The Edition in Jefferson’s Library
FERGUSON, Adam.
An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Edinburgh, A. Millar and T. Cadell, 1768.
8vo, pp. viii, 464; light foxing in the initial couple of quires, some creasing to corners of pp. 75–145, but a very good copy, bound in contemporary calf, spine filleted in gilt, red morocco lettering-piece; hinges strengthened, spine extremities a little chipped, lower corners worn, a few surface abrasions; ownership inscription of ‘Drayton’ to front free endpaper and of ‘L.A. Adams’ to front pastedown and head of title, ink stamp of ‘W. Hort’ at foot of title.
Third edition, corrected: the edition owned by Thomas Jefferson.
‘Ferguson […] was what we would now call an intellectual historian, tracing the gradual rise of the human mind from barbarism to political and social refinement. Debates between Reid, Dugald Stewart, Hume, Adam Smith, Lord Kames and Ferguson himself reveal Scottish philosophy in general to be important sociologically. His discussions of politics, economics, history, aesthetics, literature and ethnology were the synthesis of the thought of his time’ (Encyclopedia of Philosophy III, p. 187).
‘The Essay touched a chord in its British readers because it offered a detailed, colourful, non-deterministic historical account of the way nations advance morally and materially towards the state of commerce, refinement, and liberty associated with eighteenth-century Britain. […] Of special significance was the Essay’s impact on the early attempts at creating the disciplines of social sciences by Ferguson’s contemporaries at the University of Göttingen. They were impressed by his comparative attitude to societies ancient and modern, and by his attack on Rousseau’s concept of the state of nature. Ferguson’s approach inspired a comparative ethnography that went beyond the traditional dichotomy between ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’, and tried to map the varieties of social mores without grading them on a strict ladder of historical progress’ (ODNB).
ESTC T75304; see Higgs 3973 (first edn.)