Book: An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition

A >> Adam Ferguson, L.L.D. >> An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition




If what is related of the little principalities which, in ancient times,
were formed in Greece, in Italy, and over all Europe, agrees with the
character we have given of mankind under the first impressions of property,
of interest, and of hereditary distinctions; the seditions and domestic
wars which followed in those very states, the expulsion of their kings, or
the questions which arose concerning the prerogatives of the sovereign, or
privilege of the subject, are agreeable to the representation which we now
give of the first step toward political establishment, and the desire of a
legal constitution.

What this constitution may be in its earliest form, depends on a variety of
circumstances in the condition of nations: it depends on the extent of the
principality in its rude state; on the degree of disparity to which mankind
had submitted before they begun to dispute the abuses of power: it depends
likewise on what we term _accidents_, the personal character of an
individual, or the events of a war.

Every community is originally a small one. That propensity by which mankind
at first unite, is not the principle from which they afterwards act in
extending the limits of empire. Small tribes, where they are not assembled
by common objects of conquest or safety, are even averse to a coalition.
If, like the real or fabulous confederacy of the Greeks for the destruction
of Troy, many nations combine in pursuit of a single object, they easily
separate again, and act anew on the maxims of rival states.

There is, perhaps a certain national extent, within which the passions of
men are easily communicated from one, or a few, to the whole; and there are
certain numbers of men who can be assembled, and act in a body. If, while
the society is not enlarged beyond this dimension, and while its members
are easily assembled, political contentions arise, the state seldom fails
to proceed on republican maxims, and to establish democracy. In most rude
principalities, the leader derived his prerogative from the lustre of his
race, and from the voluntary attachment of his tribe: the people he
commanded were his friends, his subjects, and his troops. If we suppose,
upon any change in their manners, that they cease to revere his dignity,
that they pretend to equality among themselves, or are seized with a
jealousy of his assuming too much, the foundations of his power are already
withdrawn. When the voluntary subject becomes refractory; when considerable
parties, or the collective body, choose to act for themselves; the small
kingdom, like that of Athens, becomes of course a republic.

The changes of condition, and of manners, which, in the progress of
mankind, raise up to nations a leader and a prince, create, at the same
time, a nobility and a variety of ranks, who have, in a subordinate degree,
their claim to distinction. Superstition, too, may create an order of men,
who, under the title of priesthood, engage in the pursuit of a separate
interest; who, by their union and firmness as a body, and by their
incessant ambition, deserve to be reckoned in the list of pretenders to
power. These different orders of men are the elements of whose mixture the
political body is generally formed; each draws to its side some part from
the mass of the people. The people themselves are a party upon occasion;
and numbers of men, however classed and distinguished, become, by their
jarring pretensions and separate views, mutual interruptions and checks;
and have, by bringing to the national councils the maxims and apprehensions
of a particular order, and by guarding a particular interest, a share in
adjusting or preserving the political form of the state.

The pretensions of any particular order, if not checked by some collateral
power, would terminate in tyranny; those of a prince, in despotism; those
of a nobility or priesthood, in the abuses of aristocracy; of a populace,
in the confusions of anarchy. These terminations, as they are never the
professed, so are they seldom even the disguised object of party: but the
measures which any party pursues, if suffered to prevail, will lead, by
degrees, to every extreme.

In their way to the ascendant they endeavour to gain, and in the midst of
interruptions which opposite interests mutually give, liberty may have a
permanent or a transient existence; and the constitution may bear a form
and a character as various as the casual combination of such multiplied
parts can effect.

To bestow on communities some degree of political freedom, it is perhaps
sufficient, that their members, either singly, or as they are involved with
their several orders, should insist on their rights; that under republics,
the citizen should either maintain his own equality with firmness, or
restrain the ambition of his fellow citizen within moderate bounds; that
under monarchy, men of every rank should maintain the honours of their
private or their public stations; and sacrifice neither to the impositions
of a court, nor to the claims of a populace, those dignities which are
destined, in some measure, independent of fortune, to give stability to the
throne, and to procure a respect to the subject.

Amidst the contentions of party, the interests of the public, even the
maxims of justice and candour, 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, 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.

When we consider the history of mankind in this view, we cannot be at a
loss for the causes which, in small communities, threw the balance on the
side of democracy; which, in states more enlarged in respect to territory
and number of people, gave the ascendant to monarchy; and which, in a
variety of conditions and of different ages, enabled mankind to blend and
unite the characters of different forms; and, instead of any of the simple
constitutions we have mentioned, [Footnote: Part I. Sect. 10.] to exhibit a
medley of all.

