they reason for their country, forget the consideration that most deserves their attention. Numbers, riches, and the other resources of war are highly important: but nations consist of men ; and a nation consisting of degenerate and cowardly men, is weak ; a nation consisting of vigorous, public-spirited, and resolute men, is strong. 1 Or again, We have reason to dread the political refinements of ordinary men, when we consider, that repose or inaction itself is in a great measure their object; and that they would frequently model their governments, not merely to prevent injustice and error, but to prevent agitation and bustle; and by the barriers they raise against the evil actions of men, would prevent them from acting at all. . . . If the precautions which men thus take against each other be necessary to repress their crimes, and do not arise from a corrupt ambition, or from a cruel jealousy in their rulers, the proceeding itself must be applauded, as the best remedy of which the vices of men will admit. The viper must be held at a distance, and the tyger chained. But if a rigorous policy applied to enslave, not to restrain from crimes, has an actual tendency to corrupt the manners and to extinguish the spirit of nations ; if its severities be applied to terminate the agitations of a free people, not to remedy their corruptions; if forms be often applauded as salutary, because they tend merely to silence the voice of mankind, or be condemned as pernicious because they allow the voice to be heard ; we may expect that many of the boasted improvements of civil society will be mere devices to lay the political spirit at rest, and will chain up the active virtues more than the restless disorders of men. If to any people it be the avowed object of policy, in all its internal refinements, to secure the person and the property of the subject, without any regard to his political character, the constitution indeed may be free, but its members may likewise become unworthy of the freedom they possess, and unfit to preserve it. . . . 2 1

HCS,

p. 337·

* Ibid., pp. 330-332. Written 1767.

1Ô2

ADAM

FERGUSON

In such expressions Ferguson is to be sure guiltless of any irresponsible, devil-take-the hindmost individualism, such as has often been wrongly charged for instance against the " laissez faire " Adam Smith; his mind is too deeply steeped in an organic view of society, considered both in its breadth and its length, as present fact and as historical becoming. His tone is sometimes that of the impatience of the youthful reformer conscious of his strength, sometimes of the conservatism of a man mellowed by experience and perhaps alarmed by the view of stormy scenes across the channel. But whether or not he harbors that ideal that, either in theory or in practice, in politics or in the general conduct of life, confers sovereignty upon society at the expense of the individual, rather than upon individuals living in society and by the laws of society, we leave to the reader to judge. At any rate it would seem not without significance that his youthful magnus opus closes with the words, . . . Men of real fortitude, integrity, and ability, are well placed in every scene ; they reap in every condition the principal enjoyments of their nature; they are the happy instruments of providence employed for the good of mankind; or, if we must change this language, they show, that while they are destined to live, the states they compose are likewise doomed by the fates to survive and to prosper. 1 and that the closing paragraphs of the "Principles ", which reflects the work of his lifetime, should read, . . . the congregation of men is not, in any instance, to be considered as an aggregate of still or quiescent materials, but is a convocation of living and active natures; . . . the order of which they are susceptible is not merely like stones in a wall or an arch, that of relative position and place, but of activity, and of cooperation in different functions, or of balance, coun1

HCS, p. 416.

INDIVIDUALISM

AND SOCIALISM

163

terpoise, and mutual correction, where the operation of any single power might be partial and wrong, but the general result is salutary and just. Such is the living order of nature throughout ; and the amount of this argument, relating to the felicity of nations, may be summed up in these comprehensive, though vague expressions, That the felicity of nations is proportioned to the degree in which every citizen is safe; and is most perfect where every ingenuous or innocent effort of the human mind is encouraged ; where government devolves on the wise; and where the inoffensive though weak is secure. In societies that approach the nearest, or recede the farthest from this description, the individual may, in his own part, be either wretched or happy. . . . Every one, indeed is answerable only for himself ; and, in preserving the integrity of one citizen, does what is required of him for the happiness of the whole, THE END ", 1 1 PMPS, ii, p. 512 ; cf. 381. It is scarcely necessary here to remark Ferguson's sharp contrast with the "socialism" of Comte, which in effect, reduces the individual to a non-entity, society (and in logical consequence the hierarchical Super-state) both in fact and ideal completely dominating and absorbing the ' pseudo-individual '.

CHAPTER METHODICAL

XII

SUMMARY

LIKE every other writer Ferguson brings to his subject certain assumptions of both a metaphysical and a methodological character. In this he is much the child of his century, even though with a difference. T h e ' love of system ' is by no means absent, ' Nature ' is still a word to charm with. If this is often clothed in theological and ideological terms, these are but terms that so far as we have been able to learn do not affect the analysis, and are not to be confused with the really telic conceptions of history as found in Herder and apparently in Turgot, or the remnants of a theological orthodoxy found in Dunbar and Kames. 1 This ' Nature ' is of course not a pluralism but a universe, characterized by permanence and order without which man could make no adjustments to his environment, could neither understand nor depend upon his fellow men, nor for that matter even trust his own senses or build upon his own past experience. 2 Man is by nature adapted to the role he must perform. If he must live by communication he is provided with organs to communicate and mutatis mutandis organs and the power of receiving communication. 3 Destined to live in society, he is also equipped with sociability; destined to a life of struggle, he is equipped with soul powers that wax strong only in struggle. Whether this adaptation of man 1

Infra,

2

PMPS,

3

Ibid.,

chs. xiv, xv. i, pp. 179 et seq., 217 et seq. ; cf. ii, p. 54. i, pp. 37, 40, 47, 164-166, 266.

164

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

165

to his environment is brought about by the Author of Nature or by Natural Selection must, for empirical science, after all be of but little consequence. The assumption itself of such a harmony is a matter of far-reaching consequence both in matters of policy and in the scope it gives to the deductive sides of his scientific method. Ferguson is therefore still far from complete emancipation from the doctrines of Naturrecht or the Order of Nature philosophy. " Nature has made man master of every action which is not injurious to others " " The law of nature with respect to nations is the same as it is with respect to individuals; it gives to the collective body the right to preserve themselves; to employ undisturbed the means of life, to retain the fruits of labor, to demand the observance of stipulations and contracts, etc ". l War itself is conceded to rest at times on the laws of natural justice 2 and is once spoken of as " but one distemper more by which the Author of Nature has appointed our exit from human life ". 3 And yet the prominence given to custom and convention in tracing the origin not only to positive law but also of the so-called fundamental laws of a people is in effect a denial of many of the tenets of the philosophy of Naturrecht; * and sometimes there is an explicit denial of the claims of natural rights.5 Next, scientific objectivity does not with Ferguson take the form of a complete elimination of the pragmatic bias. After all, he makes no claims to pure theory or to system building. His interest is more in life than in pure science." 1

HCS, p. 288 ; cf. 93, 94 ; PMPS,

2

PMPS,

8

HCS, pp. 29- 36.

5

Ibid., i, p. 257.

ii, pp. 309 et seq., i, ch. iii, sec. i.

ii, ch. iv, secs, iv, v.

« HCS, pp. 43 et seq. ; PMPS,

4

PMPS,

ii, pp. 257, 286-92.

i, pp. 280 et seq.

ι66

ADAM

FERGUSON

Not only does his theory frequently relate to policy and current issues ; not only does he frequently expose the danger of closet philosophy, intellectual retirement, and a bookish, cloistered education, and magnify the pragmatic ends of science itself; 1 but he himself at times come near turning moralist and preacher. At any rate he is a man of imagination and of warm sympathies, who yet knows there are enemies in the field; and if his humanity does not discolor, it at least occasionally colors his writing. It is only the theoretical application of this same tendency when we repeat 2 that he intends first of all to be an exponent of moral philosophy, for which all that really interests us in this analysis is but the factual approach, and that while he draws a sharp line in theory and a reasonably sharp one in exposition between ' physical ' and ' moral ' laws, his treatment of the world as fact is not entirely unaffected by his conception of the world as value.' The methods of analysis Ferguson employs may best be approached from the point of view of his own statements on method. Ferguson does not neglect to discuss the nature of science and scientific method. In fact, he suggests that any distinct value in his work must lie in its methodological suggestions. 4 His basic distinction is, after eliminating the supernatural from the scientist's purview, found in the following : Most subjects may be considered under two aspects : under that of their actual state; and under that of their specific excellence or defect of which they are susceptible. ι HCS, 2

pp. 43-45-

Supra, pp. 18-19. » PMPS, ii, p. 2. 'Ibid., i, p. 4.

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

167

Under the first, they are subjects of mere description, or statement of fact. Under the second, they are objects of estimation or contempt, of praise or censure. 1 In respect of what man has actually done or exhibited, human nature is the subject of history and physical science: considered in respect to the different measures of good and evil of which man is susceptible, the same nature is the subject of discipline and moral science. In treating of Man as a subject of history, we collect facts and endeavor to conceive his nature as it actually is or has actually been, apart from any notion of ideal perfection or defect . . , 2 . . . the abstract form of an operation in nature [including of course human behavior] is a physical law, and its application, the constituent of physical science . . . The physical laws of nature may be collected from a sufficient number of particulars which, though differing in circumstances, and diversified in their appearances, suggest a general fact common in their operations. . . . The law being thus ascertained, is applied to the application of many phenomena which of themselves would never have suggested the law. . . . In this manner physical science is constituted, and particulars are said to be understood and scientifically known when we can refer them to the physical law under which they are comprehended. The object of physical science being fact and reality . . . mere hypothesis cannot be substituted for a law of nature, nor a theory sustained in which the principle is not some known or existing law of nature and its application sufficient to explain the appearance . . . also . . . where any appearance is 1 " The one being occupied with solving the question of theory and fact ; the other in solving questions of right." PMPS, ii, p. 1 ; Inst., Intro., sec. iii, pp. 82 et seq.

2 PMPS,

i, p. ι.

ADAM

168

FERGUSON

comprehended in any well known law of nature, it is unnecessary to seek for any other account or explanation of it. 1 " L a w " and its correlate " cause and effect " are of course here used in a conceptual or phenomenal, not in a metaphysical sense: . . . when we say that gravitation is the cause of weight in bodies, we mean no more than that the weight of a body, whether at rest or in motion, is a particular phenomenon of the general law by which bodies press to the earth in the vertical line. . . . Although, therefore, we sometimes define science to be the knowledge of causes and of their effects ; yet it is safer and more accurate, or more congenial to the actual state of our conception, to say that it is the knowledge of the laws of nature, comprehending a multiplicity of diversified appearances which the law may serve to explain.* Beyond remarking his peculiar use of the term " physical " to apply to psychological 3 and organic as well as to inorganic or " material " phenomena, such quotations may stand without comment.

It is to be noted however that his con-

ception of science is primarily that of explanation by classification,

inductively deriving a few general and comprehen-

sive laws from given data, and deductively applying these to the discovery of

further facts and relations.

knowledge begins and ends in particulars ".

" Human

T h e mere de-

scription of his data or "particular facts" and apparently also the discovery or gathering of

data f o r classification he

would seem to comprehend under " history ", thus using this latter term in a strictly methodological sense, and not to mark off a particular type of range of phenomena.

" History

consists in the detail of particulars; science consists in the 1

Reference to Newton.

PMPS,

pp. 113-115.

*Ibid., i, p. 157; ii, p. 216; H CS, pp. 93 et seq.

2

Ibid., pp. 117, 118.

METHODICAL knowledge

of

SUMMARY

169

general principles and their application ".

Both merely perform with system and increasing accuracy functions that are involved in t h e ' k n o w i n g processes even of the man on the street.

A n d " men are often in haste to

conceive the system without attending to the parts of which it is formed . . . "

1

Furthermore,

knowledge of the laws of nature and the application of such laws to the explanation of phenomena are not merely like methods in the details of descriptive history, a form of arrangement for the purpose of comprehension and memory: they lead to the possession of power or the command of events . . . [Men] are enabled 2 . . . to repeat the operation and obtain its effect. Also the successful application of science to the production of effects is the last and most convincing evidence of its reality, or of the truth of its principles.8 Y e t nowhere is there any confusion of the real nature of scientific procedure. A p p l y i n g this now to the study of human life, he remarks the tendency of men to begin their study with things remote, astronomy, physics, etc., f r o m which a Socrates must recall them to earth, " to the near and immediate concerns of human life ".*

A study of human life in its ideal aspects, more-

over, must rest upon a prior study of man's actual state, a knowledge of the faculties and powers of human nature. 5 " General principles " must found " on just observation." H o w e v e r , " there is also much to be learned f r o m the system of things in the midst of which mankind are placed 1 P M P S , i, pp. 272, 278, 279.

2 Ibid., p. 280.

'Ibid., i, pp. 271-281, passim; cf. H CS, p. 4. "General principles . . . lead to the knowledge of important consequences, . . . they enable us to act with success when we would apply either the intellectual or the physical powers of nature, to the great purposes of human life." * PMPS,

i, pp. 4, 307.

» Ibid., Intro. ; ii, pp. 1 et seq.

ADAM

170

FERGUSON

and from the varieties of aspect under which the species have appeared in different ages and nations [physical environment, man's place in nature, social environment]. " Looking abroad for our objects of observation " and " studying the intimate principles of our own nature " must go hand in hand in studying the life of man. 1 T o this general statement of method may be added the following catalogue of methodological fallacies warned against here and there in his writings, and worthy almost of the " Idola " of Bacon himself. 2 Excessive love of system, instead of attention to detail ; ' following pet notions and private hobbies ; craze for deep speculation, excessive refinement and hairsplitting, and hope of arriving at ultimate foundations; play of fancy, neglecting the limits of empirical and analytical procedure; confusing hypothesis with reality, imagination with reason, poetry with science ; 4 personal prejudice, scientific bias, generalizing one's own more or less accidental experience; national prejudice, using one's own national culture 5 as the measure of all values, judging of all cultural achievements by one's own particular standards of enlightenment and taste ° or, on the other hand, a pessimistic denial of all present virtue, throwing the present against an idealized romantic past ; substituting books for life, libraries for social laboratories, literary orthodoxy for social experience, and generally the orthodoxy of books for social reality ; 1 a new terminology and a new form of statement mistaken for new conceptions and discoveries ; 1 PMPS, i, p. 6. F o r a clearer announcement of the need of a sociological method, see quotation infra.

• E s p e c i a l l y H C S , pp. 1-14, i l l et seq.) Buddeberg, op. cit., pp. 614 et seq. 3

PMPS,

* HCS, 6

HCS,

Inst.,

Intro., sec. v.

i, p. 278. pp. 3, 4-

5

PMPS,

pp. i n , 367.

7

Ibid., pp. 43-45.

ii, p. 150; i, p. 312.

See also

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

171

failure, especially in historical reconstructions to note changes in the meaning and connotation of words, for instance ' royal ' and ' noble ' in the days of Charlemagne and of Louis X I V , ' barbarian ' with the Greeks and in present usage ; 1 danger of the group fallacy ; 2 speculative and a priori rather than historical and inductive constructions of primitive society ; 3 organismic analogy ; 4 ' post hoc, ergo propter hoc' and confusion of mere conjunction with causation; hasty generalization, as when we infer universal human traits from the habits of only one people; 5 substituting a part for the whole or the whole for a part, as when every Greek is expected to be an Aristotle or a Pericles, or Mr. Smith must have particular ways because he is English, or as though me might judge the Italian people from a certain fruit vender, or the Russians from a certain anarchist we may chance to know ; β limitations of the socio-genetic method, vainly hoping to get at the actual beginnings of things, or at the sources of dispositions, rather than first establishing their reality and consequences ; 7 the danger of " abstraction " as when we conceive the "faculties" of the human mind as independent organs or functions. In this latter we have one of Ferguson's subtlest methodological discriminations. Such abstraction may be convenient, even necessary, "but there is a caution to be observed in the use of abstractions . . . : That they be not mistaken for realities, nor obtruded for historical facts "." Thus the state of nature, e.g., is not the natural state of man, but a mere abstraction made for the same purpose for which abstractions are commonly made in the pursuit of science ; that we may have a distinct view of cer1

HCS., pp. 117, 290.

* Ibid., pp. 312, 323.

2

3

Ibid., p. 85. » Ibid., pp. 24, 70.

* Ibid., p. 4 et al. ; PMPS, i, p. 196.

Ibid., pp. 109-112. · Ibid., p. 287.

8

PMPS, ii, p. 265.

ADAM

172

FERGUSON

tain considerations separately taken, before we proceed to view them as combined in the aggregate forms under which they are actually presented in nature. 1 A s author's prefaces are, however, not s a f e guides to their solid achievement, it remains to ask what specific methods Ferguson employs, and how well he avoids the pit-falls he w a r n s his fellows of.

Besides the limitations already

indicated, the f o l l o w i n g may be particularly noted. First, there is the absence, frequently, of a severely logical, critical, systematic, presentation.

Particularly in the earlier

" E s s a y " , he usually speaks to the point immediately before him without integration of the position taken with other aspects of the problem elsewhere treated; thus conveying at least the impression of inconsistency or of one-sided views. His chapter on the influence of climate and situation may serve as example. A g a i n his treatment of a subject is o f t e n very brief, stating his position with insight and usually with ample historical proofs or illustrations, but without pursuing the analysis critically or intensively, so that w e are at a loss to know whether w e have merely his abbreviated lecture notes, or all he had to say on the subject. A n o t h e r stricture, is, as Leslie Stephen with some justice points out, that his argument is o f t e n inconclusive. 2

H e at-

tacks a problem as f o r instance the causes of national decay, and discourses at some length upon it, but in the end leaves the question unanswered, referring it merely to some factor that is really but another w a y of stating the question to be answered. Finally, it must be pointed out here that while his conception of society is essentially psychological, he yet does not have, could hardly have had in his time, a psychological 1

PMPS,

2

Stephen, Leslie, Hist, of English Thought, vol. ii, p. 215.

ii, p. 265.

Cf. i, p. 19s et seq.

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

173

method that was much more than an introspective analysis of feeling states and drives with little possibility of checking up. His interest in comparative psychology and the psychology of habit mark an exception to this statement. 1 Notwithstanding these limitations, it may still be said with emphasis that Ferguson is basically empirical in his method, even where he freely joins a deductive with an inductive procedure, and that many elements in his method point significantly to the future. This will appear first of all in his data for generalization. Ferguson draws upon a wide, and for the time reasonably critical knowledge of history, ably reconstructed into a thing of life by means of an understanding of present historic processes. This applies primarily to Roman history, but understanding references to Medieval and Modern history are not absent. His use of ethnological materials, which is one of the most significant elements in his writing, has been previously noted.2 He was, moreover, a keen observer of contemporary life particularly in its economic and political aspects, and despite his tendency to moralize, showed an almost uncanny understanding of the spirit of industrialism. Finally, it remains true that he was a keen psychologist and a sympathetic observer of the ways of men 2 ; and such observations, though not made in the laboratory, may still be valid data for generalization. In analyzing these materials Ferguson first of all views man on the background of the organic and especially the animal world, to whose laws his behavior conforms. Mind is distinct from the organism, yet their relation is so intimate that materialistic interpretations of behavior fail entirely to disturb him ; since these " cannot make any change in the state of his history i.e., the facts of hevavior remain 1

Supra, pp. 67-74. Cf. Edinb. Review, loc. cit., p. 67.

Î74

ADAM

FERGUSON

the same. 1 " Mind as well as body has its laws " he says, referring to order in the development of literary forms, " which are exemplified in the practice of men, and which the critic collects only after the example has shown what they are ", 2 Periodicity in culture and the life of nations seems to follow the necessity of some kind of ' physical ' laws of nature, and yet it is recognized that the organismic analogy of childhood, youth and age often applied to this phenomenon, can in the very nature of society be nothing more than an analogy, likely to mislead.* Volitions do not take place in a vacuum, and yet it is " the distinction of living natures to carry the principle of active exertion in themselves. T h e y are subject to pressure from external causes and are acted upon ; but they also act and urge to an end whether to gain an advantage or to remove an inconvenience ".* Events . . . in the course of human affairs are never determinable in the same manner with the events that regularly succeed one another in the mechanical system of nature. We know precisely at what hour the sun will rise tomorrow; but what action the caprice and passion may lead a human being to perform at that or any other hour, is more than human foresight can reach with a confidence above that of mere conjecture. 5 1HCS, pp. 67 et seq. The passage deserves quoting : " . . . . the materialist, by treating man as an engine cannot make any change in the state of his history. He is a being who, by a multiplicity of organs, performs a variety of functions. His joints are bent, and his muscles contract in our sight; the heart beats in his breast, and the blood flows to every part of his frame. He performs other operations which we cannot refer to any corporeal organ. He perceives, he recollects, and forecasts ; he desires and he shuns ; he admires and contemns. He enjoys his pleasures and endures his pain, etc."

* HCS, p. 258. *Ibid., pp. 178, 312, 323. 'Ibid., i, p. 346; cf. p. 311.

4

PMPS,

i, p. 12.

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

175

And yet, both by nature and habit there is sufficient regularity in human action to enable us to make reasonable adjustments in life and society.1 But if Ferguson thus accepts mechanism in principle, his work is still characterized by an essentially humanistic approach, to the extent at times of a decidedly spiritualistic interpretation. H e is after all avowedly Stoic and not Epicurean. 2 In historical generalization, is should be just as frankly stated that Ferguson never intends his method to be purely an inductive one, as it may be emphatically denied that it is primarily a deductive one. It can only be said that it was to no considerable extent a priori. A rather frankly deductive procedure is occasionally permitted, as in this passage : " In some such manner . . . may we trace the outlines of jurisprudence or compulsory law from a first principle in nature as we pursue series of mathematical theorems from an axiom or definition previously assumed or understood ". But a qualification immediately follows ; " O u r theories in either case no way effect the physical state of things otherwise than they are applicable by assumption of circumstances or by some degree of approximation in the cases which actually take place." * No doubt he is frequently guilty of basing conclusions on too few data, for instance in his cyclical conception of history, the dangers of imperial expansion, the corruption that must almost necessarily follow industrialization, etc., where too much seems to be inferred from Roman and from recent English experiences; but that is another matter. Many of his finest methodological distinctions have to do with historical reconstruction, rather than with sociological analysis, and can therefore be only briefly indicated. There 1

Supra, pp. 73 et seq., 164 et seq.

