Front Page Authors (by Period) Adam Ferguson

Adam Ferguson

1723 - 1816

About the Author

Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was a member of the Scottish Enlightenment who succeeded David Hume in his post as Librarian of the Advocate’s Library in Edinburgh. Ferguson later became professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and wrote important works on philosophy and history.

In The Library:

• author: An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767)
• author: Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense (1915)

Quotations:

• Adam Ferguson notes that “implicit submission to any leader, or the uncontrouled exercise of any power” leads to a form of military government and ultimately despotism (1767) (26 September, 2005)
• Adam Ferguson observed that social structures of all kinds were “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design” (1782) (14 August, 2006)
• Ferguson on the flourishing of man’s intellectual powers in a commercial society (1767) (14 December, 2011)