In emerging from a state of rudeness and simplicity, men must be expected
to act from that spirit of equality, or moderate subordination, to which
they have been accustomed. When crowded together in cities, or within the
compass of a small territory, they 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. The pretenders to power and
dominion appear in too familiar a light to impose upon the multitude, and
they have no aids at their call, by which they can bridle the refractory
humours of a people who resist their pretensions. Theseus, king of Attica,
we are told, assembled the inhabitants of its twelve cantons into one city.
In this he took an effectual method to unite into one democracy, what were
before the separate members of his monarchy, and to hasten the downfal of
the regal power.

The monarch of an extensive territory has many advantages in maintaining
his station. Without any grievance to his subjects, he can support the
magnificence of a royal estate, and dazzle the imagination of his people,
by that very wealth which themselves have bestowed. He can employ the
inhabitants of one district against those of another; and while the
passions that lead to mutiny and rebellion, can at any one time seize only
on a part of his subjects, he feels himself strong in the possession of a
general authority. Even the distance at which he resides from many of those
who receive his commands, augments the mysterious awe and respect which are
paid to his government.

With these different tendencies, accident and corruption, however, joined
to a variety of circumstances, may throw particular states from their bias,
and produce exceptions to every general rule. This has actually happened in
some of the later principalities of Greece, and modern Italy, in Sweden,
Poland, and the German Empire. But the united states of the Netherlands,
and the Swiss cantons, are, perhaps, the most extensive communities, which,
maintaining the union of nations, have, for any considerable time, resisted
the tendency to monarchical government; and Sweden is the only instance of
a republic established in a great kingdom on the ruins of monarchy.

The sovereign of a petty district, or a single city, when not supported, as
in modern Europe, by the contagion of monarchical manners, holds the
sceptre by a precarious tenure, and is perpetually alarmed by the spirit of
mutiny in his people, is guided by jealousy, and supports himself by
severity, prevention, and force.

The popular and aristocratical powers in a great nation, as in the case of
Germany and Poland, may meet with equal difficulty in maintaining their
pretensions; and, in order to avoid their danger on the side of kingly
usurpation, are obliged to withhold from the supreme magistrate even the
necessary trust of an executive power.

The states of Europe, in the manner of their first settlement, laid the
foundations of monarchy, and were prepared to unite under regular and
extensive governments. If the Greeks, whose progress at home terminated in
the establishment of so many independent republics, had under Agamemnon
effected a conquest and settlement in Asia, it is probable that they might
have furnished an example of the same kind. But the original inhabitants of
any country, forming many separate cantons, come by slow degrees to that
coalition and union into which conquering tribes, in effecting their
conquests, or in securing their possessions, are hurried at once.
Caesar encountered some hundreds of independent nations in Gaul, whom even
their common danger did not sufficiently unite. The German invaders, who
settled in the lands of the Romans, made, in the same district, a number
of separate establishments, but far more extensive than what the ancient
Gauls, by their conjunction and treaties, or in the result of their wars,
could, after many ages, have reached.

The seeds of great monarchies, and the roots of extensive dominion, were
every where planted with the colonies that divided the Roman empire. We
have no exact account of the numbers, who, with a seeming concert,
continued, during some ages, to invade and to seize this tempting prize.
Where they expected resistance, they endeavoured to muster up a
proportional force; and when they proposed to settle, entire nations
removed to share in the spoil. Scattered over an extensive province, where
they could not be secure, without maintaining their union, they continued
to acknowledge the leader under whom they had fought; and, like an army
sent by divisions into separate stations, were prepared to assemble
whenever occasion should require their united operations or counsels.

Every separate party had its post assigned, and every subordinate chieftain
his possessions, from which he was to provide his own subsistence, and that
of his followers. The model of government was taken from that of a military
subordination, and a fief was the temporary pay of an officer proportioned
to his rank. [Footnote: See Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland, B.
1.--Dalrymple's Hist. of Feudal Tenures.] There was a class of the people
destined to military service, another to labour, and to cultivate lands for
the benefit of their masters. The officer improved his tenure by degrees,
first changing a temporary grant into a tenure for his life; and this also,
upon the observance of certain conditions, into a grant including his
heirs.

The rank of the nobles became hereditary in every quarter, and formed a
powerful and permanent order of men in every state. While they held the
people in servitude, they disputed the claims of their sovereign; they
withdrew their attendance upon occasion, or turned their arms against him.
They formed a strong and insurmountable barrier against a general despotism
in the state; but they were themselves, by means of their warlike
retainers, the tyrants of every little district, and prevented the
establishment of order, or any regular applications of law. They took the
advantage of weak reigns or minorities, to push their encroachments on the
sovereign; or having made the monarchy elective, they, by successive
treaties and stipulations, at every election, limited or undermined the
monarchical power. The prerogatives of the prince have been, in some
instances, as in that of the German empire in particular, reduced to a mere
title; and the national union itself preserved in the observance only of a
few insignificant formalities.