»Ibid., ii, pp. 315-16; cf. H CS, p. 95.

2

PMPS, i, Intro. ; ii, p. 5.

ADAM

176

FERGUSON

is real historical acumen in sefeing in the Crusades the spirit of barbarism " that led them to the East to share with the Tartars in the spoil of the Saracen empire " , " more perhaps than reverence for the cross " 1 and in seeing essential barbarism in much of ' the glory that was Greece '.* His realism in reconstructing Greek and Roman history is at least remarkable and his parody of a modern ethnologisttraveler in ancient Greece is Swiftian in all but exaggeration.* There is appreciation of the need of critical use of historical records and of the possibility of using poetry, myth, legend, and historical writing itself for their indirect evidence of facts, tastes, and attitudes. " Fiction may be admitted to vouch for the genius of nations while history has nothing to offer that is entitled to credit. The Greek fable accordingly conveying a character of its authors throws light on an age of which no other record remains ", 4 The need of historical imagination, the danger of seeing other ages too much through the lenses of the present, are appreciated ; as are the qualities shown by those sublime and intelligent writers [Greek and Roman historians] " who understood human nature and could collect its features, and exhibit its characters in every situation A people's culture must be viewed in the light of its own situation and of its national genius; 6 and, as already seen, the life of primitive people must be constructed historically and not on the basis of one theory or another of the ' state of nature V Of more distinctly sociological methods some have already been mentioned in this chapter, others such as the socio-genetic and evolutionary approach, the broadly comparative point of view, the psychological approach, have been treated in 1

HCS,

p. 146.

2

Ibid., pp. 146 et seq.

* Ibid., pp. 1 1 3 , 215, 299. β

PMPS,

7

Ibid., pp. ι , m ; PMPS,

» Ibid., pp. 291 et seq. o Ibid., p.

i, pp. 214 et seq. ; HCS, pt. iv, secs, iti, iv. i, pp. 189 et seq.

115.

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

177

other connections. A few remain to be mentioned or reemphasized here. First may be mentioned his recognition o f the methodological advantage of drawing our observations concerning the social disposition of men from the example of men living in the simplest conditions and who " have not yet learned to affect what they do not feel " 1 Apparently he would also extend this to the study of institutions. Y e t the limitations are clearly recognized. His use of the principle of " contemporary ancestry " with its limitations not specifically pointed out, may be given in his own words. Thucydides, notwithstanding the prejudice of his country against the name Barbarian understood that it was in the customs of barbarous nations that he was to study the more ancient manners of Greece. . . . It is in their [the Americans] present condition that we behold as in a mirror the features of our progenitors; and from thence we are to draw our conclusions with respect to the influence of situations, in which, we have reason to believe, our fathers were placed. If in advanced years we would form a just notion of our progress from the cradle, we must have recourse to the nursery, and from the examination of those who are still in the period of life we mean to describe, take our representation of past manners, that cannot in any other way be recalled.2 T w o related considerations of no small importance for sociological interpretation, are, first, the restraint, or the limitations—in view of the passage just quoted, and of many other passages we can claim no m o r e — w i t h which he uses the principle of unilinear development or monotypical evolution ; 3 and, second, the principle of multiple causation. 1

H CS, p. 26. H CS, pp. 7, h i .

2

Ibid., pp. 118-19; in general, part ii, sec. i.

ADAM

i78

FERGUSON

S o c i a l p h e n o m e n a a n d social development, as appears f r o m an earlier chapter, a r e never explained in terms of a single f a c t o r only.

S e e m i n g exceptions m i g h t be noted, but a study

o f his w o r k as a whole, a n d the frequent citation o f w h o l e series o f causes, sometimes in a single sentence, leaves n o doubt o f his real position. 1 M u c h m o r e central to his w h o l e interpretation is w h a t has been

styled his

' principle

of

adequate

function \2

Ex-

pressed in his o w n w o r d s , . . . w e are to take the history of every active being f r o m his conduct in the situation to which he is formed, not f r o m his appearance in any forced or uncommon condition ; a wild man therefore, caught in the woods where he had always lived apart f r o m his species, is a singular instance and not a specimen of any general character. A s the anatomy of an eye, which had never received the impression of light, of an ear which had never felt the impulse, would probably exhibit defects in the very structure of the organ themselves, arising f r o m their not being applied to their proper functions, so any particular case of this sort would only show in what degree the powers of apprehension and sentiment could exist where they had not been employed, and what would be the defects and imbecilities of a heart in which the emotions that pertain to society had never been felt. Mankind are to be taken in groups, as they have always subsisted. T h e history of the individual is but a detail of the sentiments and thoughts he has entertained in the view of his species; and every experiment relative to this subject should be made with entire societies, not with single men. . . . 3 T h e w i d e r implications o f this principle are, o f

course,

that m e n a r e t o be studied in g r o u p s , that the part is to be seen in relation t o the whole, e v e r y o r g a n in relation t o its f u n c t i o n , e v e r y institution in relation t o the w h o l e culture, 1

HCS, pp. 188, 284.

a

HCS, p. 5. Cf. PMPS,

2

i, p. 49-

Cf. Buddeberg, op. cit.

METHODICAL

SUMMARY

179

the action of every individual in relation, on the one hand, to his own life history, and on the other to the national genius of his group. A man's mental traits are viewed as a function of his particular experiences, skills and place in society. It needs then to be re-emphasized here that Ferguson not only saw the need of studying the individual in his social relationships, but of studying many individuals in association, or if we will, of studying group behavior, social institutions, society, as such. This of course would mark a difference between social psychology and sociology 1 and so is of first rate significance for the question of Ferguson's place in the history of sociology. That Ferguson makes this distinction and sees its significance there can be no doubt, and that his analysis is often so directed it would not be difficult to prove ; that, however, his analysis is completely dominated by this viewpoint, as Buddeberg maintains, 2 seems to the present writer a slight over statement of the facts; that he not only methodologically but ' ontologically ' exalts society above the individual, as Huth would seem to claim, 8 is too plainly flying into the face, as we believe to have established in the previous chapter, of much evidence that Ferguson remained frankly individualist, as well he might, even in his finest sociological generalizations. W e count it sufficient to have shown that Ferguson perceived clearly the fact and meaning of society and applied to the analysis of its nature and origins a scientific method that was basically sound, even if not intensely developed. W e are therefore prepared now to leave the analysis of his writings and to turn to the question of his place in the history of social theory. 1

Giddings, Scientific Study, p. 11.

2

Buddeberg, op. cit., pp. 619 et seq.

' H u t h , op. cit., pp. I47-IS4·

PART II FERGUSON'S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL THEORY

CHAPTER

XIII

ORIGINS AND ANTECEDENTS

WE have heretofore confined ourselves almost exclusively to our major task of analyzing Ferguson's writings from a sociological point of view. W e must now address ourselves, to the question of Ferguson's place in the history of sociological speculation and of social scientific endeavor; and first of all to that of his more immediate antecedents, of the foundations on which he built, and of the extent to which his work may represent an independent contribution to the subject. Ferguson seldom quotes authorities, 1 and most of his references even to such writers as may be under review, are implicit rather than explicit. In the introduction to the " Principles " he does himself say, There is not perhaps in this collection any leading thought or principle of moment that may not be found in the writings of others; and if the author knew where, he might have been as well employed in pointing them out as in compiling this book. . . . The object is not novelty, but benefit to the student.2 And again, The author in some of the statements which follow may be thought partial to the Stoic philosophy; but is not conscious 1 Cf. also Warren, A History of Associational Psychology, N e w Y o r k , 1921, p. 161, footnote. W h a t is further suggested there about the neglect of psychology by the historians of philosophy applies equally to social theory.

' Ρ MPS,

vol. i, p. 8. 183

ADAM

FERGUSON

of having warpt the truth to suit with any system whatever. His notions are taken up where certainly truth might be found, however little it were formed into a system by those from whom it was collected.1 Writing of the varieties of political establishment, he says, When I recollect what the President Montesquieu has written, I am at a loss to tell why I should treat of human affairs ; but I too am instigated by my reflections and my sentiments ; and I may utter them more to the comprehension of ordinary capacity because I am more on the level of ordinary men. . . . In his writing will be found not only the origin of what I am now for the sake of order, to copy from him, but likewise probably the source of many observations, which in different places I may, under the belief of invention, have repeated without quoting their author.2 Ferguson refers frequently, and at times quotes from the classical authors. There is much reason to believe that to Thucydides and Polybius and to a lesser extent to Xenophon, Caesar, Tacitus and Livy he is indebted not only for his materials, but also for many suggestions towards a sociological method.* The evolutionary conceptions of Lucretius would of course be familiar to him, though in ethical theory he leaned more upon such Stoics as Antoninus and Epictetus. The many writers he is indebted to for their accounts of the manners of primitive and other remote peoples can have offered him suggestions at least in what might be termed descriptive sociology.4 Of modern writers he refers to, we may note Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, Locke, Malebranche, Mandeville, Shaftsbury, Hutcheson, Harris, Berkeley, Bolingbroke, Pope, Dalrymple, Clarke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon ; * PMPS, vol. i, p. 7. 2 HCS, p. 96. 'Ibid., pp. 115-118, 155, 267, etc.; cf. Giddings, Studies, •Above'all Lafitau. Cf. sufra, p. 59, note.

p. 10+

ORIGINS

AND

ANTECEDENTS

185

and among his nearer contemporaries Hume, Reid, Smith, Robertson, Kames (Henry Home). Of these Hobbes and Rousseau seem to be most under attack; Shaftsbury and Hume most favorably quoted. If now with the synopsis of Ferguson's position in mind as previously given 1 we critically pursue the question, What are his antecedents ? What the foundations upon which he built ? the answer is not an easy one, but in general it must be said, They are more varied and more broadly laid than would at once appear, and the picture we have drawn of his background in an earlier chapter,2 will need considerable correction, or more accurately, filling in. Certainly to consider him merely the retailer of Montesquieu would prove far amiss.' A t any rate we may at once add that the closer student will find two of the chief foundation stones of a sociological approach broadly and firmly laid considerably before Ferguson's time. One is, to treat human affairs, not necessarily by the methods of the physical sciences, though it often amounted to that, but at least in a thoroughly mundane way and on broadly mechanistic assumptions, i.e., with a fairly consistent application of the principles of inherent causality. Bodin, 4 Hobbes, Temple,5 Spinoza, Vico, Berkeley,* Montesquieu, Diderot, and of course Hume, are after all but outstanding reprepsentatives, or at best initiators of a tendency. The fact that the 17th century was pre-eminently an age of 1

Supra, pp. 25 et seq.

2

Supra, end of ch. ii.

' Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii, pp. 214 et seq.; Laski, H. J., Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham ( Ν . Y., 1920), pp. 134 et seq. ' F l i n t , Historical Philosophy in Europe ( Ν . Y . , 1894), ch. i. * From the point of view of Ferguson's background perhaps the philosopher-statesman Sir William Temple (1628-1699) deserves to head this list. See his Essay upon the Original and Nature of Government, and the chapters on the " people and dispositions " and on " trade " in Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands. β

Barnes, Sociology before Comte, p. 23a

186

ADAM

FERGUSON

scientific endeavor and scientific interest, at least in the physical sciences, is of course well known, but that at the same time, and particularly with the turning of the century, the same spirit was directed toward affairs psychological, political, economic, has often been obscured by the fear of metaphysics, and required such timely reminders as those of Thorndike 1 and particularly Randall 2 in The Making of the Modern Mind. That its method was still often prevailingly deductive, does not at all detract from this movement. It was a most serious effort of men to know and rationally to comprehend the world in which they lived and of which they were a part. The other foundation stone was a recognition of the fact of society, in the sense at least of a group life, if not always of organized association. Not only were men enquiring— shall we say anew?—into human life in various of its group aspects, but there was the dawn at least of an effort to comprehend society in its entirety. Not that men were making this a central principle of interpretation or even always clearly saw " the problem of society " the solution of which " must be based on a natural and civil history, combined with a philosophy of the collective life of man ". This, as Merz says, " does not seem to have been recognized before the latter half of the i8th century ". 3 The subject was broached in the study of particular problems, but except possibly in ethics it can hardly be said to have been faced squarely in its own stead. If, then, we take, first, Ferguson's treatment of particular subjects, we find the way generally prepared. For instance, there is no need whatever, in their treatment of the division ' Thorndike, L. Α., Short History of Civilization,

New Y o r k , 1926.

* Randall, The Making of the Modern Mind, bk. iii. 5 Merz, History of European Thought in the içth and Edinburgh, 1914, vol. iv, pp. 420 et seq.

Century,

London

ORIGINS AND

ANTECEDENTS

187

of labor to assume so close an interdependence between Ferguson and Adam Smith, as has often been done,1 when we remember the attention that has been given to the subject not only by Plato and the ancients, but by Comenius, Locke, Mandeville, Petty, Harris, Hutcheson, Berkeley, Turgot, the Encyclopedists, James Steuart, or for that matter even by Hume. 2 T o be sure, the principle received .psychological development, and was made central to the industrial-economic process by Ferguson and Smith as had never been done before ; but the subject is all but new. Ferguson makes a distinct advance in applying it to the whole of societal functioning and development—and decadence as well—in a way that definitely anticipates, if it does not influence, in order, St. Simon, Comte, Spencer and Durkheim." •Marx, also Das 283, 285. Ferguson (Leipzig,

The Poverty of Philosophy (Chicago, 1910), pp. 130 et seq.; Kapital; Buecher, Industrial Evolution ( N e w Y o r k , 1901), pp. On Adam Smith's charge of plagiarism and the alleged Smithcontroversy see Oncken, in Zeitschrift fuer Sozialwissenschaft 1909), pp. 132-133; also Dug. Stewart, Works, vol. x, p. 66.

1 Huth, op. cit., pp. 30-34; Hasbach, Untersuchungen; Adam Smith, Lectures. Mandeville deserves to be quoted here. "And what a bustle is there to be made in several parts of the world before a fine scarlet or crimson cloth can be produced, what multiplicity of trades and artificers must be employed ! Not only such as are obvious, as wool-combers, spinners, the weaver, the cloth-worker, the scourer, the dyer, the setter, the drawer and the packer; but others that are more remote and might seem foreign to it, as the mill-wright, the pewterer, and the chemist, which yet are all necessary, as well as a great number of other handicrafts to have the tools, utensils and other implements belonging to the trades already named." " If one will wholly apply himself to the making of bows and arrows, while another provides food, a third builds huts, a fourth makes garments, and a fifth utensils, they not only become useful to one another, but the callings themselves will in the same number of years receive much greater improvements than if all had been promiscuously followed by every one of the five."—Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, quoted in Smith, Lectures (Oxford, 1896), pp. 162, 167. 3 Supra, pp. 107-11. Spencer, The Study of Sociology pp. 300 et seq. Cf. Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte (3-4 ed., 1921), pp. 168, 603, 629 et seq.

( N . Y., 1873), als Soziologie

χ 88

ADAM

FERGUSON

In his treatment of population 1 the same applies. We need again but turn to James Steuart, Montesquieu, or to Hume's essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations to realize that the subject had a wide contemporary interest and that an increase of numbers was prevailingly considered desirable. A n d if we note such writers as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Aquinas, Ibn Kaldun, even Luther, Bodin, and many writers among the Mercantilists and the Physiocrats we realize the subject is by no means a new one. 2 Similarly, the subject of geographic and climatic determinism was anything but new with Montesquieu as the whole tone of Hume's attack on the subject 3 amply suggests. Theories of geographic and climatic influence, if not determism were not only " in the air " then, but were made much of whenever men sought a rational interpretation of historical phenomena.* It remains only true that in the absence of a psychological orientation, Montesquieu resorts more perhaps than any other writer to such an external principle of social interpretation, 5 and that even with such an orientation Ferguson in one chapter somewhat uncritically follows h i m — apparently oblivious of the suggestion that Hume might have contained for him." 1

Supra, pp. 125, 140.

* Duncan, " Changing Conceptions of Population," in Publications of American Sociological Society, vol. xxi, pp. 113 et seq.] Carr-Sounders, The Population Problem (Oxford, 1922), pp. 17-27; Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories, pp. 357 et seq. ; Strangeland, C. E., " PreMalthusian Doctrines of Population," Columbia Studies, vol. xxi, no. 3. * Hume, Essays on National Characters. Original and Nature of Government.

Cf. also, Essay upon the

'Thomas, F., The Environmental Basis of Society, N. Y., 1925; Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 99 et seq. 6 Note attack already made on him by Turgot. ed.), p. 268.

* Supra, pp. 95-98 ; HCS, pt. iii, sec. i.

Flint, op. cit. ( 1894

ORIGINS

AND

ANTECEDENTS

189

Ferguson's emphasis on technological and economic factors as a mainspring of social evolution 1 is after all one widely current in his day, is found in fact in some form in almost all the writers of the time who have occasion to deal with the subject. It has a hoste of antecedents among ancient and medieval writers, and more recently may be mentioned at least, outstandingly Harrington and Raynal. 2 It seems furthermore to be peculiarly grounded—without confirming the theory—in the economic history of the time and in the attention given to matters economic in both social science and public policy. His discussion of the role of conflict in social life is not so clearly anticipated. O f course the prevalence of such conflict had been frequently enough stressed, if it needed stressing; witness only Machiavelli, Hobbes, Mandeville; and its meaning clearly enough indicated by even so ancient a writer as Heraclitus in his famous " polemos pater pantön ",* But aside from Bodin, 4 whom Ferguson may have known, its deeper significance for society seems to have been little noticed, except negatively as necessitating co-operation, to avoid its destructive consequences and its inconveniences. Mandeville saw in self-seeking not only the modus operandi but the sine qua non of economic life and progress, and of any tolerable social existence. 5 Hume appreciated the role of force in state building. But Ferguson's emphasis on con1

Su¡>ra, pp. 107-11.

* Cf. Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 514 et seq. 5

" W a r is the father of all things."

Vide especially Lichtenberger, Development of Social Theory 1923), pp. 167, 434. Exception might also be made of Hobbes. 4

(N. Y.,

4 Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees ; cf. Windelband, Gesch. der Neueren Philosophie, vol. i, pp. 285-287; Huth, op. cit., passim; Hasbach, Phil. Gründl., pp. m , 112; Rogers, A . K. ( " T h e Ethics of Mandeville," in International Journal of Ethics, Chicago, October, 1925; Stephen, L., op. cit., vol. ii, ch. ix, sec. iii.

ADAM

FERGUSON

flict, though probably inspired by his Stoic ideal and by the warrior spirit in Roman history, seems to have been an original one. W h e n we come to things more central and first of all to his organic conception of society, his sense of the essential oneness of society, of the interdependence of all institutions and the vital interpénétration of all functions, and of the continuity in the midst of a division of labor in time, he stands also on relatively new ground. Mandeville appreciates something of this is the Fable of the Bees with its albeit somewhat materialistic view of the relation of economic life and moral action. The conception is not at all absent from Shaftsbury, though his interest is chiefly an ethical one, attempting to harmonize self-interest and benevolence in the individual in relation to society, rather than to understand the collective life of mankind. 1 It is distinctly present in Berkeley when he speaks of the " Law of Society " without which " there is no politeness, no order, no peace among men, but the world is one great heap of misery and confusion . . . " ; 2 or when he says that " Loyalty . . . hath, if universally practiced in conjunction with all other virtues, a necessary connection with the well-being of the whole sum of mankind . . .". 8 But here again the same stricture applies. Moreover this unity is found in the " law of nature ", a rational principle derived, essentially from a Newtonian conception of the universe, and seemingly at least, not primarily from a historical experience of interdependence between men and between social functions. This is even more plainly seen where he speaks of a " certain cor1 Shaftesbury, An Enquiry Concerning Virtue, and Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. Cf. Hasbach, Phil. Gründl., ch. ν, secs, ν, vi ; Windelband, op. cit., pp. 275-280.

* Berkeley, Complete 'Ibid.,

p. 112.

Works

(Oxford, 1901), vol. iv, p. n i .

ORIGINS

AND

ANTECEDENTS

191

respondence of the parts, a similitude of operation and unity of design " or of an " attraction whereby [men] are drawn together in communities, clubs, families, friendships, and all the various species of societies " in which we are linked by an imperceptible chain to every individual of the human race " . l In a sense too it is found in Montesquieu when he discovers a natural relationship between forms of government and kinds of societies or social situations. Nor it is conceivable that Ferguson should have failed to be impressed, in spite of their somewhat theological orientation, by Turgot's Academic Discourses, of whose author Flint aptly says, . . . he was quite aware that none of these things [Science, art, government, manners, morality, religion] are developed isolatedly; but that, on the contrary, the position of any one of them at any given time is closely related to that of all the others, and that there is a perpetual reciprocity of influence between all the forces in the social organism, a constant action and reaction of social facts on one another.2 But prior to Hume and Smith such conceptions can hardly be said to receive serious development. Similarly when we enquire into the origin of his conception of the nature of this unity, of the essentally psychological character and foundations of society. Even the intellectualist Hobbes does not deny the operation of passions, though egoistic withal, in human society.*'' Mandeville founds society, especially in its economic aspects, on an inborn tendency of uncompromising egoism. 4 But it remained for Shafts1 Berkeley, op. cit., pp. 186 et seq. Cf. also vol. iv, p. 189, " The good of the whole is inseparable from that of the parts ; in promoting therefore the common good everyone does at the same time promote his own private interest."

•Flint, op. cit. (1894 ed.), p. 284. s

Hobbes, Leviathan, p t i, eh. vi.

See Rand, Classical Moralists

1909), PP· 84-96. * Supra, and Windelband, op. cit., p. 284.

