An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition

by Adam Ferguson

But I willingly quit a subject in which I am not much conversant, and still less engaged by the object for which I write. Speculations on commerce and wealth have been delivered by the ablest writers; and the public will probably soon be furnished with a theory of national economy, equal to what has ever appeared on any subject of science whatever. [Footnote: Mr. Smith, author of the Theory of Moral Sentiment] But in the view which I have taken of human affairs, nothing seems more important than the general caution which the authors to whom I refer so well understand, not to consider these articles as making the sum of national felicity, or the principal object of any state. In science we consider our objects apart; in practice it were an error not to have them all in our view at once.

One nation, in search of gold and of precious metals, neglect the domestic sources of wealth; and become dependent on their neighbours for the necessaries of life: another so intent on improving their internal resources, and on increasing their commerce, that they become dependent on foreigners for the defence of what they acquire. It is even painful in conversation to find the interest of merchants give the tone to our reasonings, and to find a subject perpetually offered as the great business of national councils, to which any interposition of government is seldom, with propriety, applied, or never, beyond the protection it affords.

We complain of a want of public spirit; but whatever may be the effect of this error in practice, in speculation it is none of our faults: we reason perpetually for the public; but the want of national views were frequently better than the possession of those we express: we would have nations, like a company of merchants, think of nothing but monopolies, and the profit of trade, and, like them too, intrust their protection to a force which they do not possess in themselves.

Because men, like other animals, are maintained in multitudes, where the necessaries of life are amassed, and the store of wealth is enlarged, we drop our regards for the happiness, the moral and political character of a people; and, anxious for the herd we would propagate, carry our views no farther than the stall and the pasture. We forget that the few have often made a prey of the many; that to the poor there is nothing so enticing as the coffers of the rich; and that when the price of freedom comes to be paid, the heavy sword of the victor may fall into the opposite scale.

Whatever be the actual conduct of nations in this matter, it is certain, that many of our arguments would hurry us, for the sake of wealth and of population, into a scene where mankind, being exposed to corruption, are unable to defend their possessions; and where they are, in the end, subject to oppression and ruin. We cut off the roots, while we would extend the branches, and thicken the foliage.

It is possibly from an opinion that the virtues of men are secure, that some, who turn their attention to public affairs, think of nothing but the numbers and wealth of a people: it is from a dread of corruption, that others think of nothing but how to preserve the national virtues. Human society has great obligations to both. They are opposed to one another only by mistake; and even when united, have not strength sufficient to combat the wretched party, that refers every object to personal interest, and that cares not for the safety or increase of any stock but its own.

SECTION V.

OF NATIONAL DEFENCE AND CONQUEST.

It is impossible to ascertain how much of the policy of any state has a reference to war, or to national safety. "Our legislator," says the Cretan in Plato, "thought that nations were by nature in a state of hostility: he took his measures accordingly; and observing that all the possessions of the vanquished pertain to the victor, he held it ridiculous to propose any benefit to his country, before he had provided that it should not be conquered."

Crete, which is supposed to have been a model of military policy, is commonly considered as the original from which the celebrated laws of Lycurgus were copied. Mankind, it seems, in every instance, must have some palpable object to direct their proceedings, and must have a view to some point of external utility, even in the choice of their virtues. The discipline of Sparta was military; and a sense of its use in the field, more than the force of unwritten and traditionary laws, or the supposed engagement of the public faith obtained by the lawgiver, may have induced this people to persevere in the observance of many rules, which to other nations do not appear necessary, except in the presence of an enemy.