Where the contest of the sovereign, and of his vassals, under hereditary
and ample prerogatives annexed to the crown, had a different issue, the
feudal lordships were gradually stript of their powers, the nobles were
reduced to the state of subjects, and, obliged to hold their honours, and
exercise their jurisdictions, in a dependence on the prince. It was his
supposed interest to reduce them to a state of equal subjection with the
people, and to extend his own authority, by rescuing the labourer and the
dependent from the oppressions of their immediate superiors.

In this project the princes of Europe have variously succeeded. While they
protected the people, and thereby encouraged the practice of commercial and
lucrative arts, they paved the way for despotism in the state; and with the
same policy by which they relieved the subject from many oppressions, they
increased the powers of the crown.

But where the people had, by the constitution, a representative in the
government, and a head, under which they could avail themselves of the
wealth they acquired, and of the sense of their personal importance, this
policy turned against the crown; it formed a new power to restrain the
prerogative, to establish the government of law, and to exhibit a spectacle
new in the history of mankind; monarchy mixed with republic, and extensive
territory governed, during some ages, without military force.

Such were the steps by which the nations of Europe have arrived at their
present establishments: in some instances they have come to the possession
of legal constitutions; in others, to the exercise of a mitigated
despotism; or they continue to struggle with the tendency which they
severally have to these different extremes.

The progress of empire, in the early ages of Europe, threatened to be
rapid, and to bury the independent spirit of nations in a grave like that
which the Ottoman conquerors found for themselves, and for the wretched
race they had vanquished. The Romans had by slow degrees extended their
empire; they had made every new acquisition in the result of a tedious war,
and had been obliged to plant colonies, and to employ a variety of
measures, to secure every new possession. But the feudal superior being
animated, from the moment he gained an establishment, with a desire of
extending his territory, and of enlarging the list of his vassals,
procured, by merely bestowing investiture, the annexation of new provinces,
and became the master of states, before independent, without making any
material innovation in the form of their policy.

Separate principalities were, like the parts of an engine, ready to be
joined, and, like the wrought materials of a building, ready to be erected.
They were in the result of their struggles put together or taken asunder
with facility. The independence of weak states was preserved only by the
mutual jealousies of the strong, or by the general attention of all to
maintain a balance of power.

The happy system of policy on which European states have proceeded in
preserving this balance; the degree of moderation which is, in adjusting
their treaties, become habitual even to victorious and powerful monarchies,
does honour to mankind, and may give hopes of a lasting felicity, to be
derived from a prepossession, never, perhaps, equally strong in any former
period, or among any number of nations, that the first conquering people
will ruin themselves, as well as their rivals.

It is in such states, perhaps, as in a fabric of a large dimension, that we
can perceive most distinctly the several parts of which a political body
consists; and observe that concurrence or opposition of interests, which
serve to unite or to separate different orders of men, and lead them, by
maintaining their several claims, to establish a variety of political
forms. The smallest republics, however, consist of parts similar to these,
and of members who are actuated by, a similar spirit. They furnish examples
of government diversified by the casual combinations of parties, and by the
different advantages with which those parties engage in the conflict.

In every society there is a casual subordination, independent of its formal
establishment, and frequently adverse to its constitution. While the
administration and the people speak the language of a particular form, and
seem to admit no pretensions to power, without a legal nomination in one
instance, or without the advantage of hereditary honours in another, this
casual subordination, possibly arising from the distribution of property,
or from some other circumstance that bestows unequal degrees of influence,
gives the state its tone, and fixes its character.

The plebeian order at Rome having been long considered as of an inferior
condition, and excluded from the higher offices of magistracy, had
sufficient force, as a body, to get, this invidious distinction removed;
but the individual still acting under the impressions of a subordinate
rank, gave in every competition his suffrage to a patrician, whose
protection he had experienced; and whose personal authority he felt. By
this means the ascendancy of the patrician families was, for a certain
period, as regular as it could be made by the avowed maxims of aristocracy:
but the higher offices of state being gradually shared by plebeians, the
effects of former distinctions were prevented or weakened. The laws that
were made to adjust the pretensions of different orders were easily eluded.
The populace became a faction, and their alliance was the surest road to
dominion. Clodius, by a pretended adoption into a plebeian family, was
qualified to become tribune of the people; and Caesar, by espousing the
cause of this faction, made his way to usurpation and tyranny.