( Ν . Y.,

192

ADAM

FERGUSON

bury, building on the work of Cumberland and himself ably seconded by Hutcheson, to lay the foundations upon which Ferguson essentially builds. 1 N o t in reason, primarily, but in the passions, of which the benevolent are just as real, even though not as strong as the egoistic, and equally a matter of native propensity, do we find the motives of human conduct and the occasion for society. 2 Berkeley, again, conceives the principle of " moral attraction " in a psychological way, even though under the effective analogy, developed in several important directions, of universal gravitation. Social appetite in human souls is the great spring and source of moral actions. . . . This it is that inclines each individual to an intercourse with his species and models everyone to that behavior which best suits with the common well-being. Hence that sympathy in our nature whereby we feel the pains and joys of our fellow creatures. Hence that prevalent love of parents to their children, which is neither founded on the merit of the object nor yet on self-interest. . . . s He appreciates the role of fashion, of fashion imitation, especially in economic life, and their origin in " custom These suggestions we find greatly elaborated by Hume, and by Smith, the pupil of Hutcheson. 5 T h e element of sympathy made so much of by both Hume and Smith, while not absent in Ferguson, is replaced rather by his emphasis on the ' principle of perfection '. In his emphasis on custom and the essentially habitual character of human social life, he 1 1

in

Vide supra, p. 190, note 1. Shaftsbury, An Enquiry Concerning Characteristics.

Virtue of Merit, bk. ii, pts. i, ii,

•Berkeley, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 188-9. * Ibid., vol. iv; The Querist, p. 423, nos. 31, 34, 58, etc. Incidentally Berkeley's Querist is very significant for the historical background of economic theory before Smith. 5

Infra, ch. xiv.

ORIGINS AND

ANTECEDENTS

193

may well have leaned heavily on Hume. In his analysis, however, of the nature of habit, of the learning process, in his sharp distinctions between the learned and the unlearned in human behavior, and particularly in his application of the concept of conditioning to emotional responses, in his recognition of the physiological foundations, or at least correlates, of behavior, in short in the very modern flavor of his genetic analysis of human behavior, we suspect influences more specific than those of Hume. In fact he refers specifically to a remarkable recent development in psychological science.1 He no doubt has in mind the associational psychology. Locke of course laid the foundation, though primarily in the realm of ideas. In 1747 there appeared an essay entitled " An Enquiry into the origin of the Human Appetites and Affections showing how each arises from Association " probably by John Gay (1699-1745), the author in 1 7 3 1 of a " Dissertation on the Fundamental Principles of Virtue ". But it is no doubt in David Hartley ( 1705-57) and to a lesser extent in such of his followers as Abraham Tucker (1705-74) Joseph Priestly (11733-1804), Archibald Alison (17571839), Erasmus Darwin ( 1 7 3 1 - 1 8 0 2 ) , and Thomas Reid (1710-96) that we must look for the background of this side of Ferguson's psychology. Ferguson does not accept the materialism of some of these writers, and generally the philosophical implications of sensationalism, but he seems to advance upon their position and thus to anticipate Thomas Brown (1778-11820) in his application of their principles to the emotions.2 When we come finally to Ferguson's evolutionary conceptions, by which we mean not so much his ' hypothetical hisiPMPS, vol. i, p. 120; also p. 208. See Warren, A History of Associational Psychology, pp. 47,48,70-73 ; Klemm, History of Psychology (Ν. Y., 1914), pp. 38, 92 et seq.; cf. Barnes, H. E., in Sociological Review, 1921, pp. 152. 1

ADAM

194

FERGUSON

tory ' and his construction of its stages, as rather his conception o f the dynamics of social change, as a natural, unitary, integrating and yet differentiating cumulative process, on an essentially psychological plane, we are even more at a loss to find precedents.

W e shall see it to some extent in Robert-

son, H u m e and S m i t h . 1 psychological

aspects,

I t is certainly absent, at least in its in Montesquieu. 2

found some of it in Condillac.

He

might

have

It is not at all likely that

he leaned on the rising generation o f German philosophers and philosophical historians, unless it be the much earlier Leibnitz. 8

It is quite unlikely that he should have known

Vico, or Ibn Kaldun o f a much earlier day ; though he would quite certainly have known Bodin.

O f course he would

know T u r g o t on whom we venture again to quote Flint. . . . T h e Progress of humanity means, according to Turgot, the gradual evolution and elevation of man's nature as a whole, the enlightenment of his intelligence, the expansion and purification of his feelings, the amelioration of the worldly lot, and, in a word, the spread of truth, virtue, liberty, and comfort more and more among all classes of men: and he seeks to prove from the whole history of the past, that as there has been, so will there continue to be such progress, and as a picture of universal history, taken from this high and hopeful point of view, his sketch has never been surpassed, nor do we expect ever will. It is a thing so done that there is no need for doing it again. . . . His view of social progress we say was profound. It was a deep glance into its nature as a process of self-development; as a process the successive phases of which were what they were, because man was so and so made and situated. He 1

Infra,

ch. xiv.

'Flint, op. cit. (1894 ed.), pp. 266 et seq.; cf. Gooch, in Cambridge Mod. Hist., vol. xii, ch. xxvi. * His " perfectionism " has been traced to Leibnitzian sources. Edinburgh Review, January, 1867, p. 80.

ORIGINS

AND

ANTECEDENTS

195

not merely saw the fact of progress, nor that physical and political causes greatly affected it, nor that like every other process it might be referred to the will of the great First Cause, all which had been already seen; but he saw likewise how it was connected with the essential faculties of man, and the constitutive principles of society. No one before had perceived with anything like the same clearness how the mental and spiritual movement in history underlies, pervades, and originates the outwardly visible government. Then, after contrasting him with the rationalist and often inconsistent Condorcet, and the faulty methods of Montesquieu, Flint continues : . . . he lays down as a principle to be followed in this order of researches that physical causes being indirect and secondary, or in other words causes which act in and through mental qualities, natural or acquired, ought not to be had recourse to until mental causes have been fully taken into account.1 In spite of important differences we cannot but suspect an important influence here. There are many points of remarkable similarity, though Turgot's is f a r the more sweeping, comprehensive conception. With these exceptions and in the absence of proof to the contrary, we cannot but quote, approvingly in the main, Breysig, when from our present point of view he calls Ferguson the first great systematic sociologist ( Systematiker der Soziologie), far more clear than Vico, and yet equally rich in thought; far superior to Montesquieu when in his " Essay " of 1767 he is the first to present an orderly survey of the foundations of a science of society. . . . It cannot be sufficiently emphasized 1 Flint, op. cit. (1874 ed.), pp. 1 1 0 - 1 1 3 ; cf. 1894 ed., pp. 282 et seq.; also Teggert, Theory of History, pp. 181-184.

ΐ φ

ADAM

FERGUSON

that Ferguson was the first fully and clearly to grasp (erfassen) the principle of evolution. . . . As a pure empiricist in the highest sense, his is perhaps the first enunciation of an approach that today dominates the leaders alike among the naturalists and among the students of the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften). 1 Ludwig Stein is somewhat more judicious when he asserts that sociologically, Ferguson's History of Civil Society is infinitely superior to Montesquieu. It remained for Ferguson to achieve real sociological depth by making the socio-psychic aspect of human nature the object of investigation, by striking a balance between egoism, altruism, and self-appraisal, and by giving us the first rough draught of a natural history of human society.2 Even so brief and inadequate a survey must convince us that Ferguson exemplifies his own theory in building on a whole train of antecedents, not least of them the classical writers; but yet, his disclaimer of originality notwithstanding, and stimulated by events as well as by ideas, really building; building in his own way; building after a pattern that the structure of social theory had never presented before. But before finally evaluating his work, and before enqiring whether he builded also into the future, it will be necessary also to enquire into the society of builders of which he was but a part and with whose members, true to theory, he must have stood in reciprocal relations. 1 Breysig, K., Die Zukunft, 19 Jahrg. 1897, no. 33, pp. 347 et seq. ; cf. ΡΡ· 295, 343· Ferguson did not himself make the biological application. That there is here a " slight " exaggeration, need hardly be remarked.

* Stein, Ludwig, Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophie, 3rd and 4th ed. (Stuttgart, 1923), p. 354. Vide supra, quotation on fly-leaf.

CHAPTER AMONG

XIV

H I S CONTEMPORARIES

NOT often was such a brilliant group of men gathered together in such intimate association in an ' out of the way ' corner of the earth, and in some of its members at least, destined to wield so tremendous an influence over posterity, as the group that gathered in and about 'Scotia's darling seat' in the third quarter of the i8th century and immediately after. 1 For the study of society they were little less important than for the study of history, of politics, or of the intricacies of the human mind. DAVID HUME

(17II-I776)

O f these the elder contemporary on whom Ferguson perhaps most strongly leaned, has seldom been adequately appreciated from a sociological point of view. Hume the metaphysician and epistemologist, even Hume the political philosopher, the ethicist and the psychologist has been much studied. Hume the economist has been obscured by the more intensive and systematic work of his justly famous friend and pupil, 2 and the historian, by the none too great success of 1 Supra, ch. i, biographical references. A l s o Morrow, " The Ethical and Economic Theories of Adam Smith," in Cornell Studies in philosophy, no. 13, 1923, p. 1 ; Stewart, Works, vol. x , pp. 109-10, 205-7; Stephen, L., English Literature and Society in the 18th Century (London, 1904), p. 215. 1 W e mean by this only to imply that Smith was even in his economic speculations f a r more influenced by Hume than has usually been recognized. Dug. Stewart, Works, vol. x , pp. xlvii, 42, 66; Merz, History of European Thought, etc., vol. iv, p. 456.

197

198

ADAM

FERGUSON

his own " History ". The Hume who combined a penetrating psychology with a thorough-going historicism in a searching, though never systematically presented interest in social origins, in comparative institutions, in the foundations of society, the Hume shall we say of " A Natural History of Religion " has only now and then been seen.1 His appreciation of the fact and universality of society is significant but not even for his time unique or new.2 Its foundations in the nature of man, particularly in the sex urge (leading to the foundation of the family) and in sympathy, but also in necessity and convenience; and its priority to the state and to any form of contractual society, are clearly grasped. 8 His social psychology of sympathy and its relation to group life and social organization has been appreciated by none more, perhaps, than by Dr. Giddings. 4 The essentially sociological, or at least socio-psychological character of his ethics should not be obscured by his tendency frequently enough to lose himself in introspective analysis. 5 More important is it to note his recognition of the essentially habitual, non-organic, and within limits sub-rational character of human associative life.® Custom or habit, as 'Windelband, op. cit., esp. pp. 349-357; Hasbach, Untersuchungen, and Phil. Gründl. ; Wachler, Die Geschichte der Historischen Wissenschaften, quoted in Hasbach, Untersuchungen, pp. 301 et seq., 324; Kuno Fischer, quoted ibid., p. 306-7 ; Barnes, Sociology before Comte ; Teggert, Theory of History; Smith, A. L., in Cambridge Modern History, vol. vi, p. 821. 1

The following is typical. " The mutual dependence of men is so great in all societies, that scarcely any human action is complete in itself, or is performed without some reference to the actions of others, which are requisite to make it answer fully the intention of the agent." The philosophical Works of David Hume (4 vols., Boston, 1864), vol. iv, p. 100. ' Ibid., iv, p. 269 ; ii, pp. 250, 255. •Giddings, Principles of Sociology 8

(N. Y., 1896), pp. 6, 10.

Works, vol. iv, pp. 189-226.

•Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 17s et seq., 351, 347.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

opposed to reason, is not only one of the basic principles of all mental life, but " the great guide of all human life. 1 It is made a primary foundation of society. Man born into a family is compelled to maintain society from necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit.2 . . . custom and habit, operating on the tender minds of the children, make them sensible of the advantages which they may reap from society, as well as fashions them by degrees for it by rubbing off those rough corners and untoward affections which prevent their coalition.3 . . . the bulk of mankind [are] governed by authority, not reason, and never [attributing] authority to anything that has not the recommendation of antiquity.* In the main each new generation " conform themselves to the established constitution, and nearly follow the path which their fathers, treading in the footsteps of theirs, had marked out to them ". 5 National characters are but characteristic customs, manners, modes of thought and sentiment and action, that have at some time been originated, that have spread by a contagion or sympathetic imitation, and that in the main are unquestioningly followed by the members of each particular group.® In other words, there is here something distinctly more than merely a forshadowing of what is most fully expressed by the term " folkways " ; i.e. a set of habitual or customary ways, highly divergent f r o m folk to folk and from time to time, yet each serving as a more or less absolute standard within the particular group. This finds vigorous expression in his well known and 1

Works,

vol. iv, pp. 50-52 ; vol. ii, pp. 175 et seq.

* Ibid., vol. iii, p. 34. * Ibid., vol. ii, p. 251 ; also vol. iii, pp. 223, 497. 4

Ibid., vol. iii, p. 546.

5

Ibid., p. 506.

* Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 222 et seq. ; vol. iv, pp. 405 et seq.

200

ADAM

FERGUSON

crushing attack upon the contract theory of society and the state, in which incidentally F e r g u s o n is easily foreshadowed. 1 It also issues logically in his appreciation of the character and foundations of national differences. T h e r e is, to be sure, also in H u m e the i8th century emphasis on the universal elements in social life. It is universally acknowledged that there is a greater uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the same in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions ; the same events follow from the same causes. . . . Would you know the sentiments, inclinations and course of life of the Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and actions of the French and English. . . . Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is ever to discover the constant and universal principles in human nature by showing men in all varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with the materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behavior. . . . B u t he hastens t o add, W e must not however expect that this uniformity of human actions should be carried to such a length as that all men in the same circumstances will always act precisely in the same manner without making any allowance for diversity of characters, prejudices and opinions. . . . [From differences in manners in different ages and countries we learn] the great force of custom and education which mold the human mind from its infancy, and form it into a fixed and established character. . . . A r e actions of the same person much diversified in different periods of his life from infancy to old age? This affords room 1 Works, vol. ii, pp. 249 et seq., 306 et seq. ; vol. iii, pp. 34 et seq., 119 et seq., 294 et seq., 494 et seq.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

20I

for many general observations concerning the gradual change of our sentiments and inclinations, and the different maxims which prevail in different ages of human creatures.1 T h e appreciation of the " manners and customs of different ages ", 2 of the fact " that each nation has a peculiar set of manners ", 3 making it absurd to " try a Greek or Roman by the common law of England, . . . rendering odious or ridiculous, manners even the most innocent and reasonable, i f measured by a standard unknown to the persons ",* is most vividly set forth in " A Dialogue ", 5 In ethics this leads to a sweeping moral relativity, characterized not by chaos or indifference but governed by a utilitarian principle. A quality is rocemmended by its being "useful or agreeable, to a man himself or to others ".* Practically this calls for a certain urbane or cosmopolitan outlook, f o r a morality that is no longer custom-bound. In sociological explanation it is admitted that " chance has a great influence on national manners ; and many events happen in society which are not to be accounted for by general rules ". 7 A n d yet, particularly in the essay " O n National Characters " an explanation is offered. There is first of all a vigorous, extended, and yet judicious attack on " physical causes " (physical environmental theories) of which he is much " inclined to doubt altogether of their operation in this particular ". 8 Instead he offers explanations along psychological and cultural lines. There is the presence of sympathy and the imitativeness of the human mind and the communication of manners," the contagion of passions, the occasions 1

Works, vol. iv, pp. 94-97.

a

Ibid., vol. iii, p. 217.

« Ibid., pp. 395 et seq. 'Ibid.,

2

Ibid., p. 402.

* Ibid., vol. iv, p. 402. * Ibid., p. 409.

vol. iii, p. 220; vol. ii, p. 52.

Ibid., p. 413.

This essay was published in the

same year as Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, 1748. *Ibid., vol. ii, p. 52.

7

202

ADAM

FERGUSON

of defense, commerce and government, with the use of a common language. 1 There are varieties of temper, varieties of circumstantial combinations of traits and characters, the impressibility of youth. " Whatever it be that forms the manners of one generation, the next must imbibe a deeper tincture of the same dye ; men being more susceptible of all impressions during infancy, and retaining these impressions as long as they remain in the world ". 2 Specifically there is the influence of extensive governments, of small contiguous governments ; national boundaries often of a physical nature are admitted; presence or absence of means of intimate communication ; circumstantial barriers such as language and religion; great alterations in government; mixtures of new people or " that inconstancy to which all human affairs are subject " ; close international communication " by policy, commerce, or traveling " ; forms of government ; forms of religion. All these enter not only constitutively, but dynamically or factorally into the shaping of national characters.3 These ' manners of life ', then, in thought and conduct and institutional organization, have some way come into being; they are still ever undergoing change. Speculative opinions are in a constant flux and revolution ; " While judgements of manners, sentiments of approbation and blame, to which the mind from long custom has been familiarized, are often changed only by violent effort ".* Casual adaptations grow gradually into institutions. All institutions arise by gradual steps from simple beginnings, in response to need and by human conventions that are yet something less than contracts or promises.5 Foresight, planning, a contractual basis of society are not denied, but their importance, historically, is 1 1

Works, vol. iii, pp. 222, 223.

2

Ibid.

Entire essay, " O f National Characters."

* Works, vol. iii, p. 271.

β

Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 256 et seq.

AMONG HIS minimized. 1

CONTEMPORARIES

203

T h e evolution of the state follows principally

the lines of force. 2

T h a t of the state and that of the eco-

nomic order are intimately related.*

Education, custom and

example, the opportunities and demands of industry and commerce and the resulting zest of active l i v i n g ; the refinements of the liberal arts; sociability and h u m a n i t y ; laws, order, police, discipline, liberty and the public w e a l ; — a l l these are not only intimately interrelated, they all enter together into a more or less unified evolutionary process. " . . .

industry,

knowledge and humanity are linked together by an indissoluble chain and are found f r o m experience as well as f r o m reason to be peculiar to the more polished and what are commonly denominated the more luxurious ages ".* Specifically political and economic questions, commerce, the rise of the arts, the origin and f o r m s of the state, " T h e Populousness of Ancient Nations " , are as a rule treated both in their static and in their dynamic aspects with a broad sociological orientation. H u m e ' s limitations as a historian have been frequently remarked, and rightly so ; 5 and yet fundamentally H u m e was historically minded, far beyond, f o r instance, A d a m Smith, alike in his insight into social origins, his evolutionism and his 1

psycho-historic

realism. 9

As

Kuno

Fischer

says,

Works, vol. iii, p. 503 ; vol. iv, pp. 494 et seq.

*Ibid., vol. iii, p. 500. 'Ibid., 4

vol. ii, pp. 306 et seq.; vol. iii, pp. 119 et seq., 379-283, 294-308.

Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 297-8.

5 Black, J. B., The Art of History. Leslie Stephen (op. cit., vol. ii, p. 180; vol. i, pp. 56-59) is obviously unfair to Hume when, confusing his methodological with a moral or practical scepticism, he accuses him in matters historical and political of trying to make a rope of sand-

• Windelband, loc. cit. ; Teggert, op. cit., pp. 178 et seq. ; Randall, The Making of the Modem Mind, p. 272; Hasbach, Grundlagen, p. 175 ; Untersuchungen, pp. 325-335.

204

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FERGUSON

" Among the philosophers of the English-French Enlightenment Hume was the only one who was not anti-historically minded because he understood that conduct and belief are governed not by principles and theories but by habits ".' " . . . what more agreeable entertainment to the mind," Hume says in an essay of light vein, than to be transported into the remotest ages of the world, and to observe human society, in its infancy, making the first faint essays towards the arts and sciences ; to see the policy of government, and the civility of conversation refining by degrees, and everything which is ornamental to human life advancing towards its perfection? To remark the rise, progress, declention, and final extinction of the most flourishing empires; the virtues which contributed to their greatness, and the vices which drew on their ruin ? In short to see all the human race, from the beginning of time, pass, as it were, in review before us, appearing in their true colors, without any of those disguises which, during their lifetime, so much perplexed the judgment of the beholders . . . 2 Fundamentally important for present purposes is his scientific methodology, grounded of course in his whole empirical philosophy. This may be called, first of all, a ' naturalism ', as suggested by the very title of his famous essay, " The Natural History of Religion and in its opening sentence where he applies to the subject of his enquiry, the question, " concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature ". More than that, there is the persistent appeal to the empirical, as when after arguing against the populousness of ancient nations on the more or less a priori grounds of general economic theory, he readily owns that this is merely trifling as over against " the mat1

Quoted, Hasbach, Untersuchungen, pp. 306-7.

1

Works, vol. iv, p. 510.

AMONG HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

205

ter of fact ", i.e. the appeal to historical evidence, were such available.1 Furthermore, the approach is essentially mechanistic, as when at the close of his dissertation on the ' passions ' he says, " It is sufficient for my purpose if I have made it appear that in the production and conduct of the passions there is a certain regular mechanism, which is susceptible of as accurate a disquisition as the laws of motion, optics, hydrostatics, or any part of natural philosophy ". 2 What he means by this no one needs be left in doubt who will read his essay on " The Possibility of Reducing Politics to a Science ", or those on " Probability ", on " The Idea of Natural Causation ", and particularly that most searching and illuminating one on " Liberty and Necessity ",* where the foundation of all social science is so clearly laid in the applicability of the laws of cause and effect to human behavior, and where he is not only fearless to bide every consequence of this method to morals and religion, but also penetrates to see in it the very foundation of true morality and of the only religion the enlightened can cherish. 4 A particular method of research for increasing the bounds of knowledge is apparently not within his province, though he insists on inductive procedure and scarcely fails beyond others to live by his precepts. Nor is a methodology of the science^ approached in the arrangement of his writings. ADAM SMITH

(1723-I790)

Also Ferguson's elder academically was Adam Smith. The sociological implications of his writings have, however, been so often pointed out by the historical economists, by students of ethics, and occasionally by sociologists,5 that little Works, vol. iv, pp. 453-4·

2

Ibid., vol. iv, p. 226.

» Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 11 et seq.

4

Ibid., vol. iv, p. 109.

