“We Have Mingled Politeness with the Use of the Sword”: Nature and Civilisation in Adam Ferguson’s Philosophy of War

Abstract

Adam Ferguson’s twin reputations as the most republican of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment and as one of the founding fathers of sociology make him one of the most interesting figures in eighteenth-century political thought. I argue that in his Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) and elsewhere, Ferguson develops a novel understanding of the place of warfare in human social experience. By deploying a proto-sociological account of the naturalness of warfare between nations he proposes a normative criterion for the assessment of civilisation. This argument sets Ferguson apart from contemporaries like Kant who argued for perpetual peace as a criterion of civilisation.

Notes

1. Adam Ferguson, The Correspondence of Adam Ferguson, ed. Vincenzo Merolle, 2 vols. (London: William Pickering, 1995), 2.433; for biographical details, see Jane B. Fagg, Introduction to vol. 1, xx–cxvii.

2. David Kettler, Adam Ferguson: His Social and Political Thought (New Brunswick, Canada: Transaction Press, 2005), 89.

3. Ferguson has been described as the most republican or civic humanist member of the Scottish Enlightenment. See J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

4. David Allan, “Ferguson and Scottish History: Past and Present in ‘An Essay on the History of Civil Society’,” in Adam Ferguson: History, Progress and Human Nature, ed. Eugene Heath and Vincenzo Merolle (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008), 38. Adam Ferguson, The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (New York: J. C. Derby, 1856; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Library, 2005).

5. He founded the Poker Club to agitate for a militia and conducted well documented disputes with David Hume and Adam Smith on the issue. Ferguson’s arguments in favour of a militia range from claims of military superiority to the inculcation of citizen virtue. Smith and Hume generally ceded the virtue point but were clear that a citizen militia would be no match for a modern professional army trained in the use of new military technology. See John Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1985), and Richard Sher, “Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith and the Problem of National Defence,” Journal of Modern History 61 (June 1989): 248–68.

6. W. C. Lehmann, Adam Ferguson and the Beginnings of Modern Sociology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1930). Alan Swingewood, “Origins of Sociology: The Case of the Scottish Enlightenment,” British Journal of Sociology 21 (1970): 164–80. Donald G. MacRae, “Adam Ferguson,” in The Founding Fathers of Social Science, ed. T. Raison (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1969), 17–26.

7. My point is not that Ferguson was a particularly bloodthirsty individual, but rather that he was more reconciled to the inevitability of conflict between nations than many of his peers. This, I argue, is best accounted for by his more sophisticated socio-psychological account of the development of nations rather than by any aspect of his personal biography. Despite his militarism Ferguson was among the more sophisticated sceptics about the burgeoning British Empire (see Kettler, Adam Ferguson, n. 2, 90). If his enthusiasm were merely for the conduct of war then he might have been expected to be an enthusiastic imperialist. However, his worries about extending national bonds over large territories led him to doubt the stability of empires. See also David Allan, Adam Ferguson (Aberdeen: Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2006), 63–64.

8. Lisa Hill has noted that Ferguson may be the first to use the term “civilisation” in English. Lisa Hill, The Passionate Society: The Social, Political and Moral Thought of Adam Ferguson (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), 69.

9. Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, in Kant: Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 48.

10. Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, in Kant: Political Writings, 93.

11. Kant, Perpetual Peace, 103.

12. Kant, Perpetual Peace, 110. For the isolated passages where Kant notes that conduct in war can be ennobling or appear sublime to the observer, see Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 146, 300. I thank Jens Timmerman and an anonymous referee for directing me to these passages.

13. Adam Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792), 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1995), 1. 48; abbreviated as P and hereafter cited in the text.

14. Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), ed. Fania Oz-Salzberger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 22; abbreviated as E and hereafter cited in the text.

15. This line of argument was clearly a major influence on Hegel’s understanding of the nature of the political bond. For Ferguson’s reception in Germany, see Fania Oz-Salzberger, Translating the Enlightenment: Scottish Civic Discourse in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), and more specifically G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821), ed. Allen W. Wood, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 361.

16. Adam Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1769) (London: Routledge/Thoemmes, 1994), 21.

17. As early as 1746 Ferguson argues that a nation is not to be defined by shared geographic location but rather represents a bond of union shared by those who recognise themselves as a “people.” Adam Ferguson, A Sermon Preached in the Ersh language to His Majesty’s First Highland Regiment of Foot Commanded by Lord John Murray (London: A. Millar, 1746), 6.

18. Ferguson, Principles, 2.293. David Allan notes in Adam Ferguson that in the structure of An Essay the section “On the principles of Union among Mankind” is immediately followed by and linked to the section entitled “Of the principles of War and Dissension” (107).