In such fleeting and transient scenes, forms of government are only modes
of proceeding, in, which successive ages differ from one another. Faction
is ever ready to seize all occasional advantages; and mankind, when in
hazard from any party, seldom find a better protection than that of its
rival. Cato united with Pompey in opposition to Caesar, and guarded against
nothing so much as that reconciliation of parties, which was in effect to
be a combination of different leaders against the freedom of the republic.
This illustrious personage stood distinguished in his age like a man among
children, and was raised above his opponents, as much by the justness of
his understanding, and the extent of his penetration, as he was by the
manly fortitude and disinterestedness with which he strove to baffle the
designs of a vain and childish ambition, that was operating to the ruin of
mankind.

Although free constitutions of government seldom or never take their rise
from the scheme of any single projector, yet are they often preserved by
the vigilance, activity, and zeal of single men. Happy are they who
understand and who choose this object of care; and happy it is for mankind
when it is not chosen too late. It has been reserved to signalize the lives
of a Cato or a Brutus, on the eve of fatal revolutions; to foster in secret
the indignation of Thrasea and Helvidius; and to occupy the reflections of
speculative men in times of corruption. But even in such late and
ineffectual examples, it was happy to know, and to value, an object which
is so important to mankind. The pursuit, and the love of it, however
unsuccessful, has thrown its principal lustre on human nature.




SECTION III.

OF NATIONAL OBJECTS IN GENERAL, AND OF ESTABLISHMENTS AND MANNERS RELATING
TO THEM.


While the mode of subordination is casual, and forms of government take
their rise, chiefly from the manner in which the members of a state have
been originally classed, and from a variety of circumstances that procure
to particular orders of men a sway in their country, there are certain
objects that claim the attention of every government, that lead the
apprehensions and the reasonings of mankind in every society, and that not
only furnish an employment to statesmen, but in some measure direct the
community to those institutions, under the authority of which the
magistrate holds his power. Such 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.

The consideration due to these objects will be pleaded in every public
assembly, and will produce, in every political contest, appeals to that
common sense and opinion of mankind, which, struggling with the private
views of individuals, and the claims of party, may be considered as the
great legislator of nations.

The measures required for the attainment of most national objects are
connected together, and must be jointly pursued; they are often the same.
The force which is prepared for defence against foreign enemies, may be
likewise employed to keep the peace at home: the laws made to secure the
rights and liberties of the people, may serve as encouragements to
population and commerce; and every community, without considering how its
objects may be classed or distinguished by speculative men, is, in every
instance, obliged to assume or to retain that form which is best fitted to
preserve its advantages, or to avert its misfortunes.

Nations, however, like private men, have their favourite ends, and their
principal pursuits, which diversify their manners, as well as their
establishments. They even attain to the same ends by different means; and,
like men who make their fortune by different professions, retain the habits
of their principal calling in every condition at which they arrive. The
Romans became wealthy in pursuing their conquests; and probably, for a
certain period, increased the numbers of mankind, while their disposition
to war seemed to threaten the earth with desolation. Some modern nations
proceed to dominion and enlargement on the maxims of commerce; and while
they only intend to accumulate riches at home, continue to gain an imperial
ascendant abroad.

The characters of the warlike and the commercial are variously combined:
they are formed in different degrees by the influence of circumstances,
that more or less frequently give rise to war, and excite the desire of
conquest; of circumstances, that leave a people in quiet to improve their
domestic resources, or to purchase, by the fruits of their industry, from
foreigners, what their own soil and their climate deny.

The members of every community are more or less occupied with matters of
state, in proportion as their constitution admits them to share in the
government, and summons up their attention to objects of a public nature. A
people are cultivated or unimproved in their talents, in proportion as
those talents are employed in the practice of arts, and in the affairs of
society they are improved or corrupted in their manners, in proportion as
they are encouraged and directed to act on the maxims of freedom and
justice, or as they as they are degraded into a state of meanness and
servitude. But whatever advantages are obtained, or whatever evils are
avoided, by nations, in any of these important respects, are generally
considered as mere occasional incidents: they are seldom admitted among the
objects of policy, or entered among the reasons of state.

We hazard being treated with ridicule, when we require political
establishments, merely to cultivate the talents of men, and to inspire then
sentiments of a liberal mind: we must offer some motive of interest, or
some hopes of external advantage, to animate the pursuits, or to direct the
measures, of ordinary men. They would be brave, ingenious, and eloquent,
only from necessity, or for the sake of profit: they magnify the uses of
wealth, population, and the other resources of war; but often forget that
these are of no consequence without the direction of able capacities, and
without the supports of a national vigour. We may expect, therefore, to
find among states the bias to a particular policy taken from the regards to
public safety; from the desire of securing personal freedom or private
property; seldom from the consideration of moral effects, or from a view to
the real improvement of mankind.

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