1

' Hasbach, Opera citata ; Huth, op. cit. ; Giddings, Principles, Preface to 3rd ed., 1896, " Studies ", pp. 62, 283-4 ; Small, Adam Smith and

2o6

ADAM

FERGUSON

more than the broadest bearings need be pointed out here. Smith never pretended to give to the world either a philosophy or a science of the ' economic life '. Smith was first of all professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, where he gave lectures on Natural Religion, Ethics, Jurisprudence, and Politics. 1 The subject matter of the second part of his lectures was in the main covered by his Theory of Moral Sentiments. F o r the third part he long contemplated, without ever executing or at least allowing to see the light of day, a work, 2 the general character of which we can only roughly surmise from Part ι of the " Lectures " that came to light in 1895 and still more indirectly from the " Ranks " of his brilliant pupil and successor John Millar. 3 The Politics are partially covered by the Wealth of Nations, in which he treats not of the ' economic man nor of wealth as such, but of the whole round of social life, though from a single viewpoint, that, namely, of " the nature and causes of the increase of the wealth of nations." While the subject demanded, and also received, a more or less technical treatment of the manner in which wealth is and may be increased—much less on this score than a philosophy of the economic l i f e — , its orientation was still broadly historical, psychological, to a lesser extent ethical, interpreting a particular technological function in terms of a whole range of institutions and social relations h i p s — f r o m this point of view anything but an analysis merely of a certain department of activity, but in a real sense a sociological treatise, treating of society and its institutions, Modern Sociology, Chicago, 1907 ; Barnes, Sociology before Comte and elsewhere ; Lichtenberger, Development of Social Theory, pp. 269 et seq. ; Stephen, L., op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 283-86, 321 et seq. ; Merz, op. cit., vol. iv, PP· 457-58; Morrow, op. cit. 1 Dug. Stewart, " Memoirs ", in Works, Smith, Lectures. 1

Stewart, op. cit., pp. 10 et seq.

vol. χ, esp. pp. 10 et seq. ; ' Infra, pp. 217 et seq.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

20 7

of the relations of the individual and the group, of society and the state, of the origin of society, in certain at least of its aspects, and of the influence of economic functions on morals, political institutions and social organization, to name only a few features. 1 Less suggestive from the point of view of social organization and social evolution, and the broadly political bearings of sociology, but far more significant from the point of view, not only of ethics and the psychology of society, but of the very nature and foundations of society, and of his whole philosophy of social relationships, perhaps even from that of scientific methodology, is his earlier work. It can hardly be accidental that the " Moral Sentiments " begins with the proposal of a societal fact for solution and ends with the promise of a work on jurisprudence which he describes in sociological terms ; any more than that the very title of the " Wealth " is a sociological announcement. A s a recent student has well suggested, summarizing, . . . Both the Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations assert that society is a real unity, a harmonious order of individuals. The Moral Sentiments however shows that this harmony between the interests of the various individuals and the interest of society is based upon the operation of the principle of sympathy; it is an internal harmony produced by the mutual adaptation of the individuals to one another on the basis of a free communication of sentiments. The social order therefore is intimately adapted to the interests of the individuals, and the individual is in turn the expression of the social environment in which he lives. As a product of the social experience, the member of society is through and through social ; his very interests are those which have been developed in him in the course of his experience in society. In a certain sense it can be said 'Barnes, H. E., Publications of Am. Sociological Soc., vol. xxi, p. 32; Huth, op. cit. ; Hasbach, op. cit. ; Morrow, op. cit.

2o8

ADAM

FERGUSON

that the theory of sympathy in the Moral Sentiments is a necessary presupposition of the economic harmony exhibited in the Wealth of Nations. It is because he is social by nature that the individual in pursuing his own interests advances most advantagiously the common welfare. The principle of sympathy therefore involves theoretical consequences which go far beyond the ethical problems to which it was first applied. It gave rise to a tradition opposed to the rationalism of the eighteenth century, and tending toward a more concrete, a more historical, a more immanent and positive social philosophy. . . . 1 The student familiar with these writings and with the Lectures, will find in many features a remarkable similarity with Ferguson, worked out with a detail and a logical consistency not always found in the writings of the latter. There is, with all his individualism, the same insistence on society as a fundamental fact in life, the same natural and historical psychological union, if we may so say, of the individual and society, the same refusal to accept the distinction between the natural and the artificial, the same organic conception of society, the same impatience with attempts either to explain the state as an artificial construction or to reconstruct its institutions on purely rational patterns in defiance of sentiment, custom, and the deep roots of centuries of intertwining, the same sense of the sway of custom and fashion in taste and morals, the same insistence on the " instinctive " , the unreflective, the uncontrived, the same radical denial of the hegemony of abstract reason as the arbiter of life and the sole principle of scientific analysis. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those 1

Morrow, op. cit., pp. 43 et seq.

Quoted with permission of author.

AMONG

HIS CONTEMPORARIES

2og

ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God.1 " In this one sentence says the same writer " Adam Smith has given expression to and shown the fallacy in the fundamental assumption of the social rationalism of the end of the eighteenth century." 2 W I L L I A M F. ROBERTSON ( 1 7 2 1 - 1 7 9 3 )

Robertson, 8 the third member in this group and scarcely without doubt the greatest historian of his day, has seldom been noted in this connection. His histories, indeed are largely narrative and not interpretive. • His account of primitive American life suffered from the usual exaggerations and misinformations of his day.4 Still a sociological interest is not absent. The emphasis, for instance, on the geographic and physical environmental factors in the History of Scotland s suggests the later remarkable interpretations of Buckle. The influence of the clan organization and of the absence of commerce, and therefore of cities, on the position of the nobility, is particularly pointed out." The remarkable 1

Moral Sentiment, pt. ii, sec. ii, ch. iii, p. 218.

' Morrow, op. cit., p. 41. ' Dug. Stewart, "Memoirs", in Works, vol. χ ; Black, The Art of History. His principal works are the History of Scotland during the Reign of Mary, 1759 ; History of Charles V, with a remarkable introductory View of the Progress of Society in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century (1769) ; and the History of America (1777). * See contemporary criticism of his History of America in Sam. Stanhope Smith, An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figures in the Human Species etc. (Philadelphia and Edinburgh, 1788), pp. 103-9· ' Works (London, 1817), vol. i, esp. p. 232; cf. introduction to History of America. 'Ibid., pp. 233-4.

210

ADAM

FERGUSON

introductory volume to the History of Charles V, View of the State of Society, etc., is also more of a social and institutional than a sociological history, but the point of view is distinctly a dynamic one particularly where he speaks of the remarkable changes that had taken place in German manners, owing to Roman contacts, in the century that separated Caesar from Tacitus 1 or where he traces the influence on Western Europe of two centuries of contact with the East during the Crusades, and the gradual transformation of manners, intellectual outlook, commercial relationships, and political institutions that resulted.2 In this whole work he aims at a kind of " philosophic survey — a record not of events, but of forces and influences; a kind of physiological analysis of the developing structure of European civilization akin in spirit to Montesquieu's Grandeur et Decadence des Romains" It is necessary ", he says, to mark the great steps by which [the nations of Europe] advanced from barbarism to refinement, and to point out those general principles and events which by their uniform as well as extensive operation, conducted all of them to that degree of improvement, in policy and in manners, which they had attained at the period when Charles V began to reign.4 And again, in pointing out and explaining these causes and events, it is most important " to keep in view their mutual connections and dependence, and to show how the operation of one event, or one cause prepared the way for another and augmented its influence His comparison of early German with native American in1 a 5

Works, vol. iv, pp. 249 et seq.

2

Ibid., pp. 26-36.

Black, op. cit., p. 129.

4

Works,

Ibid., p. 25.

vol. iv, p. 13.

AMONG

HIS

211

CONTEMPORARIES

stitutions 1 is significant, as is also his explanation, when in opposition to those diffusionists who would trace all such similarities to historical continuity he writes, But a philosopher will satisfy himself with observing that the character of nations depends on the state of society in which they live and on the political institutions established among them; and that the human mind, whenever it is placed in the same situation will in ages the most distant and in countries the most remote assume the same form and be distinguished by the same manners.2 His high appraisal of Caesar and Tacitus 3 is to be noted at this point, but also his almost adulatory references to Montesquieu. 4 So, too, must we remark the striking similarity of his " View " to the writings of Stuart and Millar. 5 PRIESTLY, KAMES AND DUNBAR

T w o or three writers have often, it seems to the present writer in the main wrongly, been mentioned as deserving comparison with this group. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) that prolific writer and student of many interests wrote on the study of history,* but the work has entirely a moralizing and pedagogical tone and is in no sense sociological. 1

Works, vol. iv, pp. 250-4.

' Ibid., p. 253 ; cf. Teggert, op. cit., p. 90. His adherence to the epoch theory on monotypical evolutionary lines in his account American Indian strikes one as uncritical and unhistorical, and the of his life generally crude, yet the error is due f a r more to the and unsifted character of his data than to a faulty methodology. of America (esp. Works, vol. i x ) .

culture of the picture limited History

* Ibid., pp. 246, 249. * Ibid., pp. 328, 349, 352 et seq. * Priestley, J., Lectures

on History,

β

Infra, esp. p. 215, note 1.

Dublin, 1788.

212

ADAM

FERGUSON

Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782), author of " Sketches of the History of Mankind " 1 was intimately a part of this fellowship and in his day possibly the most famous of them all, but his fame must have rested on his " Elements of Criticism " and other works in philosophy, theology, legal history, etc.2 His " Sketches " are indeed ' sketches but they can hardly be called ' historical ' as we should use the term and scarcely justify the author's statement that he had for thirty years been planning the writing of a " natural history of man ", 3 The work deals with every variety of subject, such as race, property, commerce, art, sex, manners, government, finance, poor-laws, the origin and progress of the American nations, with sections on Logic, 4 Ethics and Theology, nearly all with the words Progress of " prefixed much as " the sociology of " is occasionally prefixed to every conceivable subject or problem of current interest in the third-rate sociological traditions of today. The style is usually discursive, rambling, episodic, often controversial, argumentative with a specious reasoning, moralizing, and even hortatory. 5 The tone and background is frequently decidedly theological. Y e t while the author is willing to commit every intellectual 1 Henry Home, Lord Kames, Sketches Edinburgh, 1774. 2

of the History of Man, 2 vols.,

Infra, p. 232.

It should in justice be noted, however, that the work is rather obviously written down for popular consumption and for that reason should perhaps not be too critically viewed. s

* Sixty pages, with another seventy-five pages given to a popular presentation of Aristotle's Logic. ' For instance, there is a chapter of 105 pages on " Manners " taken promiscuously from every people and every stage of culture, with twentyeight, really forty-eight, pages given to a defense of Ossian and his merits as a source in early Caledonian manners.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

213

sin in defense of his theory of racial polygenism,1 he is at times sufficiently ingenuous and detached to argue that nakedness is more friendly to chastity than clothing; that a Venus undraped " does not so much excite the imagination as a garter accidentally discovered " [ ! ] . 2 His defense of racial differences is noteworthy for the time, even though his particular argument is exceedingly weak." Buffon is much in evidence, as for instance in his interesting passage on the sociability of animals ; 4 Montesquieu is almost worshipped.5 His generalizations concerning primitive man and his life are exceedingly crude even for his day, as when he says that " in the savage state man is almost all body with a very small proportion of mind ".* With all its defects, though, the book is a veritable speculum mirabilis, reflecting even the popular interests and tastes of the time—the current interest in " natural history ", in the manners of remote peoples, and in at least a semi-scientific effort at social and historic interpretation. Hence his inclusion in these paragraphs. Of a slightly different character is the work of Dunbar 7 Essays on the History of Mankind. Here, too, there are many observations of a sociological nature, " on the primeval form of society on " language as a universal accomplishment " and on the criterion of civilized manners, of the 1

Sketches, vol. i, pp. 10 et seq. ; cf. Stanhope Smith, op. cit., p. 170.

* Sketches, vol. i, pp. 229-30. ' For instance, the fact that a few tribes have recently been noted to show kindness and hospitality rather than hostility to strangers, he finds incapable of explanation except in terms of a difference of race. Vol. i, p. 15 ; cf. also, pp. 354, 37 2, 385. 4 7

Sketches, vol. i, p. 227.

0

Ibid.

* Ibid., p. 353.

Dunbar, James, Professor of Philosophy in the King's College, University of Aberdeen, Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages, 2nd ed. with additions, London, 1781.

ADAM

214

FERGUSON

general influence of climate and locality on national objects ; on man as an arbiter of his own fortune, etc., etc. But there is little of scientific objectivity and little penetration. It is not severely to be charged against him that his generalizations concerning primitive life are crude, that his view of human progress from a state of ' individual separation ' or isolation, through one of association with language but without arts and therefore with equality and freedom, to a state of civil government, is extremely ' schematic Nor must we be surprised at a confusion of eugencies and euthenics. It is quite another matter to say that the point of view is theological, the style bombastic, and almost continually either eulogistic, hortatory, or condemnatory of all that does not fit into his own smug scheme of l i f e ; and that any real sense of historical relativity and social causation is completely absent. His diatribe against slavery, characteristic of the time, is noble, but slightly misplaced. Even such efforts, however, to " solve some appearance in civil life, and by an appeal to the annals of mankind to vindicate the character of the species from vulgar prejudices " may be significant perversions of a true and far-reaching scientific tendency. 1 GILBERT STUART

(1742-1786)

Of an entirely different character are the works of Gilbert Stuart and John Millar, both of whom write from the point of view of jurisprudence and constitutional history, incidentally corroborating the contention of Sorokin that students of legal institutions and their history made important contributions to formal sociology long before sociology was systematized or had found a name. 2 From a purely sociological point of view Stuart's View of 1

Dunbar, op. cit., pp. 1 et seq., 432, ch. xiii, etc.

2

Sorokin, Contemporary

torical View, vol. iv. Essay

Sociological viti.

Theory,

Vide table of contents. pp. 497-8.

Millar,

His-

AMONG HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

215

Society in Europe, in its Progress from Rudeness to Refinement, or Enquiries Concerning the History of Law, Government, and Manners appearing in 1 7 7 8 is less important than Millar's writings. It is strictly a historical treatise, somewhat monographically dealing with special phases of the development of social and political institutions, f r o m the Germans before they left their woods through the rise and decline of feudal institutions and the beginnings of the national state, in which field it would seem to mark an important contribution. 1 While there is little criticism of sources, and while the writer ventures no opinion on the merits of the book f r o m the point of view of historical accuracy and fairness, the author is, apart possibly from his contentions on the origin of feudal institutions, his somewhat anti-clerical bias, and his almost ' muck-raking ' but still factual portrayal of the licenciousness which he attributes to a decaying chivalry, thoroughly objective in tone, specific in analysis, and leaves no statement undocumented. 2 F r o m a sociological point of view, there is a clear recognition of the meaning of social institutions in the setting of the spirit and life of the time, 3 a due sense of the fact of social and institutional change and of the gradualness of such change, and considerable recognition of the interdependence of the various factors in the process, combined with caution in generalization as to the operation of various causes. 4 Thus, to illustrate, there is a recognition of the causes and consequences of standing armies in the development of European nations, 5 of the relation of invention of fire-arms to 1 Dug. Stewart, however, remarks that Stuart is entirely dependent on Robertson. Works, vol. x, p. 146. 2 3

Three-fifths of the volume are given to references and critical notes. Stuart, View of the State of Society, etc., pp. 58, 59, 63, 64.

4

Ibid., p. 139.

4

Ibid., pp. 1 1 9 et seq.

ADAM

2i6

FERGUSON

the methods of warfare. 1 Property institutions are seen to be basic in determining the manners and institutions of a people, and in distinguishing between barbarian and refined nations; 2 literature (at least in Medieval Europe) is seen to arise out of the fashions of gallantry; " religion, characteristically enough, " which must ever mix in human affairs, is oftener to debase than to enlighten. It is for the most part a mass of superstitions, which encourage the weaknesses of mankind Disorders are not to be ascribed principally to the rapacity and administration of princes, but to causes more comprehensive and general, especially those relating to changes in property attitudes." Chivalric manners and institutions have had an enormous influence on the whole tone and spirit and ethical evaluations of modern society.® Sex is considered everywhere an important factor in social life. 7 The dual relationship of, on the one hand, punctilious justice toward fellow tribesmen, and on the other, exploitation and robbery of the stranger is clearly seen. 3 The whole book is well in keeping with the ' advertisement ' from which we quote the following. . . . law is only a science when observed in its spirit and history ; government cannot be comprehended but by attending to the minute steps of its rise and progression ; and the systems of manners, which characterize men in all the periods of society which pass from rudeness to civility, cannot be displayed without the discrimination of these different situations. It is in the records of history, in the scene of real life, not in the conceits and the abstractions of fancy and philosophy, that human nature is to be studied. 1

Stuart, View,

' Ibid., p. 134. »Ibid.,

2

p. 130.

pp. 63, 64.

* Ibid., p. 135. 7

Ibid., p. η .

Ibid.,

pp. 1, 2, 67 et 8

Ibid., p. 73.

"Ibid.,

p. 8.

seq.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

21J

. . . from the most able histories of our own and foreign nations, who might naturally be expected to be intelligent guides for the paths I have chosen, I could derive no advantage. They generally prefer what is brilliant to what is useful; and they neglect all disquisitions into laws and into manners, that they may describe and embellish the politics of princes, and the fortunes of nations, the splendid qualities of eminent men and the luster of heroic action.1 JOHN

MILLAR

(1735-1801)

2

Millar's " Historical View of the English Government " and particularly his monograph on " The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks " are, from a sociological point of view, among the most remarkable productions of this group. From a historical point of view they may be charged with excessive generalization, an over-willingness to read his knowledge of contemporary primitive man into Tacitus' description of the Germans, an effort to write a comprehensive history with only meager data, a penchant to be ever explaining rather than merely describing. But for sociology it is just here, even in his weakness, that his significance lies.* The Historical View, being more than merely an account of English constitutional history, is in fact a most remarkable anticipation of " The New History ". Its ideal seems to be, 1

Stuart, View, pp. v-vii.

* John Millar, Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow, A Historical View of the English Government from the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in 1688 (3 vols, with a fourth posthumous vol. of notes etc. apparently intended for the continuation of the history), 1786, 1803; ed. cited (London, 1812). The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks; or An Inquiry into the Circumstances which give Rise to Influence and Authority in the Different Members of Society, 1771 ; ed. here cited (London, 1806). •These paragraphs were written before Sombart's Anfaenge der Soziologie came to the writer's attention. Sombart's appraisal there of Millar is noteworthy, but it seems to the writer exaggerated and uncritical.

2I8

ADAM

FERGUSON

in his own words, " that complete union of history with philosophy " which he sees in Hume's History.1 Some idea of its content and point of view may be gathered from these selected chapter heads : Preliminary account of the state of Britain under the dominion of the Romans; character and manners of the Saxons (comparison with other barbarians then and now) ; the state of property and the different ranks and orders of men produced by the settlement of the Saxons in Britain; of the circumstances which promoted manners, manufactures, and the arts in modern Europe and especially in England ; in what manner the political system was affected by the state of religious opinions; how the advancement of commerce and manufactures has contributed to the extension and diffusion of knowledge and literature ; the effect of commerce and manufactures and opulence and civilization upon the morals of a people. Only a few of the most general implications for sociology can be indicated here. A fine sense of realism is shown when he says that " of all the sciences law seems to be that which depends the most upon experience and in which mere speculative reasoning is of the least consequence " and proceeds to illustrate this from Roman legal history. His sense of cultural continuity is seen when he says, " The foundations of our present constitution are laid in that early [Saxon] period; . . . without examining the principles upon which it was founded, we cannot form a just opinion concerning the nature of the super-structure ". 2 A conception of social evolution not unlike that of Ferguson is found in the statement that the marked characteristics of the English constitution harken back to the differences which originally marked off their rude ancestors from related tribes, but are seen to be a historical differentiation, originating not " in much con1

Historical

View,

vol. ii, p. 457.

2

Ibid., vol. 1, p. fi.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

trivance and foresight," as " the result of deep laid schemes of policy ", but that these regulations " were such as occurred successively to the people for the supply of their immediate wants and the removal of incidental inconveniences ; in a word, everywhere a kind of natural growth produced by the peculiar situation and circumstances of the society ", 1 Much is made of English climate, soil and maritime location in its influence on economic development and thus, indirectly, on manners and political life; and yet alongside this are always placed such factors as " the manner in which the settlement was formed, or from more recent events and circumstances.". 2 If the Saxons were among all German nations " the most fierce and barbarous " it was only because " they were most completely removed from that civility and improvement which everywhere attend the progress of the Roman arms " and because of the opportunities for navigation and piracy " offered by their maritime situation ".* A subtle appreciation of culture contact and of the gradual transformation of customs and institutions that results is seen in his discussion of the influence of Roman occupancy, the presence of Roman officials and administrative colonies " carrying along with them the Roman institutions and customs ", of the visits of provincials to the capital, etc., producing " a universal imitation of Roman manners and throughout the dominion of Rome contributing to the spread of her language, arts and literature ". 4 The influence of isolation is plainly marked " in such prejudices and prepossessions as tended to flatter their own vanity and to increase their partial regard for that village or tribe of which they were members ". 5 The influence of commerce and manufactures and increase of wealth on manners, political institu1

Historical

View,

vol. i, pp. 375-376, 59, 60.

» Ibid., vol. i, p. 59.

4

Ibid., ch. i, p. 12.

2

Ibid., vol. i, pp. 59-61. 8

Ibid.,

p. 53.

220

ADAM

FERGUSON

tions, literature, etc., are very frequently and subtly traced, not in speculative abstraction, but with a fine historical realism and with a balance that makes such efforts far more valuable than any mere speculative philosophizing or sociologizing. With all his emphasis on the economic elements in a people's life, these economic elements are still not made ultimate factors, and literature, art, morals, religion, science, are given their due place. His analysis of the social consequences of an economic division of labor shows strongly the influence of his avowed master, Smith, but is also strongly reminiscent of Ferguson, and shows the distance he had traveled beyond his master and the reaction that actual economic conditions seemed to produce on an observing and keenly analytical mind. 1 Many of these observations apply also to the "Ranks," a study of the origin and nature of the institutions that have to do chiefly with subordination, social control, government. There are chapters on the position of women, the authority and jurisdiction of the father, the evolution and organization of the family generally, the authority of the chief and of the sovereign and his subordinate officers ; the influence of progress in the arts and polished manners on government, and the authority of master over slaves and servants. As already indicated, the point of departure is that of legal history, but the orientation is broadly socio-historical and sociological. If his ethnology is still crude and his generalizations premature, his method remains sound and his manner of treatment cautious and severely objective. The purpose of the " Inquiry " is in his own words " to illustrate the natural history of mankind in several important articles. This is attempted by pointing out the more obvious and common improvements [primarily technological and economic] which gradually arise in the state of society, 1

Historical View, vol. iv, especially essay iv.