19. For a discussion of Ferguson’s “anticipation” of conflict sociology, see Lisa Hill, “Eighteenth-Century Anticipations of the Sociology of Conflict: The Case of Adam Ferguson,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (April 2001): 281–99. Ferguson’s theory is a precursor of conflict sociology and the sort of theory of the political later made famous by Carl Schmitt. Perhaps the chief conduit from Ferguson to Schmitt is to be found in Hegel.

20. For a discussion of the relationship between Ferguson’s descriptive sociology and evaluative moral judgements, see Kettler, Adam Ferguson, 224, and Christopher J. Finlay, “Rhetoric and Citizenship in Adam Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society,” History of Political Thought 27.1 (Spring 2006): 36–43.

21. David Kettler observes that for Ferguson war is “an inevitable and invaluable aspect of man’s sociality” (Adam Ferguson, 191), which argument reappears in Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 361–62. Yet the recognition of the value of war and conflict should not be taken as Ferguson’s endorsement of constant warfare or of his “looking for a fight.”

22. Hill, “Eighteenth-Century Anticipations of the Sociology of Conflict: The Case of Adam Ferguson,”285–90.

23. Adam Ferguson, Analysis of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy for the use of students in the College of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & J. Bell, 1766), 35.

24. This then might allow us insight into one aspect of Ferguson’s militia argument. As David Raynor has noted, Ferguson’s proposals include the creation of an armed population and a gentlemen militia. Ferguson appears complacent about the possibility for violence opened up by an armed population and this may indeed be a feature of his belief in the powers of civilization to regulate the use of violence. David Raynor, “Ferguson’s Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia,” in Heath and Merolle, Adam Ferguson: History, Progress and Human Nature, 65–72.

25. Adam Ferguson, Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia (London: R. & J. Dodsley, 1756), 12.

26. Iain McDaniel, “Ferguson, Roman History and the Threat of Military Government,” in Heath and Merolle, Adam Ferguson: History, Progress and Human Nature, 115–30.

27. See also Allan, Ferguson and Scottish History, 33.

28. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 25.

29. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 263.

30. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 285.

31. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 284.

32. See also Essay, 61, 129; and for Ferguson on the balance of power, see Essay, 117. David Kettler has argued in Adam Ferguson that “although Ferguson welcomed what he believed to be the elimination of totally destructive wars through humane codes, the newly discovered balance of power, and the distinction between soldier and civilian, he was afraid that the onset of professional and coolly calculating warfare would kill the high-minded spirit of patriotism engendered by complete self-abandonment of a whole society to life-or-death struggle” (6).

33. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 22.

34. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 21–22.

35. As a number of commentators have noted for all of Ferguson’s endorsement of the usefulness of cementing national bonds through conflict with other communities, he has a fear of and distaste for civil war (see Kettler, Adam Ferguson, 256). Ferguson’s worry seems to be that in the absence of external threat nations will devour themselves in factional conflicts that could easily boil over into civil wars. Given Ferguson’s distaste for Jacobitism and his strong criticism of the American rebels we can see that his analysis of warfare and conflict is nuanced to the degree that he is seeking to identify different types of conflict which have different sociological effects.

36. This theme re-emerges in Ferguson’s late letters on Napoleon and France, where he argues that external war is necessary to prevent France from sinking into civil war. Adam Ferguson, The Correspondence of Adam Ferguson, ed. Vincezo Merolle, 2 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1995), 2.397. By implication, the absence of an external threat would destabilise the French regime and thus should help decide British policy.

37. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 27–28.

38. We should be quite clear that this point is distinct from Ferguson’s concerns about professional armies. The point here refers to discipline and technology rather than a division of labour.

39. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 230.

40. Bruce Buchan, “Adam Ferguson, the 43rd, and the Fictions of Fontenoy,” in Heath and Merolle, Adam Ferguson: Philosophy, Politics and Society, 38. See also Bruce Buchan, “Civilisation, Sovereignty and War: The Scottish Enlightenment and International Relations,” International Relations 20.2 (2006): 175–92. Buchan also notes that one of the chief examples of the “fiction” refers to the battle of Fontenoy. Voltaire’s report of the battle and the “polite” exchanges between the opposing sides helped to cement the ideal of civilized warfare in the minds of many intellectuals of the time.

41. Ferguson, Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia, 8, 7. Once again the same point appears in Hegel’s analysis in Philosophy of Right, 371, 376.

42. This might lead us to think seriously about Ferguson’s civic republican credentials. For all of his support for a militia, the value of that institution is at least partly determined by its conduct of civilized modern warfare under rules.

43. Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 232.