AMONG

HIS

221

CONTEMPORARIES

and by showing the influence of these on the manners, the laws, and the government of a people Only a few specific features may be indicated. There is general scepticism of the direct influence of climate.2 The four economic stages: hunting, fishing and collecting; cattle culture and nomadism ; settled agriculture ; art, manufacture and exchange; with sometimes a fifth, the stage of opulence, are roughly adhered to.® Mother-right, and for some American tribes, at least a limited mother-rule, are taken notice of, and are offered in explanation of the Amazon myth. 4 The relation of agriculture to fixed residence and to property is considered a matter of great significance in cultural history. 8 Private property in land is recognized as at first frequently applying only for a given planting season." Old Testament materials are, with a detachment unusual for the time, frequently used as ethnological material for generalization,7 as, of course, are also the Greek and Roman classics. In the way of ' biases ' the abolition movement disenthrones the pure analyst or historian, but the tone is still constrained.8 The Britain's pride in liberty and prosperity is not wholly suppressed. There is no attempt at a sociological system. Millar is significant for his clear perception of the meaning, interdependence, and historical development of social institutions, particularly of the relation of economic life to manners and political institutions. We quote the following 1

We have here, in nuce, and whatever be his moderation in exposition of the theme, a remarkable anticipation of the economic determinists of a half-century later. Vide supra, p. 189, with note 2. * Ranks, pp. xxxix, 9-11. * Ibid., pp.

XXXV

et seq., 14, 57, 67, 87, etc.

*Ibid., ch. i, sec. ii. 1 8

5

Ibid., pp. 67 et seq.

'Ibid.,

p. 158.

Ibid., pp. 59, 88, 110-18, 144-46, 249. Ibid., ch. vi, sec. iv.

Historical View, vol. i, p. 8 ; vol. ii, p. 374.

222

ADAM

FERGUSON

p a r a g r a p h s n o t b e c a u s e h e e v e r y w h e r e f u l l y utilizes the principles a n n o u n c e d but because they s o well represent his position a n d b e c a u s e he m a k e s a m o s t serious e f f o r t t o e m b o d y such principles in his w o r k . In searching f o r the causes of those peculiar systems of law and government which have appeared in the world, we must undoubtedly resort, first of all, to the differences of situation, which have suggested different views and motives of action to the inhabitants of different countries. O f this kind are the fertility or barrenness of the soil, the nature of its productions, the species of labor requisite f o r procuring of subsistence, the number of individuals collected together in one community, the proficiency in arts, the advantages which they enjoy for entering into mutual transactions, and f o r maintaining an intimate correspondence. T h e variety that frequently occurs in these and such other particulars, must have a prodigious influence upon the great body of the people; as, by giving a peculiar direction to their inclinations and pursuits, it must be productive of correspondent habits, dispositions and ways of thinking. 1 O r a g a i n , in application, T h i s progress of government, towards monarchy, though it seems to hold universally, is likely to be accompanied with some diversity of appearances in different countries, and in particular, is commonly more rapid in a small state than in a large o n e ; in which point of view the ancient Greeks and Romans are most remarkably distinguished from the greater part of the feudal kingdoms in Europe. T h e R o m a n and G r e e k states were originally of small extent, and the people belonging to each of them being, for the most part, collected in one city, were led in a short time to cultivate an acquaintance. T h e police, which was easily established in such a limited territory, put a stop to the divisions so prevalent 1

Ranks, p. 2.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

223

among neighboring tribes of barbarians. Those who belonged to different families were soon restrained from injuring one another, and lived in security under the protection of the government. By conversing together almost every day their ancient prejudices were eradicated; and their animosities, being no longer cherished by reciprocal acts of hostility were allowed to subside and left no traces behind. The whole people, being early engaged in violent struggles with the petty states around them, were obliged to hold an intimate correspondence, and acquired an high sense of public interest. In proportion as they were thus incorporated in a larger community, they lost all inferior distinctions. The members of each particular tribe had no reason to maintain their peculiar connections, or to preserve their primitive attachment to their respective chiefs. The power of the nobility, therefore, which depended on those circumstances, was quickly destroyed; and the monarch, who remained at the head of the nation without a rival to counterbalance his influence, had no difficulty in extending his influence over the whole of his dominions. For this reason, the ancient jurisdiction and authority of the chiefs is not very distinctly marked in the early history of those nations, among whom it was in a great measure destroyed before they were possessed of historical records. . . . 1 MISCELLANEOUS

Space does not permit more than mere mention of many other names, some of whom stood in very definite relationship to the movement we have sought to characterize. There 2 were Beattie, Oswald, Monboddo, Blair; there were Pope, 1

Ranks, pp. 197 et seq.

* James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799), esp. the Origin and Progress of Language (Edinburgh, 1773), expressing views very similar to those of Ferguson on man, his place in nature, the origin and development of language, society, and civilization generally. M a n he believes to be of the same species as the Orang-Outang. See esp. V o l . I. Cf. Knight, W . , Lord Monboddo and some of his Contemporaries, London, 1900. Cf. Fortnightly Review, vol. 101, pp. 849 et seq.; vol 125, pp. 112 et seq.

224

ADAM

FERGUSON

Swift and, earlier, Defoe, in letters, who in very important ways reflect the same philosophic, scientific and ' sociological ' interests ; there was James Steuart, the economist, who from a purely methodological point of view has been held far to outdistance his more famous contemporary, 1 and whose population studies can scarcely have been without influence on Malthus; there was Reid the psychologist and epistemologist, whose whole work Cousin characterized as so many treaties in methodology; 2 there was Dugald Stewart, his disciple, who has given us so many ' side-lights ' on the whole group. 8 Then in other directions there were Godwin, who along with Paine carried the Rousseauan tradition to Fourier and Saint-Simon; Malthus his better known critic; and in some respects even Bentham deserves mention here. EDMUND BURKE

(1729-1797)

T o name Burke, the philosopher statesman and political conservative, among the sociologists may be unwonted, but, he, finally will not bear omission. It may be well forgiven this preeminently socio-historical mind if that last masterstroke of the apotheosis of the denial of history 4 led him from sheer revulsion to apotheosize, as it were, the past and deny for the future the forces that made the present. His de1 Hasbach, Untersuchungen, pp. 369-81 ; cf. WaentSg, who in his introduction to the German translation of Steuart's Principles (Jena, 19131914), p. ix, speaks of "der neuchterne Realismus seiner Beobachtung und der vorsichtige Relativismus seiner Urteile . . . sein psychologisches Verstaendniss und jener historische Sinn, der ihm, glaube ich, in hoeherem Grade eigen war als irgend einem nationaloekonomischen Schriftsteller des 18 Jahrhundertes." 1 Cousin, M. V., Course of the History of Philosophy, O. W. (Appleton, 1869), vol. i, pp. 336-37·

' Especially in the three Memoirs in Works, 4

transi. Wright,

vol. x.

Cf. Hasbach's Phil. Gründl., p. 130, referring to the French Revolution.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

225

fence of a static socio-economic and political order, 1 , is, after all an emotional rather than a rational response. 2 Even so, in his attack on Rousseau, Price, Paine, Bentham, and by a kind of anticipation Godwin and Ricardo, he was far more sociological than his opponents ; and in his effort to confront an abstraction with concrete facts, in his insistence that the most perfect theories must in practice be accomodated to circumstances, in his effort to see human life, no less than nature, as a whole, 1 there remains an elemental soundness. In his conception of the psycho-organic character, the corporate solidarity of human society, and of the continuity of history, there is a depth of penetration that remains, whatever the service into which it was pressed. " Society is indeed a contract such is Burke's faith, . . . [but] it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of temporary and perishable nature; it is a partnership in all science ; a partnership in all art ; a partnership in every virtue and in every perfection. A s the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures each in their appointed place.4 1 Reflections on the French Revolution ; cf. Rogers in American Journal of Sociology, July, 1912.

* Buckle, History of Civilisation (Appleton, 1873), vol. i, pp. 334-41. * MacCunn, Political Philosophy of Burke (London, 1913), pp. 5-7. also Giddings, Principles, p. 10.

Cf.

* Burke, Reflections in Works, London, 1901, vol. ii, p. 368; MacCunn, op. cit., p. 59·

226

ADAM

FERGUSON

Far from denying, there is here rather an affirmation of society as dynamic, an organism, a complex, delicate, living, evolving body, psychologically, not biologically conceived. Nor are these conceptions without psychological foundations well laid in spite of the tendency to introspective analysis. There are passions that lead to self-preservation and passions that lead to society. Among the latter there is first sympathy by which " we enter into the concerns of others " and are " moved as they are moved ". Then there is imitation, by which " far more than by precept . . . we learn everything " and which " forms our manners, our opinions, our lives ". This is " one of the strongest links of society . . . a species of mutual compliance, which all men yield to each other without constraint to themselves and which is extremely flattering to all ". Finally there is ambition, which prevents men remaining as brutes in perfect imitation of their first state, but offers a " satisfaction arising from the contemplation of the excellence of his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them 'V Nor finally can we at all ignore his insistence on distinguishing between the mathematical sciences and political science where universal laws are in the strictest sense, " in the nature of things unattainable," his attempt to open our eyes to " the nature of political fact, to the difficulties of social investigation, and to the limitations that dog the steps of analysis and generalization the moment they turn from the mathematical or physical world to try to form a science of society ", and his consequent embracing of a historical method in the sense of " an inductive study of institutions as they present themselves in history " and a " genetic study of institutions as they pass through phases of historical development ". 2

'Burke, Writings and Speeches (Boston, 1910), vol. i, pp. 110-124. MacCunn, op. cit., pp. 8, 12, 11.

,

CHAPTER

XV

A M O N G H I S CONTEMPORARIES

(Continued)

T h e materials reviewed in the last chapter would seem to warrant a few generalizations. In the first place, there was at this time, and especially in Scotland, a vigorous intellectual movement that, while considerably stimulated by French writers, built fundamentally on English empirical traditions 1 and was thus essentially opposed to the speculative tendencies, basically Cartesian, of the i8th century, which we have previously characterized. 2 Frequently it took the form of a bold frontal attack on these tendencies, though it was never itself completely extricated from their grip. 1 This question cannot be seriously discussed here. W e may, however, be reminded that while intellectual commerce between England, and still more between Scotland, and France were particularly intimate at this time—witness not only the sojourn or visits to France of men like Gibbon, Adam Smith, Hume, Ferguson, or of Frenchmen in England like Rousseau and earlier Montesquieu, but also the ready notice and translation that works appearing in one country found in the other; yet f r o m at least the days of Hobbes and Temple to those of Burke and Bentham there occurred here an intellectual development that was fundamentally independent of foreign influence. If Hobbes learned f r o m Gassendi in in France, he yet learned the philosophy essentially of Epicurus. Such Frenchmen as were most influential in England—Montesquieu, Rousseau, even Turgot—had themselves learned at the feet of Locke, Berkeley, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Hume. T u r g o t was a close student and translator of Hume. Cf. Windelband, op. cit., pp. 259-262; Teggert, op. cit., p. 181; Sombart, Anfaenge der Soziologie, p. 10; Vorlaender, Die Geschichte der Philosophischen Moral, Rechts, und Staatslehre der Englaender und Franzosen (Marburg, 1855), pp. 534 et seq. 1

Supra, ch. li. 227

228

ADAM

FERGUSON

Next, the deepest interest in this movement was with few exceptions one of scientific methodology, the quest for a way of intellectually mastering an enlarging world. Tremendously impressed by the achievements of Newtonian science, men were anxious to exploit for a wider realm its methodological implications. This led to inquiries into the grounds of certainty of our knowledge of the empirical world ; to analysis of mental processes generally; to a distinction between efficient cause and the merely " uniformly recurring phenomenal antecedent "- 1 Sometimes it stressed a more satisfactory classification of facts ; sometimes it sought to elaborate a more effective method of exploration. Directly it sought a mastery of laws for the more effective control of situations, for the improvement of human life. In the words of one of its keenest exponents, . . . there is but one way to knowledge of nature's works; the way of observation and experiment. By our constitution we have a strong propensity to trace particular facts and observations to general rules, and to apply such general rules to account for other effects or to direct us in the production of them. This procedure . . . is the only one by which a real discovery in philosophy can be made. . . . All that we know of the body is owing to anatomical discovery and observation; and it must be by anatomy of the mind that we can discover its powers and principles.2 " Men are now cured " , Hume is heard to say," of their passion for hypothesis and system in natural philosophy, and will hearken to no arguments but those which are derived from experience. It is full time they should attempt a like reformation in all moral disquisitions ; and reject every system 1 Reíd, Thomas, quoted by Veitch in Dug. Stewart, Works, vol. x, p. lxxvii. 2

Reid, Works (New York, 1832), vol. i, pp. 135-6.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

of ethics, however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation.1 Such positions are taken over and over again, not only in prefaces, but in a measure at least embodied in serious scientific labor. Further, though interest occasionally centered in the study of man, in individual psychology in the more or less introspective analysis of the intellectual powers, or of the active powers of man, of the nature of the moral sentiments, or of the ideas of the sublime and beautiful, it tended strongly in the direction of the problem of society. If this usually took the f o r m of studies in policy, in economic institutions, in the foundations of law, in the history of institutions, these were yet always viewed as but aspects of a larger problem, the problem of society. Explicitly or implicitly, the questions were being continually proposed : W h a t is the relation of the individual to the collective l i f e ? W h a t is the nature of the social ties? W h a t is the relation of any specific function under view, such as government, wealth, commerce, the liberal arts, to other functions and to society as a whole? H o w did the present social order arise out of an earlier, and that out of still an earlier one? H o w shall we conceive of the various stages in this developmental process? H o w can we explain differences in the culture of various present-day peoples ? In short, the inquiry into the nature and origin of society, is coming to be the hub about which the thoughts of men are revolving. 2 T h e answer to such questions is sought in part via the psychological route. Even Reid * whose psychology is al1

Hume, Works, vol. iv, p. 235 ; cf. supra, pp. 204 et seq.

* Morrow, op. cit., pp. 38-41 ; Randall, op. cit., esp. chs. xiii, xiv. ' R e i d , Inquiry into the Human Mind, 1764; Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 1785 ; Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, 1788.

ADAM

23°

FERGUSON

most exclusively confined to the investigation of the ' intellectual powers ', and of the ' active powers ' f r o m a purely individual viewpoint, is clearly aware of the larger problem, and asks w h y the social aspects even of the knowing process have been so much neglected. 1

M o r e commonly attention is given

to habit and custom in relation to society, to egoistic and altruistic drives, to moral sentiments, to the various foundations in human nature upon which social activities and social institutions and their improvement or decadence, rest.

The

tendency is strong to reduce even economic activities and physical environmental stresses to functions of human nature, and the sciences f o r their comprehension to a kind of psychology. 2

Imitation, the sway of fashion, crowd sugges-

tion, control through prestige, consciousness of kind and difference, while not closely analysed, are still not neglected.* M o r e characteristic of the movement is the historical, the historico-evolutionary, the social origins approach. 4

T h i s can

hardly be better characterized than by quoting f r o m a contemporary. Origin

Speaking of A d a m Smith's Dissertation

of Languages

on the

and related interests, Stewart refers to

" a particular sort of enquiry, which so far as I know is entirely of modern origin, and which seems in peculiar degree to have interested M r . Smith's curiosity . . . " and then continues, When, in such a period of society as that in which we live, we compare our intellectual acquirements, our opinions, manners, and institutions, with those which prevail among rude 1 Reid, Works, vol. i, pp. 383-385. Moralists, pp. 524 et seq. 2

See also quotation in Rand, Classical

Vide Hume, Introduction to " Treatise

Works, i, p. 7; supra, p. i n .

' On the development of psychology in the Scottish philosophy generally see Laurie, Scottish philosophy, p. 8. 4 See esp. Hasbach, Untersuchungen, ch. viii.

pp. 299-325; Teggert, op. cit.,

AMONG HIS CONTEMPORARIES tribes, it cannot fail to occur to us as an interesting question, by what gradual steps the transition has been made from the first simple efforts of uncultivated nature, to a state of things so wonderfully artificial and complicated. Whence has arisen that systematical beauty which we admire in the structure of a cultivated language, that analogy which runs through the mixture of languages spoken by the most remote and unconnected nations, and those peculiarities by which they are all distinguished from each other? Whence the origin of the different sciences and of the different arts, and by what chain has the mind been led from their first rudiments to their last and most refined improvements? Whence the astonishing fabric of the political union, the fundamental principles which are common to all governments, and the different forms which civilized society has assumed in different ages of the world? . . . In . . . want of direct evidence, we are under a necessity of supplying the place of fact by conjecture; and when we are unable to ascertain how men have actually conducted themselves upon particular occasions, of considering in what manner they are likely to have proceeded from the principles of their nature and the circumstances of their external situation. In such inquiries, the detached facts which travels and voyages afford us, may frequently serve as landmarks to our speculations ; and sometimes our conclusions a priori, may tend to confirm the credibility of facts, which, on a superficial view appeared to be doubtful or incredible. Nor are such theoretical views of human affairs subservient merely to the gratification of curiosity. In examining the history of mankind, as well as in examining the phenomena of the material world, when we cannot trace the process by which an event has been produced, it is often of importance to be able to shew how it may have been produced by natural causes. . . . To this species of philosophical investigation, which has no appropriated name in our language, I shall take the liberty of giving the title of Theoretical or Conjectural History, an expression which coincides pretty nearly in the meaning with that

232

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of Natural History, as employed by Mr. Hume and with what some French writers have called Histoire Raisonée. . . . T h e advances made in this line of inquiry since Montesquieu's time have been great. Lord Kames, in his Historical Law Tracts, has given some excellent specimens of it, particularly in his Essays on the History of Property and of Criminal Law and many ingenious speculations of the same kind occur in the works of Mr. Millar. 1 H e r e w e have the tendency vividly set forth, both in its strength and in its weakness.

It need be said, though, that

if " conjectural history " aptly describes Smith's own historical interests and efforts, there were those whose efforts " theoretical history " would the better characterize.

While

a sufficient factual answer to this quest lay still in the future, often in the very distant future, the questions were at least formulated in appreciation of historical situations. N o r is this historicism to be confused, as has often been done, w i t h another contemporary type of historical interest ; that, namely, which may be represented to some extent by T u r g o t in the addresses previously mentioned, 2 and especially by Herder in his " Ideen ".3

T h e latter issues directly in a

philosophy of history, more accurately, a philosophical hist o r y ; the former on the one hand in Kulturgeschichte, on the other in historical sociology.

Both Herder and T u r g o t

discussed geographical, biological and various other factors in the historical process. another one.

But their m a j o r interest is quite

Such writers were interested in history as

such, in world history, in universal history, past, present and 1

Stewart, Works, vol. x, pp. 33-36.

2

Supra, pp. 194 et seq.

' H e r d e r , J. G., Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784-91. Voltaire's histories might also be mentioned, but they have little sociological interest. Such names as Winckelmann, Lessing, Schiller, Iselin, Wegelin, Moeser, Schlosser, Gatterer, even Kant, Helvetius, d'Holbach, Condorcet, might also be recalled in this connection.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

233

future. They were interested in a ' plan '. They looked for a meaning. They envisaged a great panorama, in which each element in the glorified landscape, every nation, every age, had a meaning in relation to the whole; and the whole in relation to an ideal—an ideal of humanity, but also the realized ideal of divinity. Their orientation, and to some extent their methodology was telic; their outlook in the best sense theological. They sought for a meaning in the total experience of the human race. They were more interested in history than in historic processes. The type we are discussing is less ambitious. It is interested not mainly in history, but in historic processes ; not in meaning but in sequences ; not in ends, but in origins ; not in plans, but in forces. The difference is fundamental. It is the whole difference between a naturalistic and an idealistic method; between sociology and philosophical history. 1 Thus the very titles of the outstanding works of these men : " The Natural History of Religion ", " The Natural History of Mankind ", " The Origin of Ranks " View of the State of Society, etc.", " The Nature and Causes of the Increase of the Wealth of Nations ", etc. bespeak a really sociological interest. Of this movement in its more historical aspects Teggert aptly says, " The theoretical ' conjectural ', 1 This stricture applies far more to Herder than to Turgot. The writer can view Herder only with sympathy, but is convinced that his significance for an empirical sociology has been overrated. He read widely in history, geography, travel, ethnography, comparative biology, and allowed a rich imagination to play upon these materials ; but he does not unify, he is not critical. A theologian and an ethical idealist, he lacks the scientific temper of the historian. He believes in progress, but scarcely in evolution; he is impressed by order and a graduated scale in the organic world crowned by man, but fails to put the crucial question of a transmutation of kinds. The life cycle of the individual is taken as more than merely an analogy of the stages in the cycle of history. This notwithstanding Posadzy, op. cit., and Baerenbach, F. von, Herder als Vorgaenger Darwin's u. der Modernen Naturphilosophie, Berlin, 1877.

ADAM

234

FERGUSON

' hypothetical ' or 1 natural ' history of the i8th century represents not some curious aberration of thought, but a most serious effort to lay the foundations for a strictly scientific approach to the study of man "- 1 From another angle, the characterization of this movement by a keen historian of philosophy deserves still to be quoted, even though with reservations. The i8th century not only recommended analysis, it followed and practiced it. . . . Never was there a greater philosophical movement; and at the same time I do not fear to affirm, that never were there fewer hypotheses. . . . Examine Reid and the Scotch, you will have to regret in them the want of more systematic force, but you will not have to deplore in them aberrations from the spirit of system. . . . There remains much to be added to this philosophy, but there is little to retrench. There are many spaces to fill up, there are no hypotheses to destroy. . . . Let us not fear synthesis [as did this movement in its devotion to analysis], but let us enter into it only by the route and with the light of analysis.2 T h e movement lacked only a more exact method and a truly explorative procedure, i.e., research technique, and, of course an intensive development, to put it in line with the best traditions of science ; and one cannot but wonder what might have been the fruit fulness of a sociology built on this rather than on Comtean and Spencerian foundations.

It did

lack also a systematic presentation, an elaboration into a system of sociology, a formulation of universal laws.

Dr.

Small would probably have said, it was " science ", but not "a science." strength.

1

But this very weakness is really its greatest

It was with all its survivals of Naturrecht a οιονε-

ί Teggert, op. cit., p. 87. 1

Cousin, op. cit., vol. i, p. 342.

* Small, Α., The Origins of Sociology, Chicago, 1924.

AMONG

HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

ment away from systematizations that were premature and from interpretations that were really ethics in the guise of history and psychology, and toward generalization on a severely empirical basis.1 Moreover, even a new Problematik or Fragestellung is an achievement. S U M M A R Y OF FERGUSON'S WORK THIS

IN

RELATION

TO

MOVEMENT

Of this movement Ferguson was intimately a part. He was not its greatest, but all told perhaps its most brilliant exponent, and its most typical representative. He was scarcely its most original or most penetrating mind; but we have found no other who moved the problem of society so directly into the center of his field of vision, who applied himself so consistently to its elucidation, and who made a more daring, though necessarily only partially successful attempt at its solution. The more one delves beneath the surface, the less is he willing to insist upon his originality or to pronounce specifically upon the minds who entered into his making. T o say that he was " the master of Adam Smith " from whom the latter took over his theory of the division of labor or learned his hatred of mercantilism 2 becomes as impossible as to accuse him of plagiarism in the same respect,* when we remember how many had applied themselves before to these subjects, how much they were ' in the atmosphere The same applies to his leaning upon Montesquieu in the matter 1 For a commentary on this see a review by Herder of Millar's Ranks, which he takes as more or less representative of this school. He complains that the survey is too objective, lacking all evaluation, all ethical utilization, as though one period, one custom were as good as the other. Herder, Saemtliche Werke (Berlin, 1891), bd. ν, s. 456. 2 Marx, supra, p. 187 with note 1. lution, pp. 283-5.

* Supra, pp. 187.

Cf. Bnecher, K., Industrial Evo-

Smith himself made this charge.

236

ADAM

FERGUSON

of his physical environmentalism or his comparative governm e n t It applies to most of his teaching. Ferguson was probably nearly right when he admits that there may be in his work not " any leading thought or principle of moment that may not be found in the writings of others ' V Yet, while any judgment of origins here rests on inferences more than on proof, the influence of the ancient historians and philosophers upon him is undoubted. Whether interest in Roman history and classical philosophy and literature generally is a primary one, or whether he was led to their intensive study by an interest in the problems of his contemporary world, we do not venture to decide. 'At any rate he was deeply influenced by both. Shaftsbury, Hutcheson, and Reid undoubtedly exerted a deep influence; Montesquieu's influence was real; there is much reason to believe the greatest personal influence on his thought came from Hume. 2 Still, he was also peculiarly responsive to the first pulsations of a genuine historical and ethnological movement; he was sensitive to the political issues of his d a y ; his ethical idealism no doubt influenced his thought. " W i t h him Ethics, Politics, and History went hand in hand ", 3 His achievement, like that of Smith, though with less concentration, lies principally in his syntheses of the thought trends of his time; in bringing under a fairly uniform point of view many ideas on the nature and evolution of society ; in focusing attention on this problem in abstraction from, but not in ignorance of more intensive studies in specific fields ; in treating his subject from a strictly phenomenal or ' physical ' rather than evaluational and telic point of v i e w ; in setting the whole forth with unusual vigor and clarity. 1 Supra, p. 183. 2 See Hume, Works, vol. iv, pp. 97, 98 ; iii, p. 289 ; Ferguson, ciples, vol. i, p. 213. 5

Veitch in Dug. Stewart, Works, vol. x, p. xvi.

Prin-

AMONG HIS

CONTEMPORARIES

As more specifically his own may be mentioned his direct and vigorous attack—in which he went quite distinctly beyond Hume—upon the intellectualism generally of his time and upon the rationalistic method of using contract as the chief principle of historical explanation ; his very considerable elaboration of the doctrine of the division of labor in industrial and in all society ; his insistence upon conflict as a builder of social values; his principle of perfection or the ' desire for improvement' as perhaps the most important factor in social evolution ; and above all his eminently evolutionistic approach to his whole subject.

CHAPTER

XVI

FERGUSON'S RELATION TO C H I E F TENDENCIES OF ANGLO-AMERICAN

SOCIOLOGY

DOES Ferguson, then, deserve to be called the father of modern sociology ? 1 This question we do not pretend to answer. First, because the question itself is a specious one. Sociology may claim a multiple paternity. Next, to do more than pretend to trace the causal relations implied in the question would either take us far beyond the scope of this study or involve a fatal violation of the very methodology that has here been indirectly under discussion. Finally, it is happily without the scope of this study to determine when " science " becomes " a science." Still the question is not unimportant. If we ask what was Ferguson's influence on his contemporaries, we have already noted the impression he made upon such distinguished contemporaries, on either side of the channel as Hume and d'Holbach, 2 that A d a m Smith deigned him at least an important rival, 5 and that his books had a large circulation. In Germany, so receptive at the time to outside influences, Herder is, to say the least, impressed ; * Garve 1

Gumplowicz, infra ; Barnes, Sociology

before

Comte, p. 32.

Supra, p. 17. Hume, letter to Adam Smith in Stewart, Works, vol. χ , p. 38. " . . . will make an admirable book, and discovers an elegant and singular genius." Similarly in a letter to Robertson, May 25, 1759, and again March, 1767; ibid., p. 223. O n the other hand L. Stephen makes much of the fact that Hume f o r some reason did not approve publication of the Essay. Cf. Edinburgh Review, loc. cit., pp. 68-69. For a similar situation with regard to Montesquieu, vide Small, Biographical Sketch, p. 609. 2

3

Supra, pp. 187, 235 with notes.

* Ref. supra, p. 235, note 1. 238

FERGUSON

AND

MODERN

SOCIOLOGY

accompanied his translation with a lengthy critical analysis which Schiller is said to have memorized in toto.1 Karnes considered his theory of racial unity as worthy of attack.2 Robertson quotes him frequently in his History of America. Dugald Stewart, the heir of Reid, and the " father " of Hamilton, is not only his great admirer but in many ways his follower and exponent as even the index to his writings will abundantly prove.* W e suspedt his influence in Millar. Many have seen it in Smith. When Scott wrote an essay on the " Manners and Customs of Northern Nations " he may well have had Kamchatka in mind.4 Saint-Simon made use of Ferguson and, Barth holds, derived his conception of the evolution from military to industrial societies thence, and perhaps other elements in his theory. 5 Comte gives him a place on his Positivist Calendar along with Robertson, Smith and Hume, and recognizes important contributions. Marx is high in his praise and considers him the master of Smith and notes the influence of his advanced conception of the division of labor.' Gumplowicz calls his " Essay " the first natural history of society and Ferguson the first sociologist to deal with the causes of social evolution, far the superior therefore of Montesquieu, and, apart possibly from Ibn Kaldun distinctly deserving acclaim as the father of sociology. 7 Robertson implies his influence 1 Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, s. v. Garve; Hasbach, suchungen, ρ. 319. See also Merz, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 16.

Unter-

* Kames, Sketches, vol. i, p. 23. * Stewart, Works, vol. x, pp. xv et seq. 4

McCosh, Scottish Philosophy, p. 271 ; cf. supra, pp. 19 et seq.

• Barth, Philosophie der Geschichte als Soziologie, 3rd and 4th ed., 1921, p. 168; Huth, op. cit., p. 155. • Supra, pp. 109, 187. 'Gumplowicz, Die Soziologische Staatsidee (Gratz, 1892), p. 67 (2nd ed., Innsbruck, 1902, pp. 77-80).

240

ADAM

FERGUSON

on Buckle. 1 J. S. Mill, one of the most sociologically minded men of the 19th century, admits his indebtedness if not to Ferguson in particular, at least to the group to which he belonged.2 Janet considers him at least full of penetrating and original views and containing on every page penetrating, judicious and sometimes profound observations." McCosh admits that along with Smith he kindled a taste for social inquiries in the University of Edinburgh and in the capital of Scotland. 4 Spencer, who read him,5 possibly received suggestions thence not only for his conception of the evolution from military to industrial society, of the division of labor, of social differentiation, individuation and integration, but for many features of his theory. The difference between ancient and modern societies in which individuals are respectively nothing and everything is expressed in words almost identical with Ferguson's.' Still Ferguson was forgotten, and his eclipse came rather early. Was it that he was after all merely a writer of fine phrases, a political declaimer, a popularizer of other men's ideas ? or at least merely a server of the times and the issues, who would be forgotten when these changed ? T Was it that he dealt merely in ideal speculations that must give way to the more serious concerns of the French Revolution and then of the Reaction?" Or was it perhaps that he had been 1

Robertson, Buckle and his Critics, p. 8.

2

J. S. Mill, Autobiography, London, 1924, pp. 6-7, 95-6, 136-8.

8

Cf. supra, p. 24, note 2.

McCosh, ofi. cit., pp. 257-8. •Spencer, The Study of Sociology (Appleton, 1873), pp. 298 et seq. That Spencer leaned on Ferguson more than on many other predecessors is of course a mere conjecture. 4

•Ferguson, HCS, p. 82; Spencer, op. cit. (Appleton, 1865), p. 475. T

Sufra, p. 185, note 3 ; p. 24, note 3, Dunning.

• McCosh, op. cit., p. 257.

FERGUSON

AND MODERN

SOCIOLOGY

241

assimilated and was thus only seemingly dead? The first questions we are willing to appeal to the readers of the foregoing analysis and quotations. T o the latter we can only answer, " W e do not know ". Europe was, however, soon wrapped up in the Romantic Movement, and Ferguson would make only a limited appeal to the Romanticists. Nor could he well become as did his more famous contemporary, the bible and philosophical exponent of the ideals of the merchant class and later, by a strange perversion, of the captains of industry. His attack upon the evolutionary optimism of his day would scarcely win him permanent favor. The unhistorical, rationalistic faith in progress as gradual, natural and inevitable, because logical was not to be cast out but with much prayer and fasting. The spirit of Rousseau was probably still more alive than that of Hume, in both politics and social life generally. Then, too Europe was seriously engaged not only with the horrors of the guillotine but with sieges and protracted campaigns and food blockades. The Reaction too, to which Comte finally did complete homage, was not congenial; in fact we may ask whether it did not tend to dampen or arrest all critical sociological thought for nearly two generations, and whether apart from the rising socialist movement " the triumph of the animal instincts of strife and reaction " did not tend to " crush out all forward-looking people of that time " ? 1 Perhaps the most hostile of all influences was that speculative tendency, that universal logic, that love of dialectic and of formulas to comprehend the whole universe, that, more sweeping and more dangerous to empirical method than even the Order of Nature philosophy, we commonly term Hegelianism. 2 Per1 Robertson, Buckle and his Critics, pp. 8, 9. Cf. also Ferguson'» reference to " alarming the universities and the church " and procuring " t o moral philosophy that popularity in England which I wished for but have been unable to obtain." Small, Biographical Sketch, p. 662.

* Cf. Klemm, History of Psychology, p. 100.

242

ADAM

FERGUSON

haps all of these, together with his own inherent weaknesses, made for his eclipse. A t any rate except in the German tradition, 1 we have heard little of him for a whole century and cannot be at all sure how great or how small was his influence. Our question resolves itself, then, from a purely historical one to one chiefly of comparative methodology. Our attempted answer will at the same time serve as a review. What, then, with only the most casual suggestions of a ' causal nexus is the relation of the methods pursued in social science by Ferguson to the central tendencies found particularly in the Anglo-American development of sociology in the century that followed ? 2 In the first place, as indicated at the outset, he did not create, nor even attempt to offer a science of society with boundaries well marked off, and methods distinct from those of, shall we say Pneumatics or Mental Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Politics, History, or even the " Natural Sciences ". Comte's insistence on the need for a separate science of society; Comte's and Spencer's queries into the hierachy of the sciences and the place of sociology in that hierarchy, are later developments." Accordingly the whole question of ' excluding and bounding ' of ' completness and intrinsic unity ',4 associated in America with the name of Albion Small, can happily be dismissed here. In the second place, Ferguson, and for that matter most 1 Note esp. Waentig, preface to German translation of the Essay, Jena, 1905; Roscher, Geschichte der Nationaloekonomie; Hasbach, Untersuchungen, p. 219.

* There is no pretense here, even though such proceeding should seem arbitrary, of going beyond the limited scope here indicated. -This without in the least minimizing developments in sociology elsewhere. * Cf. however, Hartley, in Bower, Daz-id Hartley and James Mill nams, 1881), pp. 134 et seq. 4

Small, Α., Origins of Sociology, pp. 319 et seq.

(Put-

FERGUSON

AND MODERN

SOCIOLOGY

2 43

of his contemporaries, make little pretense at a quantitative approach and therefore can scarcely bear comparison with later exponents of such a method. Statistics had of course been frequently applied to human affairs since the days of Halley ( 1693 ; 1656-1728). 1 Interest in quantitative aspects of population was a live one in Ferguson's time; but unless by a tour de force we would call the felicific calculus,2 which was known long before Bentham, quantitative method, a specific application of statistical procedure to human behavior and societal phenomena and even to institutional patterns, or for that matter, a method that might be so applied, awaited a Quetelet, a Galton, a Pearson. Again his writings lend little support to that once all too prevalent conception of sociology as an ameliorative discipline. The conception goes back, in its best sense, to Lester F. Ward ; thence to Saint-Simon by way of Comte; and if we will, in a limited way, rather in divergent ways, to Malthus, Godwin, and Bentham ; but scarcely to Ferguson.* Of course the scientific interests of so pragmatic a Scotsman as Ferguson, or for that matter of Smith or even the much maligned ' sceptical ' and ' aloof ' Hume, could not but issue in a policy and an attitude toward policy. For Fer1

Giddings, Studies, p. 108.

»This is scarcely to be taken facetiously when we note in Hutcheson the following ethical formula or felicific calculus. If M = moment of good ; Β = benevolence ; A = abilities ; I = interest ; S = self-love ; we get (under various circumstances) the formulas Μ = Β χ Α ; I = S X A ; Μ = Β χ Ι ; M = A X I. The virtue then of agents, or their benevolence is always directly as the moment of good produced in like circumstances and inversely as their abilities, or Β = M / A. Hutcheson, " Enquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil," in Rand, Classical Moralists, p. 416. * One might mention also Rousseau, Diderot, Fourier, Owen, Ruskin, Manning, Kingsley, Robertson, and even J . S. Mill. See Small, Α., article " Sociology," in Encyclopedia Americana ; also Flint, op. cit., passim; Stein, Die Sostale Frage im Lichte der Philosophie.

244

ADAM

FERGUSON

guson it issued first of all in the practical ethics of the happy warrior. 1 It issued also in what might be called a conservative liberalism that was not greatly different from Spencer's scepticism of the "expediency philosophy" of a statesmanship which so greatly oversimplifies the social problem and in effect reduces legislation to a series of ' Acts to amend an Act', 2 and that would recall the state from what Buckle would term the ' spirit of protection ' to the spirit of justice, that would remind statesmen that society is more than a counting house, a factory of a gilded hog-trough. 3 It issued above all in a pragmatic view of the state, such as another ' happy warrior ' has called the 4 Responsible State ' Salus populi suprema lex esto ' was not conceived by Ferguson, nor, as in fact it was not in the best Utilitarian traditions, in a crassly ' utilitarian ' way, but it was ever vigorously opposed to those who would be saying " L'état, c'est moi " or " Der Staat ist sich selbst Gesetz ", or who would have government in the interest of a class. The state is the instrument of society, and society is the collective, the co-operative life of men. In this sense the issue of his sociology is pragmatic; but that is another matter.5 W e may now turn to Ferguson's relation to those who would make sociology, or any social science, a kind of social physics. This point is important. It has been indicated how all but overwhelming was the influence of Newton on his own and the following century. It did not end there. Its influence is distinctly present in something more than 1 Supra, section on " conflict ", pp. 98 et seq. ; Dug. Stewart, Works, vol. χ, pp. xvi et seq. •Spencer, Social Statics (Ν. Y., 1865), p. 22.

• Ferguson, HCS, p t v. ' Giddings, The Responsible State. ' Supra, pp. 158 et al.

FERGUSON

AND MODERN

SOCIOLOGY

the mere nomenclature of Saint-Simon's 1 " Gravitation Universelle"; of Comte's "Social Physics", resting as it does on phrenological Physiology, and of his ' statics ' and ' dynamics ' ; of Spencer's " Social Statics ", his ' law of equilibration ', his use often of Comte's terminology; 2 and if we will, of Bagehot's " Physics and Politics ". Its effect is either to deny the essentially psychological character of human behavior and association, or at least to reduce it to terms of ' matter in motion ' as the more general category. Saint-Simon held " that gravitation was the law of the universe, of the solar system, of the earth, of man, of society, or generally of the whole and all its parts; and that if other laws had the appearance of independence, it was only because they had not yet been reduced under or deduced from it." * And while he himself gave up this conception as futile, the social atmosphere of his day was charged with such conceptions, and there have been many since his day, besides Comte, who failed to see that such an attempt is but " a play with words, in which the mind cheats itself ".* Now it is not claimed here that Spencer, or any other " social physicist," allowed his analysis of social processes or of social situations to be completely dominated (like Mark Twain's would-be watchmaker who insists on hanging a monkeywrench on the safety-valve of his delicately constructed timepiece) by this methodological monism—that is the fatal error of those who read about Spencer rather than 1 On Saint-Simon's place in sociology see Barth, op. cit. ; Stein, op. cit. ; Bougie, Che2 les prophètes socialistes (Paris, 1918), ch. iii. ì Oppenheimer remarks with considerable justice (System der Sosiologie, Jena, 1922, vol. i, p. 30) that Spencer made serious application of such a methodological monism of the physicists, while Comte paid it only a nominal tribute, proceeding at once to use a psychological method.

• Flint, op. cit. (ed. '94), p. 400. The quotation is only a paraphrasing of Saint-Simon. 1

Ibid., ed. 1874, p. 162; cf. ed. 1894, p. 401.

246

ADAM

FERGUSON

into him, and so do not even discover that it is not an ontological monism. Nor is it denied that such categories have proved convenient and heuristically extremely fruitful. It is only claimed that Ferguson with open eyes avoided even the danger that ever lurks in such conceptions, the danger, namely, of confusing machinism and mechanism.1 He stood too near, on the one hand, to Hume, who had so effectively destroyed ' causality ', in anything but a phenomenological or ' factoral-pattern ' sense, for empirical science, and on the other hand to the psychology of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson and the psychological tendency of the whole Scottish school,2 to be seriously tempted in this direction. ' Physical principles ' he made much of in the sense of constants among variables, both of co-existence and sequence,* but these were merely modes of being and happening which permitted him to see mechanism in human behavior without reducing mind to sublimated star dust. Society remained a psychological phenomenon, both in its manifestations and in its foundations. While he did not develop intensively the implications of his own method, Ferguson, or shall we say Hume in Ferguson, might have spared sociology much idle discussion of ' social forces ' and might have led us by a much shorter route than was actually pursued from " Liberty and Necessity " to " Order and Possibility ".* And if even so we may still speak of ' equilibration of energy ' this will at least not prevent the star-dust aggregate from " changing his mind when he wants to and going back for his umbrella ". 5 1

Giddings, Studies, p. 115.

* Laurie, op. cit., Introduction; Windelband, op. cit., pp. 357, 358. 8

Supra, ch. xii, pp. 166 et seq., 21 ; cf. Giddings, op. cit., p. 131.

•Hume's essays by that title in both the Treatise Giddings, op. cit., ch. vii.

and the

Inquiry;

4 Giddings, op. cit., p. 143 ; also Scientific Study of Human Society, ch. viii, " Societal Telesis ".

FERGUSON AND MODERN SOCIOLOGY

Nevertheless Ferguson did not give us a psychological sociology in the sense of a psychological analysis of society in its ' static ' aspects.1 There is little discussion of social control, or effort to analyze carefully in psychological terms any static social situation. He scarcely arrived at the conception of ' pluralistic response ' 2 in the sense either of more or less like response to like stimulation or of inter-stimulation and response. The relation of the individual to society is made much of, and human nature, " second nature " if not quite " original nature is conceived as a function of society, but the refinement of a Cooley is not achieved.4 There is, indeed, a severe onslaught if not on rational processes generally, at least on " Reason " in particular as " the elementary social fact Much is made of drives, of innate tendencies and their modification in habit or customary behavior. The psychological interpretation of W. I. Thomas " is remarkably anticipated, as is also that of Sumner. The psychological basis of social organization in terms of consciousness of kind is at least more than merely adumbrated.7 In fact his interpretation is psychological throughout. But it is a psychological interpretation of a dynamic process, not a psychological analysis of a static situation. This leads to the central point. Ferguson is a fundament1

See however supra, pp. 125 et seq.

2

Giddings, op. cit., pp. 156 et seq. ; ch. xv.

'Ibid.,

pp. 12, footnote.

4

Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order, N. Y., 1902; Social Organisation, Ν. Y., 1913. Hume and Adam Smith approximated it, however, in their conception of sympathy as the projection of the self, the mirrored self in society. 'Giddings, Studies, p. 115. • Cf. the drives discussed supra, pp. 1 1 1 et seq., which lead inevitably to society and socialization, with Thomas's " wishes 7

SuPra, pp. 122 et seq.

248

ADAM

FERGUSON

ally historical sociologist 1 and can really bear comparison only with such. He is interested in the ' werden ', not necessarily in the ' geworden ' aspect of society. This is however a complex category. It has two essential aspects which are not always clearly marked by the student. One is that of its essential character, the methods and the drives as it were, of the evolutionary process; the other is that of its direction, its stages, its beginning and its goal, a universalized history of human culture. The former is for Ferguson the most important, but it needs here only to relate this i8th century figure to two important 19th century tendencies. The first is the tendency to view social evolution as a part of cosmic evolution, or universal evolution. W e meet at once with Comte's law of the three stages, which, though already definitely announced by Turgot, 2 he no doubt took over with slight modification from Saint-Simon," and which is part of an effort to " construct a system of thought so wide and well arranged that not only every science but every large scientific generalization and every great social force would have its proper place assigned to it and full justice done it ".* Comte here attempts to support some very high generalizations with the most naively subjective historical constructions, past, present, and future, of an unhistorical mind, and " a confusion of aspects of things with eras of time But as these generalizations centered in the claim that the positive period had now arrived—a claim that Comte himself did much practically to deny—and in the 1 Not sociological historian, however, as the title of the Essay might suggest. Cf. " natural history " as formerly used : " naturgeschichte ".

* Flint, op. cit. ( e d 1894), pp. 286 et seq., with quotation from Turgot. * Ibid., pp. 398 et seq. ; cf. also Merz, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 464-472, 481-491. * Flint, op. cit., p. 589.

6

Ibid., p. 611.

FERGUSON

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demand that social science be treated as an empirical, natural science—which was nothing at all new—, and as these conceptions after all had perhaps but little influence in Sociology, 1 we dismiss them by remarking that, apart from a formal carry-over of the essentially static Order of Nature philosophy from Shaftsbury, Berkeley, and Hutcheson,2 such conceptions are strangely, perhaps even naively, absent from Ferguson, who attempts few generalizations at once so broad and so little amenable to empirical method. Then there is Spencer's effort to give social evolution its setting in cosmic evolution.3 But this too, perhaps, had more of a speculative than a practical significance, and besides was soon given a biological turn. Mention must also be made here of those who would make intelligence the mainspring, or with some, increasingly the mainspring of social evolution. Here we may take Comte seriously, even though with reservations. Here lies the great significance of Lester F. Ward. 4 Here too, contrary to most presentations, lies the chief significance of Buckle, and even much of the significance of Spencer.® With reservations Bentham may be named, and the whole utilitarian school. But this, too, we must dismiss by reference to the previous presentation and by adding that Ferguson made an extremely important contribution without adequately guarding himself against the charge of erring by a necessary and timely emphasis of one truth to the considerable, though not to the complete neglect of its complementary truth. ' When we come to the ' social Darwinists ' we cannot but 1

Flint, op. cit., pp. 579-615, the whole discussion.

2

Supra, pp. 164 et seq. 1 Social Statics, pp. 28 et seq., 447 et seq. * Ward, L. F., particularly his Dynamic Sociology. 1

Buckle, History of Civilization in England, vol. i, ch. iv. β

Supra, pp. 72 et seq. ; 87 et seq. ; 115 et seq.

25o

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FERGUSON

note the enormous revolution in thought that has taken place since Ferguson's day.

Gumplowicz and N o v i c o w , with their

emphasis upon conflict and the society-building role

of

struggle, were to be sure remarkably anticipated by Ferguson, as w e have seen.

Sumner's and Keller's

somewhat

dubious application of the concept of ' natural selection ' to the origin of

folkways and mores, 1 and Spencer's whole

conception of the ' survival of the fittest ' were only most meagerly foreshadowed here.

Ferguson's ' struggle ' was

not a struggle unto the death between either individuals or groups or societies, much less between modes of behavior; but rather a struggle unto life.

A t any rate there was no

conception of a law governing survival ; much less a glorification of such a law. W h i l e Ferguson fairly well understood the tendencies of population growth, and emphasized the fact and the role of individual differences, of sex, of organic needs, of native drives, generally, in relation to social evolution, the questions of heredity, of qualitative population differences in relation to struggle and to evolution in its broader outlines, as developed by Galton and Pearson, and in a measure already by Spencer, are almost naively absent from Ferguson's discussion.

In one respect however, Ferguson deserves serious

comparison with the biologists, and that is his sharp contrast with Spencer's biological or semi-biological interpretation of social, more accurately of cultural differences and of cultural evolution itself.

W e refer not to his organismic

analogy in its static aspects. character by Spencer himself.

T h a t was recognized in its true A n d while all analogies tend

to a neglect of inductive study in the field where understanding is sought, that was relatively innocent and even extremely useful. 1

Ferguson, too, made slight though cautious use of

Sumner, Folkways; Keller, Societal Evolution, New York, 1915.

FERGUSON

the analogy.

AND

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SOCIOLOGY

251

But Spencer did not stop with the structural

and functional analogy. There is no way of coming at a true theory of society but by enquiring into the nature of its component individuals. To understand humanity in its combinations it is necessary to analyze that humanity in its elementary form [individuals] . . . every phenomenon exhibited by an aggregation of men, originates in some quality of man himself. . . . The very existence of society implies some natural affinity in its members for such a unity.1 In thus holding " that the properties of a mass are dependent on the attributes of its component parts " Spencer is on essentially firm ground, especially in view of his affirmation elsewhere, on a new level of interpretation as it were, that the individual is largely determined by his own previous responses to group stimulation. 2 In this he not only agrees with Ferguson, but explicitly recognizes such agreement. 3 But, not resting the matter there, Spencer proceeds to say that " Society as a whole, considered apart from its living units presents phenomena of growth [as well as o f ] structure and function, like those of growth, structure and function in an individual body; and these last are needful keys to the first ".* A n d he proceeds to analyse social evolution in terms of such growth. In strict fairness, this too is at bottom recognized as an analogy, however dangerously pressed,— only a " fundamental parallelism in principles ". T h i s " fundamental kinship that makes an apprehension of the truth of biology essential to a rational apprehension of the truth of 1

Spencer, Social Statics, p. 28.

' Oppenheimer, op. cit., pp. 30 et seq., in his attack on Spencer's position seems to fall into the opposite error of conceiving society as an entity independent of its component individuals. •Spencer, The Study of Sociology, p. 298 (ed. Ν. Y . , 1873). 4

Spencer, op. cit., p. 301.

252

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Sociology " 1 may thus far still be a methodological one only, the illustrative and heuristic value of which need not be denied. Its danger is the danger of all broad formulas that are not historically, i.e., inductively derived, and that in the nature of things permit of only limited historical verification; and in giving to such formulas by suggestion the weight of the authority of the whole Cosmic Process. But now note that Spencer charges to the weakness of Comte's theory of social evolution that his dogma of the fixity of the species " kept his conception of individual and social change within limits much too specific ", and—strange nemesis on Spencer's critics 2 —led him into the fallacy of a unilinear development (Spencer himself insisting that evolution follows diverse paths) ; and that he insists that " since man is modifiable, . . . it becomes requisite that the sociologist should acquaint himself with the laws of modification to which organized beings in general conform", 3 and then proceeds to develop the full implications of this statement, making social evolution truly a bio-cultural process, involving a transformation not only in the organization of human relationship, and correspondingly in man's " second nature ", but also in man's original nature. 4 1

Spencer, op. cit., pp. 301, 303, 305.

'Goldenweiser, Α. Α., Early Civilization (Ν. Y., 1922), pp. 21 et seq. ' Spencer, op. cit., p. 300. 4 Cf. on this whole passage also Spencer, Principles of Psychology, New York, 1899, vol. ii, pt. ix, p. 508 and chs. ν et seq. It is not quite clear whether Giddings (Studies, p. 112, footnote) overlooks this or merely means to say that the transformation of second nature is the valid part in Spencer ; nor is it quite clear how it can be affirmed that the distinction between " original " and " secondary " (inherited and non-transmissible) nature was not made before Weissmann. It is not of course to Spencer's discredit that he should still be Lamarckian in this respect (Social Statics, ch. xxx, sees. 1-5). Moreover, he is quite open minded and in a later writing challenges scientists to solve this important dispute between Lamarck and Weissmann. (Contemporary Review, vol. lxvi, p. 608. Cf. Tenney, Α. Α., Social Democracy and Population in Columbia Studies, New York, 1907, p. 56.)

FERGUSON

AND

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SOCIOLOGY

Without claiming that this is central to Spencer's highly original and highly valuable theory, and without pretending to any new insight in this characterization, it is still important to note that both the analogic and the truly biologic, both being part of the cosmic, elements in this position, lent a tremendous force to an evolutionary scheme that must of necessity rest on only limited historical generalization; and that it is this that permits him characteristically to say " that the course of civilization could not possibly have been other than it has been " ; 1 while the lesser Ferguson, for whom social evolution involves no biological transformation, can but humbly avow that " Mankind, in following the present sense of their minds in striving to remove inconvenience, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which not even their imagination could anticipate, and pass on like other animals in the track of their nature without perceiving its end." 2 This marks the whole wide contrast between Spencer and Ferguson, the difference not only between an all comprehensive view, and a cautious generalization, but still more the difference essentially between cosmic compulsion and historical probability. There is no denying, of course, that Spencer has the far more rounded conception, and in its more intensive development the more valuable conception; but there is also no denying that Ferguson has, particularly in the light of the development of history, anthropology and ethnology in his day, far the more realistic, the more historical appreciation.3 Ferguson's virtue may be partly an accident of the time in which he lived. His defense of the racial unity of mankind was directed not so much against racial polygenism as ι Spencer, Social Statics, p. 447.

1

H C S , p. 182.

' C f . Spencer, loc. cit., pp. 447-458; Ferguson, HCS, pp. 111 et seq.; pt. ii, et al. Cf. however, Giddings, Studies, pp. 310-211.

254

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against racial pluralism. H i s defence of the essential psychological likeness of the rudest savage and the most ' polished citizen ' in all that does not found in the experiences of each individual in adjustment to the whole world in which he lives, was directed not so much forward toward the growing interest in biological origins, as backward against the romantic conception of progress that failed to discriminate between man and culture. A t least it raised no questions as to the possible mechanisms of racial change. S o he does not entirely answer the biologists, because he never really sensed the biological problem. T h e result remains, however, essentially the same for present purposes; 1 and that is of vital consequence for his conception of social evolution, which is essentially psycho-historical or cultural. It is probably this too in Spencer that is partly responsible — i t were hardly fair to burden him with the whole responsibility as Oppenheimer would fain do ; 2 for the neglect up till very recently, at least in America, of ' history ' in favor of ' pre-history ' or primitive life, for the data for sociological generalization. Checking u p — o n the generalizer—is more difficult in the latter. Ferguson does not invert the procedure, but he strikes an entirely different balance. Does he live more in the 19th century? This leads us to the historical aspect of the theory of social evolution. Here our hero fares not quite so well. If Spencer made the fatal error of uncritically ' historizing ' * what must remain one of the subtlest and most profoundly valuable generalizations in the history of human thought, Ferguson must at least assume some responsibility for the culture epoch theory, the " comparative method ", for a 1 W e do not mean, of course, that biology has no further significance for sociology, but only that it would offer no other answer to Ferguson's particular questions.

* Oppenheimer, op. cit., p. 30. ' W e lack a better English equivalent of " vergeschichtlichen ".

FERGUSON

AND

MODERN

SOCIOLOGY

unilinear theory of cultural evolution, various foundations for which had previously been laid 1 and which in its further development is associated with such names at Saint-Simon, Comte, Morgan, Lubbock, and in specific directions with Spencer, Maine, McLennan, possibly Buecher,2 and again Morgan. On the historical value of his scheme little need be said here. It must be judged primarily by the uses to which it was put and the results it may have produced. Ferguson did not work out or use a rigid scheme; he followed chiefly economic lines where generalization is reasonably safe; and such scheme as he had he did not use dogmatically to the obscuring of facts found to the contrary. He used it to manage such meager historical data as were available in his day and not as " a substitute for critical thought Hence it may be remarked that the weakness of H. L. Morgan is 1877 4 and of even later writers, may still have been the strength of an explorer in 1767. Even so he generalized beyond the warrants of his data. This brings us finally to one last consideration; that of Ferguson's relation to the historico-institutional approach in sociology which will be best known to the reader in its newest dress of cultural sociology or the culturo-anthropological approach. W e refer not in particular to the efforts of men like Ogburn to measure cultural processes quantitively ; 5 nor to their 1 Turgot is apparently the first, apart, of course, from such earlier writers as Hesiod, Aeschylus, Lucretius, and in certain directions the more recent Bossuet, to offer a universalized series of culture stages. Even so, one must distinguish between historical epochs and such epochs universalized into stages to be independently passed through in order in all cultures. Cf. also supra, p. 81, note 1. 1 Buecher, K., Industrial Evolution, p. 85.

'Goldenweiser, Α . Α., in Merriam, Barnes, etc., Politicai Recent Times ( N e w Y o r k , 1924), p. 433. * T h e year of the appearance of his Ancient 4

Society.

Ogburn, W . F., Social Change, N e w Y o r k , 1922.

Theories

in

256

ADAM

FERGUSON

pre-occupation frequently with primitive life—that is incidental ; 1 nor to many other conceptions applied in the specific methodology of the cultural approach. All this is relatively absent in Ferguson. W h a t we have in mind can be best suggested, perhaps, though only suggested, by naming three men who will seem, at first, strange bed-fellows, Sir Henry Maine with his historical study of institutions ; 2 Lowie, at least in his conception of " Omnis cultura ex cultura " 3 and Simmel with his " forms of association or socialization ".* A combined effort to see institutions as institutions, as historical patterns of association; to explain them on a purely historical level, not as non-psychological, nor, as the reference to Lowie might suggest, to the disparagement of an evolutionary orientation, but with a primarily historical, i.e., strictly inductive emphasis and with categories fitted to the phenomena under description; and to develop formal categories, patterns of relationship, persistent, interrelated patterns of thought, sentiment and action, permitting of abstraction always from the particular historical phenomenon studied, and yet permitting of application to any phenomenon to be studied—this seems to represent a distinct and even promising tendency in sociology. Its fundamental method has perhaps been best worked out by Giddings in his essays " Order and Possibility " 8 and " T h e Scientific Study of Society ". Ferguson developed no detailed method for such study. His interest in socio-individual psychology may •Lowie, Culture and Ethnology (N. Y., 1917; reprint 1929). P· 6. * Maine, Sir Henry, Ancient Law; The Early History of Institutions, etc. •Lowie, op. cit., p. 66. * " Die Formen der Vergesellschaftung." Simmel, G., Soziologie; Soziale Differenzierung; etc.; also Spykman, N. J., The Social Theory of George Simmel, Chicago, 1925. 1

Giddings, Studies, ch. vii.

FERGUSON

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SOCIOLOGY

even point another direction. Yet if we have not interpreted him amiss, there would seem to be that in his whole orientation that would lend itself fundamentally as a point of departure for such an approach. CONCLUSION

In the end, however, as in the beginning of this study, let it be repeated that its purpose was neither to point a moral, to rekindle a flame that once brightly burned, nor to solve the puzzling problems of the methodology of our science; but rather historically to state what has been, and how it relates to what is. While for purposes of presentation a somewhat schematic arrangement of Ferguson's teachings seemed called for, any effort to press him into a formula was scrupulously avoided. He developed neither a system of sociology nor a technique for sociological analysis or discovery. He did, we believe to have shown, employ and help to develop a method that was fundamentally significant, a method that aimed to be severely empirical, at once psychological and historical. He did not leave the problem of society quite where he had found it, and so deserves to be known in the history of sociology. Moreover, he was not an isolated figure, hardly even an independent one; but was part of a movement, say rather, he was one of many minds, particularly in England and Scotland, who made at least as serious an effort to extricate themselves from an a priori mode of thought 1 on the problems of human social living, as ever the master minds of two centuries before him had made to extricate themselves from a theological one. And having thus apologized to a great Frenchman, and without definitely raising our question into a thesis, we now ask, as before was asked, Did not this basically empirical, 1

Commonly called " metaphysical ".

ADAM

FERGUSON

psychologically and historically oriented sociological method grow up on native soil ? stimulated, often inspired, even, by minds across the channel who had themselves planted some of their roots in that same soil and now returned the fruitage, yet growing with its main roots firmly implanted in the soil of its own native empiricism and political experience? If so, there is confirmed the pronouncement of a near contemporary in a land where also philosophy has prospered, that this people " reads most deeply in the book of society while yet by intensive study gaining a clearer knowledge of individual men." 1 1

Carus, Geschichte der Psychologie

(Leipzig, 1808), pp. 624 et seq.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (The first edition cited below is the one used in the text unless otherwise indicated. Other editions and printings are indicated in parentheses where it is considered necessary.) A.

W R I T I N G S OF A H A M

FERGUSON

AH Essay on the History of Civil Society, Dublin (Grierson), 1767. (Also Edinburgh, 1767; 3rd ed., London, 1768; 4th ed., London, 1773; 5th ed., London, 1782; 6th ed. London, 1793; 7th ed., Boston, 1809; 7th ed., Edinburgh, 1814; 8th ed., Philadelphia, 1819.) Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1785. (Also 1772; new, enlarged ed., Basil, 1800.) Principles of Moral and Political Science, Edinburgh, 179a. 2 vols. The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic, London, 1783; same, 1828. (Also Edinburgh, 1825; London, 1829; Philadelphia, 1836; Philadelphia, 1841; New York, 1852 and others.) Analysis of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy, 1761. (Not found.) The Morality of Stage Plays Seriously Considered, Edinburgh, 1757 (Lib. Cong.). The History of the Proceedings in the Case of Margaret, commonly called Peg, only Sister to John Bull, London, 1761. Remarks on a Pamphlet lately published by Dr. Price, entitled, Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, London, 1776. " Minutes of the Life and Character of Joseph Black, M. D.," in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. v, pt iii, pp. 101-117. B.

CONTEMPORARY AND N E A R - C O N T E M P O R A R Y W R I T I N G S

Adelung, Versuch einer Geschichte der Kultur des Menschlichen Geschlechts, Leipzig, 1782. Beattie, J., Elements of Moral Science. Berkeley, Complete Works, Oxford, 1901. Burke, E., Writings and Speeches, Boston, 1910, esp. , The Vindication of Natural Society. , Essays on the Sublime and Beautiful. , Reflections on the French Revolution. Dunbar, James, Essay on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages, 2nd ed., London, 1781 (also London, 1780). Gregory, John, A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World, London, 1777. Herder, J. G., Saemmtliche Werke, Berlin, 1891, esp. , Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Hume, David, Philosophical Works, Boston, 1854. , History of England. 259

2ÔO

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kames, Lord Henry Home, Sketches of the History of Man, Edinburgh, 1774 (also Edinburgh, 1778). Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages. Mandeville, Β., The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits, etc., London, 1723. Millar, John Α., A Historical View of the English Government from the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in 1688, 1786, 1803. , The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks; or an Inquiry into the Circumstances which gives Rise to Influence and Authority in the Different Members of Society, 4th ed., Edinburgh, 1806 (also 1 7 7 1 ; Basel, 1793). Monboddo, James Burnet, Lord, On the Origin and Progress of Language, Edinburgh, 1773. Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Lois. Pope, Α., Essay on Man. Priestly, Joseph, Lectures on History and General Policy, London, 1793. Reid, Thomas, Works, New York, 1822. —·—, Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764). , Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785). , Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788). Robertson, William, IVorks, London, 1817. , History of Scotland during the Reign of Mary (1759). , History of the Reign of Charles V., with A View of the Progress of Society in Europe (1769), London, cited in text. , History of America (1777). Shaftsbury, Third Earl of, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times, London, 1 7 1 1 . Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). , Theory of the Moral Sentiments (1759). , Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms, delivered . . . 1763, Oxford, 1896. Steuart, James D., Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, 1767 (Dublin, 1788). Stewart, Dugald, Collected Works, Edinburgh, 1858; esp. vol. x, Biographical Memoirs of Adam Smith, William Robertson and Thomas Reid. Also Biographical Sketch of Robertson in History of Scotland, vol. i. Vide supra. Stuart, Gilbert, View of Society in Europe in its Progress from Rudenesi to Refinement, or Enquiries concerning the History of Law, Government and Manners, Edinburgh and London, 1813 (Edinburgh, 1778). Temple, Sir William, Essay upon the Original and Nature of Government. Turgot, the two Sorbonne Discourses in Oeuvres.

BIBUOGRAPHY C.

SELECT SECONDARY R E FEIEN e s s AND L A T E R W R I T I N G S

Barnes, H. E., " Sociology before Gimte," in American Journal of Sociology, Sept. 1917. , The New History and the Social Studies, New York, 1925, et al. Bernheim, E., Lehrbuch der historischen Methode. Barth, P., Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Soziologie, 3rd and 4th ed., 1921. Black, J. B., The Art of History, Ν. Y . , 1926. Bouet (Bonet ?), "Adam Ferguson et ses idees politiques et sociales," in Journal des Economistes, Ser. S, vol. 36. Breysig, K., " Die Historiker der Aufklaerung," Hardens Zukunft, Jahrg. 19, 1897, Nr. 33, 34. Buddeberg, " Ferguson als Soziologe," in Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie, Bd. 123, Ss. 609-635, Jena, 1935. Davis, M. M., Psychological Interpretations of Society, Columbia Univ. Studies in Hist., etc., vol. xxxii, no. 2, Ν. Y., 1909. Dunning, W . Α., A History of Political Theories, Ν. Y., 1920. Flint, R., History of the Philosophy of History, Ν. Y., 1894 (also, The Philosophy of History in Europe, Edinburgh and London, 1874). Giddings, F. H., Studies in the Theory of Human Society, Ν. Y., 1922. Gooch, G. P., " T h e Growth of Historical Science," in Cambridge Modem History, vol. xii, ch. xxvi. , History and Historians in the 19th Century. Grundeman, Joh., Die geographischen und voelkerkundlichen Quellen und Anschauungen -in Herder's " Ideen ", Berlin, 1900. Gumplowicz, Die Soziologische Staatsidee, Gratz, 1892. Hasbach, Wilh.. Untersuchungen ueber Adam Smith und die Entwicklung der politischen Oekonomie, Leipzig, 1891. , " Die allgemeine philosophischen Grundlagen der von Francois Quesnay und Adam Smith begruendeten politischen Oekonomie," in Schmollers Staats-u. sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, Bd. x, H e f t 2, 1890. Huth, Hermann, Soziale u. individualistische Auffassung im 18. Jahrhundert, vorn, bei Adam Smith u. Adam Ferguson, ibid., Bd. — , H e f t 125, 1906. Klemm, Otto, History of Psychology, New York, 1914. Laurie, H., Scottish Philosophy in its National Development, Glasgow, 1902. Lichtenberger, J. P., Development of Social Theory, New Y o r k , 1923. McCunn, John, The Political Philosophy of Burke, London, 1913. Merz, J. T., A History of European Thought in the 19th Century, Edinburgh and London, 1914. Morrow, G. R., The Ethical and Economic Theories of Adam Smith, in Cornell Studies in Philosophy, no. 13, 1923.

2Ó2

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Oppenheim«·, Fr., System der Soziologie, Jena, 1922, vol. i. Randall, John, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, New York, 1926. Robertson, John M., Buckle and his Critics, London, 1895. Rogers, A Students' History of philosophy. Small, Α., The Origins of Sociology, Chicago, 1924. , Adam Smith and Modern Sociology, Chicago, 1907. Small, John, " Biographical Sketch of Adam Ferguson," in Transactions of Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1864. Smith, A . L., " English Political Philosophy in the 17th and 18th Centuries," in Cambridge Modern History, vol. vi, ch. xiii. Sombart, W., " Die Anfaenge der Soziologie," in Erinnerungsgabe an Max Weber, 1923, Bd. i. Spencer, H., Social Statics, New York, 1865. , The Study of Sociology, 1873. Stein, Ludwig, Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophie, 3. 4. Aufl., Stuttgart, 1923. Stephen, Sir Leslie, History of English Thought in the 18th Century, New York and London, 3rd ed., 1902. Teggert, F. J., Theory of History, New Haven, 1925. Waentig, H., Introduction to German transi, of Ferguson's Civil Society, , Comte u. seine Bedeutung fuer die Entwicklung der Sozialwissenschaft, 1894. Warren, H. C., A History of Associational Psychology, New York, 1921. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, New York, 1925. Windelband, W., Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, 7. u. 8. Aufl., Leipzig, 1922.

INDEX Abstraction, 171 "Activism," 113, 150 Adequate function, 176, 178 Alison, Α., 193 Ambition, 114, 236 Authors quoted by Ferguson, classical, 47, 60, 61, 169,

17&-177,

211, 2 5 5 ;

100-101, 184,

modern,

187,

134, 196,

15s, 210-

184-185

Bacon, 3 3 - 3 5 , 1 7 0 , 1 8 4 Bagehot, 106, 245 Barbarism characterized, 83, 100 Barnes, Η. E., 24, 28, 119, 185, 193, 198, 206, 207, 238,

255

Barth, 187, 239 Beattie, 223 Behaviorism anticipated, 35, 67, 173-174 Bentham, 225, 227, 243, 249 Berkeley, 1 8 4 - 1 8 5 , 1 8 7 , 1 9 0 - 1 9 2 , 227,

249

Biology, 67, 72-73, 95, 196, 233, 251-254. Cf. Man and Nature Blair, 16, 223 Bodin, 185, 189, 194 Bolingbroke, 184 Bossuet, 81, 255 Bouet, H., fly-leaf, 24 Breysig, Kurt, 2 4 , 1 9 5 - 1 9 6 Brown, Thomas, 193 Buckle, 95, 209, 225, 240, 244, 249 Buddeberg, 24, 25, 85, 95, 154, '70, 178,

179

Buffon, 67, 95, 184, 213 Buecher, 24, 187, 255 Burke, 1 4 5 , 2 2 4 - 2 2 6 , 2 2 7 Burns, Robert, 19

Cockburn, 16, 20 Commerce, nature of, 92 Commercial arts. See Techniques, Division of labor Community and society. See Society " Comparative Method ", 77, 177, 254-255. Comparative viewpoint, 64 Comte, 185, 187, 234, 239 et seq., 248, 249, 252, 255; socialism of, 1 6 3 ; three stages, 2 5 7 - 2 5 8 Condillac, 194 Conditioning, 6 9 - 7 1 . See Habit Condorcet, 42, 81, 148, 195 Conflict, 2 7 , 9 8 - 1 0 6 , 1 4 2 , 1 5 0 , 1 8 9 ; essential to society, 103, 150; in economic life, 102; forms of, 98. Cf. War Consciousness of kind and difference anticipated, 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 Contagion (crowd behavior), 72, 125, 127, 2 0 1 ,

226

" Contemporary ancestry ", 77, 177, 211

Continuity in history, Contract, 3 9 , 8 7 - 8 9 , 202,

62-63 93, 192,

200,

225

Cooley, C. H., 247 Copernicus, 30 Cousin, 24, 224, 234 Cromwell, 32, 88 Cultural accumulation, 6 2 - 6 3 , 6 5 , 6 9 , 116. Cf. Evolution Culture and society, 66, ch. ν, 255256 Culture epochs, 2 1 1 , 2 2 1 , 2 5 4 - 2 5 5 , 81. Cf. Evolution, stages of Custom. See Folkways, Habit Cyclical theory of history, 149

Carus, 258 , Carlyle, Thomas, 18 Dalrymple, 184 Clarke, 184 j Darwin, Darwinism, 35, 67; social Classes, 143, 151 ; c f . Stratification ; Darwinism, 2 4 9 - 2 5 4 Climate and situation, 9 5 - 9 8 , 1 8 8 , I Darwin, Erasmus, 193 201, 219, 222 ' Decadence of society, 1 4 7 - 1 5 2 263

2Ó4

INDEX

Defoe, 224 Deism, 16, 39, 165 Descartes, 34-36, 184, 227 Diderot, 185 Differentiation and individuation, 76, 85-86, 109, 124, 135. 141. ISS. 162-163 Diffusion. See Invention and d i f fusion Discoveries, geographic, influence o f , 29, 30, 59-61 ; scientific, influence o f , 28-31, 59-60 Division of labor, 22, 26, 82, 107III, 187, 220; deleterious effects o f , 1 0 9 - 1 1 1 ; historical, 61, 62, 65, 69, 190 Dunbar, 164, 213-214 Dunning, W. Α., fly leaf, 24 Durkheim, 187 Economic changes, influence o f , 31, 173, 220, 236 Economic determinism, 189, 216, 220-222 Economic theory, ch. χ , 139-141 Edinburgh, seat of learning, 15, 16, 197 Educational policy, 115, 121 Eighteenth century, characterized, 39-43. 59-60; scientific interests, 37, 185-186, 227 et seq. ; study of society, 186, 229-235 Empire, scepticism o f , 124-125, 151, 175 Empiricism of Ferguson, 26, 173, 227, 257-258; English, 15, 227, 258 Emulation (prestige), 126 Epicurus, Epicurean, 36, 37, 175, 227 Equality, 82, 146; cf. Individual differences, Stratification Ethics, 18, 21, 55, 165-166; Hume, 201 Ethnography, geography, travel literature, 59-60,173, 209-210,220 Evolution, concept o f , 80; in 18th century, 60-61, 136, 194-196, 218219; Ferguson, 26, 61-62, 93, 195196, 237 ; Ferguson, Comte, Spencer, 248-253 ; Hume, 203 ; character o f , 57, 65, 85-89; factors in, 94, 117-118, 201-203, 222223; stages of, 81, 221 ; trend o f ,

81-85; unilinear, 177, 252, 254255; biological, 67, 73, 95, 196, 233, 251-253 " Expediency philosophy ", 244 F a m i l y , 82, 198-199; evolution o f , 220-221 ; primary group, 120-121 ; matriarchal, metronymic, 82, 96, 221 Ferguson, Adam, biographical, 1620; writings, 17-19, 259; s u m m a r y of teaching, 25-26, 179,2352 3 7 ; appraisals o f , 16, 17, 20, 25-27, 195-196, 235-237; influence o f , 235, 236-240; in Germany, 17, 18, 19, 23, 238, 242; antecedents, 183-185; eclipse o f , 240-242; limitations of method, 172-173 Ferguson, Sir Adam (son of A . F . ) , Fischer, Kuno, 203 Flint, 79, 185, 188, 191, 194-195, 245, 248, 249 F o l k w a y s and mores, 71 et seq., Hume, 199. Cf. Habit, Institutions Franklin, B., 19 French Revolution, 147, 224, 225, 240-241 Functional view of society, 176179. Cf. Interdependence, S o ciety Galilei, 34, 63 Galton, 250 Gassendi, 227 Gay, John, 193 Geography. See Climate, Ethnography Gibbon, 16, 227 Giddings, 40, 67, 106, 122, 179, 184, 198, 205, 225, 243-247, 252, 256 Gide, 31 Godwin, 33, 225, 243 Goldenweiser, 81, 252, 255 Gooch, 194 Government ( S t a t e ) , nature and origins o f , ch. χ , 83, 87-89, 141142, 202-203, 223, 244; forms o f , 142, 146; functions o f , 144-146, 158, 161 ; and societal structure, 142-143, 151-152; and economic life, 83, 109, 144-145, 232; and progress, 152. Cf. Policy, Political theory, Sovereignty.

INDEX Gregariousness, 52 Group fallacy, 23, 156-157 Gumplowics, fly-leaf, 24, 98, 239, 250 Habit, defined 70 ; human nature a product of, 69-73 ; function in society, 52, 73-74, 1 7 5 ; as custom, folkways, institutions, 71, 72, 73, 192-193; emotional conditioning, 70-72; Hume, 198 et seq. Harrington, 189 Harris, 184, 187 Hartley, D., 193, 243 Hasbach, W., 28, 32, 36, 37, 189, 190, 198, 203, 204, 205, 224, 230, 239, 242 Herder, 81, 164, 232-233, 235, 238 History, "Conjectural", "Theoretic a l " , 231-234; methods o f , 176, 217 ; organic conception of, 6465, 225 ; denied by " Rationali s m " , 42, 224; utilized, 173, 176 Historical, idealism, 232-233 ; sociology, 230-233, 248, 256 Historicism, 60 et seq., 78, 176, 203204, 230 et seq. Hobbes, 36, 48, 59, 184, 185, 189, 191, 227 D'Holbach, 17, 238 Human nature, native tendencies, 50-52, 67-68, 78, 90-91. 164; plasticity of, 68, 7 3 ; unchanging character o f , 72, 77-78, 2 5 2 ; altruism and egocentrism, 1 1 1 1 1 3 , 1 9 1 - 1 9 2 ; drives, 93, 1 1 1 - 1 1 5 , 192; emotion, suggestibility, 54, 191 (see Contagion) ; conditioning (see Habit) ; product of association, a function of society, 51-55» 72-73, 164, 251-252 Hume, 47, 185-194, 218, 227 et seq., 232, 236-239, 241, 243, 246, 247; economist, 197; historicism, 203204 ; methodology, 204-205, 228 ; sociologi', 198-203; and Ferguson, 16, 17, 193, 236, 238 Hutcheson, 19, 184, 187, 192, 227, 236, 243, 246, 249 Huth, 24, 25, 28, 61, 93, 179, 187, 189, 207, 239 Imitation, 72, 126, 192, 199, 201, 226, 230

265

Individual differences, native and acquired, 69, 75-76, 108, 1 4 1 , 146, 149, 72-73 Individual and society. See Society Individualism and socialism, 159163, 208; 18th centupr, 32, 41 Individuation. See Differentiation Ingroup-outgroup relationship, 1 1 2 1 1 3 , 123, 216 Instinct. See Human nature, Man and nature Institutions, ch. iv, viii, x, 73, 179, 215, 256; Hume, 202; Millar, 221 Intellectualism, rationalism, 40-42; attack upon, 72 et seq., 87-92, i l i , 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 , 198, 204, 208; c f . Contract Intelligence, functional view o f , 1 1 5 ; and social control, 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 , 145 et seq., 249 Interdependence of societal functions, 22, 27, 142, 147, 190, 191, 215, 221-222, 229 International, supernational, 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 Invention and diffusion, 89-92, 130, 211 Janet, 24, 240 Jurisprudence and sociology, 206, 214, 216, 218, 232 Justice, 144, 160 Kaldun, Ibn, 188, 194, 239 Κ ames, 164, 185, 2 1 1 - 2 1 3 , 232, 239 Keller, Α., 250 Kepler, 63 Laßtau, 59, 184 Laissez faire, 32, 140, 145, 162 Lamarck, 67, 252 Language, evolution o f , 90-93, 129, 223, 230; and society, 1 2 9 - 1 3 1 , 1 5 4 - 1 5 5 ; and social organization, 126, 130, 154-155 Laski, H. J., 185 Laurie, 16, 24, 230, 246 Law. See Jurisprudence, Natural, Science Leibnitz, 194 Liberty, 146, 160-161. C f . Sovereignty Literature and society, 134-135, 22c Locke, 32, 41, 184, 185, 187, 193,227 Lowie, 77, 256

2Ó6

INDEX

Lubbock, 355 Machiavelli, 189 Meine, 77, 255, 256 Malebranche, 184 Malthus, 33, 140, 224, 343 Man and nature, 67-69, 164, I73-I74 Mandrinile, 184, 187, 189, 190, 191, 227 Marx, 24, 109, 187, 235, 239 McCosh, ]., 16, 18, 239, 240 McLennan, 255 Mechanism and voluntarism, 37-39, π I-I 17, 173-175, 205, 244-246 Mers, C., 206, 197, 239 Military and industriai society, 85, 240 Mill, J. S., 340 Millar, John, 81, 206, a n , 214, 217223, 232, 239; quotation from, 122-123 Monboddo, 93, 223 Montesquieu, 48, 60, 142, 184-185, 188, 190, 194-195, 196, 198, 210, 227, 235-236, 238, 239 Moral factor, 117 Morgan, H. L., 255 Morrow, 197, 207-209, 229 Multiple-causation, 177-178 National character, 75-76 ; η. strength, basis of, 150-151, 161 ; Hume on, 201-203, 211 Nationalism, 102-103 Natural, history, 198, 210, 220, 232, 239; justice, 165; law, 34, 37, 167-168, 174; religion, 205-206; righto, 136-137. 165, 198 Nature, concept of, 34, 37, 40, 164165; Law of, 165, 174, 190; state of, 58, 62, 77-79 " N a t u r r e c h t " (Order of Nature philosophy), 40, 41, 159, 165, 167, 249 Newton, 34-39, 63, 168, 184, 198, 228, 244 Novicow, 250 Ogbum, 255 Oppenheimer, 24, 245, 251, 254 Organic. See Interpendence, Society Organismic analogy, 149, 171, 250252

Origins, social, 63-64, 177, 204, 219, 230 et seq. Oswald, 223 Paine, 41, 42, 225 Pearson, Karl, 250 Perfectionism, 55, 78-79, 114-115, 237 Petty, 187 Physical, conception of, 21, 166-168, 174 Physiographic. See Climate Plasticity of human organism, 68, 73 Policy, 146, 161-163 Political changes, influence of, 32, 33, 146-147; p. realism, 142-143. 145-147 Political theory, 139, 141-147, 158, 160 et seq., 197, 202-206, 218 et seq., 226, 244. Cf. Government Pope, Α., 157, 184, 223 Population and society, 108, 125, 140, 188, 250 Pragmatic bias, 55, 165-166, 169, 173, 243 Price, 225 Priestley, J., 193, 211 Primitive man, 59-60, 77-79, 81-84, 100, 101, 177, 209-211; Romantic view of, attacked, 77-79. Cf. Ethnography Progress, 23, 42, 57, 58, 147-IS2. 160, 194-195 ; idea of, 80 Property, 87, 218, 221 ; in savagery, 82 ; in barbarism, 83 ; in " civility", 84; and government, 83, 109, 144-145, 232 Psychological interpretations, 6774, 123-128, 173-174, 193. 229-30, 247 ; physiological psychology, 173-174, 191-193 Quantitative method, 26, 243 Races of man, 95 Racial differences, 72-73, 77 78, 89, 94, 95. 213, 253-254 Randall, J. H., 28, 34, 186, 203, 229 Rationalism, see Intellectualism Raynal, 189 Reid, Thomas, 16, 185, 193, 324, 228-230, 234, 236, 239

267

INDEX Religion and society, 121, 136-138,

218; Hume, 205; Stuart, 216 Renaissance, 29, 33 Responsible State vs. absolute, 160161, 244 Ricardo, 225 Robertson, Wm., 16, 90, 95, 185, 194, 2 0 9 - 2 1 1 , 2 1 5 , 2 3 8 , 2 3 9

Rousseau,

40, 41, 59, 184-185, 225,

227, 241 Saint-Simon,

187,224, 239, 243,244,

2 4 s , 248. 2 5 5

Savagery, characterized, 81-83

Science, and society, 134-135» 167;

"natural", influence of,

2 9 - 3 1 , 35

et seq., 185-186, 328; and p r a g -

matic bias, 166, 169 Scientific method, 33 et seq., ch. xii, 2 2 8 , 232, 334, 2 3 6 , 2 3 7 , ch. xvi, passim ; Ferguson, on, 166 et seq. ; fallacies, 170-172; induction, de-

duction, 1 6 7 - 1 6 9 , 173, 1 7 5 - 1 7 6 Scott, Walter, 19, 239 Secularization, 22, 30 Sex urge, 51, 120, 198. Cf. Family Shaftsbury, 19, 36, 37, 38, 40, 184185, 190, 192, 2 3 6 , 2 4 6 , 2 4 9

Simmel, 256 Small, Albion, 205, 234, 243 Small, John, 16, 147 Smith, Adam, 16, 17, 24, 31, 32, 39, 4 7 , 109, 139, 159, 162, 185, 187, 1 9 1 - 1 9 2 , 194, 197, 2 2 0 , 235, 2 3 6 ,

239, 240, 247; sociological significance

of, 205-208; and F e r g u -

son, 208, 238 ; historicism, 203,

230-232; anti-rationalism, 209

Social change, 57, 58, 61, 62, 215. Cf. Evolution Social concepts defined, 1 5 3 - 1 5 6 Social physicists, 3 8 , 2 4 4 - 2 4 6

Society, nature of, 48, 126, 147,149, 153-156; o r g a n i c , 26, 64-65,

162,

190 et seq., 225; psychological

125-128, 155, 162; f o r m s of, 119,

foundations of, 4 9 - 5 3 ; functional, 1 7 6 - 1 7 9 ; size of so-

246-247;

cieties, 84, 124-125, 151; ultimate

values, 160 et seq. ; universality, 48, 77; and community, 85, 1541 5 5 ; and the individual, 47-48, 53-55, 73, 156-159, 229, 247, 251.

Cf. Individualism and socialism

Sociology, 2 2 - 2 3 , 2 7 ; a distinct science, 234, 242 ; beginning, 238239, 242; cultural, 255-256; historical, 230-233, 248, 256; and

social reform, 243 Sociological

methods,

176-179;

need of, 47, 56, 1 7 6 - 1 7 8 ; difficulties of, 226 Sombart, W., 24, 28, 40, 227 Sorokin,

26, 36, 188-189, 214

Sovereignty, 141,144. '60. Cf. Government Spencer, 81, 106, 187, 234, 240, 242, 244, 249, 250, 254, 255; social physics, 245 ; bio-cultural evolution, 251-253; divergent evolution, 252 ; cosmic evolution, 253 Standard of living, relative, 140 State. See Government Stein, Ludwig, fly-leaf, 196, 245 Stephen, L., 16, 24, 172, 185, 189, 197, 2 0 3 , 2 0 6 , 2 3 8

Steuart,

James,

187-188, 224

Stewart, Dugald, 16, 17, 18, 20, 61, 187, 224, 197, 206, 2 1 5 , 2 3 6 , 2 3 9

Stoicism, 20, 36, 175, 183-184, 190

Stratification, social, 7 5 ,

84, 8 8 , 1 0 9 I I I , 121, 143, 146, 147, 151. See

Equality Stuart, Gilbert, 2 1 4 - 2 1 7 Subordination. See Stratification, Government Sumner, 77, 247, 250 Swift, 224 Sympathy, 192, 198, 201, 208, 226 Techniques and social evolution, 31, 1 0 7 - 1 1 1 , 189, 218, 2 2 0 - 2 2 1

Teggert, F. J., 24, 37, 81, 90, 195, 198, 2 0 3 , 211, 227, 2 3 0 , 2 3 4

Telesis and genesis, 117 Temple, William, 185, 227 Tenney, Α. Α., 252 Thomas, IV. /., 247 Thorndike, L., 36, 186 Tucker, Α., 193 Turgot,

81, 164, 187-188, 191, 194-

195, 2 2 7 , 2 3 2 - 2 3 3 , 2 4 8 , 2 5 5

Unilinear fallacy, 177, 252, 2 5 4 - 2 5 5 " Union and dissention ", principle o f , 112-113

268

INDEX

Vico, 185, 194. 195 Voltaire, 19, 42, 60, 184, 232 Voluntarism. See Mechanism Wachler, 198 Waentig, 24, 224, 242 War, in early society, 82-84, 102; and group-solidarity, and evolution, 1Q3-106, 150; empire, ι ο ί ; and peace, 99, Cf. Conflict, Military

ιοι104; and 104.

Ward, L. F., 243, 249 Washington, George, 19 Watson, J. R., 77 Wealth, 108, 139, 140; and wellbeing, 140-141, 150-152 Wegelin, 60 Weissmann, 252 Whitehead, Α. Ν., 34 Windelband, W., 28, 34, 35, 189191, 198, 203, 227 Writing, invention of, 130