An essay on the history of civil society: By Adam Ferguson, ...

SECT. II.

The History of Subordination.

WE have hitherto observed mankind, either united together on terms of equality, or disposed to admit of a subordination founded mere∣ly on the voluntary respect and attachment which they paid to their leaders; but, in both cases, without any concerted plan of government, or sy∣stem of laws.

THE savage, whose fortune is comprised in his cabin, his fur, and his arms, is satisfied with that provision, and with that degree of security, he himself can procure. He perceives, in treating with his equal, no subject of discussion that should be referred to the decision of a judge; nor does he find in any hand the badges of magistracy, or the ensigns of a perpetual command.

THE barbarian, though induced by his admi∣ration of personal qualities, the lustre of a heroic race, or a superiority of fortune, to follow the ban∣ners of a leader, and to act a subordinate part in his tribe, knows not, that what he performs from choice, is to be made a subject of obligation. He acts from affections unacquainted with forms; and when provoked, or when engaged in disputes,

he recurs to the sword, as the ultimate means of decision, in all questions of right.

HUMAN affairs, in the mean time, continue their progress. What was in one generation a propensity to herd with the species, becomes, in the ages which follow, a principle of national uni∣on. What was originally an alliance for common defence, becomes a concerted plan of political sorce; the care of subsistence becomes an anxiety for ac∣cumulating wealth, and the foundation of com∣mercial arts.

MANKIND, in following the present sense of their minds, in striving to remove inconveniencies, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate, and pass on, like other animals, in the track of their nature, without perceiving its end. He who first said,

I will appropriate this field; I will leave it to my heirs;

did not per∣ceive, that he was laying the foundation of civil laws and political establishments. He who first ranged himself under a leader, did not perceive, that he was setting the example of a permanent subordination, under the pretence of which, the rapacious were to seize his possessions, and the ar∣rogant to lay claim to his service.

MEN, in general, are sufficiently disposed to oc∣cupy themselves in forming projects and schemes: but he who would scheme and project for others, will find an opponent in every person who is dis∣posed to scheme for himself. Like the winds, that come we know not whence, and blow whi∣thersoever they list, the forms of society are derived

from an obscure and distant origin; they a∣rise, long before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not from the speculations, of men. The croud of mankind, are directed in their establish∣ments and measures, by the circumstances in which they are placed; and seldom are turned from their way, to follow the plan of any single projector.

EVERY step and every movement of the mul∣titude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. If Crom∣well said, That a man never mounts higher, than when he knows not whither he is going; it may with more reason be affirmed of communities, that they admit of the greatest revolutions where no change is intended, and that the most refined politicians do not always know whither they are leading the state by their projects.

IF we listen to the testimony of modern history, and to that of the most authentic parts of the an∣cient; if we attend to the practice of nations in every quarter of the world, and in every condi∣tion, whether that of the barbarian or the polish∣ed, we shall find very little reason to retract this assertion. No constitution is formed by concert, no government is copied from a plan. The mem∣bers of a small state contend for equality; the members of a greater, find themselves classed in

a certain manner that lays a foundation for mo∣narchy. They proceed from one form of govern∣ment to another, by easy transitions, and fre∣quently under old names adopt a new constitution. The seeds of every form are lodged in human na∣ture; they spring up and ripen with the season. The prevalence of a particular species is often de∣rived from an imperceptible ingredient mingled in the soil.

WE are therefore to receive, with caution, the traditionary histories of ancient legislators, and founders of states. Their names have long been celebrated; their supposed plans have been admir∣ed; and what were probably the consequences of an early situation, is, in every instance, consider∣ed as an effect of design. An author and a work, like cause and effect, are perpetually coupled to∣gether. This is the simplest form under which we can consider the establishment of nations: and we ascribe to a previous design, what came to be known only by experience, what no human wis∣dom could foresee, and what, without the con∣curring humour and disposition of his age, no authority could enable an individual to execute.

IF men during ages of extensive reflection, and employed in the search of improvement, are wedded to their institutions; and, labouring under many acknowledged inconveniencies, cannot break loose from the trammels of custom; what shall we suppose their humour to have been in the times of Romulus and Lycurgus? They were not surely more disposed to embrace the schemes of inno∣vators, or to shake off the impressions of habit: they were not more pliant and ductile, when their

knowledge was less; not more capable of refine∣ment, when their minds were more circum∣scribed.

WE imagine, perhaps, that rude nations must have so strong a sense of the defects under which they labour, and be so conscious that reformations are requisire in their manners, that they must be ready to adopt, with joy, every plan of improve∣ment, and to receive every plausible proposal with implicit compliance. And we are thus inclined to believe, that the harp of Orpheus could effect, in one age, what the eloquence of Plato could not produce in another. We mistake, however, the characteristic of simple ages: mankind then ap∣pear to feel the fewest defects, and are then least desirous to enter on reformations.

THE reality, in the mean time, of certain establishments at Rome and at Sparta, cannot be disputed: but it is probable, that the government of both these states took its rise from the situa∣tion and genius of the people, not from the pro∣jects of single men; that the celebrated warrior and statesman, who are considered as the found∣ers of those nations, only acted a superior part among numbers who were disposed to the same institutions; and that they left to posterity a re∣nown, pointing them out as the inventors of many practices which had been already in use, and which helped to form their own manners and genius, as well as those of their countrymen.

IT has been formerly observed, that, in many particulars, the customs of simple nations coincide with what is ascribed to the invention of early

statesmen; that the model of republican go∣vernment, the senate, and the assembly of the peo∣ple; that even the equality of property, or the community of goods, were not reserved to the invention or contrivance of singular men.

IF we consider Romulus as the founder of the Roman state, certainly he who killed his brother that he might reign alone, did not desire to come under restraints from the controuling power of the senate, nor to refer the councils of his sovereignty to the decision of a collective body. Love of do∣minion is, by its nature, averse to constraint; and this chieftain, like every leader in a rude age, probably found a class of men ready to intrude on his councils, and without whom he could not proceed. He met with occasions, on which, as at the sound of a trumpet, the body of the peo∣ple assembled, and took resolutions, which any in∣dividual might in vain dispute, or attempt to con∣troul; and Rome, which commenced on the ge∣neral plan of every artless society, found lasting improvements in the pursuit of temporary expe∣dients, and digested her political frame in adjust∣ing the pretensions of parties which arose in the state.

MANKIND, in very early ages of society, learn to covet riches, and to admire distinction: they have avarice and ambition, and are occasionally led by them to depredation and conquest: but in their ordinary conduct, these motives are balan∣ced or restrained by other habits and other pur∣suits; by sloth, or intemperance; by personal at∣tachments, or personal animosities; which mislead from the attention to interest. These circumstan∣ces

render mankind, at times, remiss or outra∣geous: they prove the source of civil peace or dis∣order, but disqualify those who are actuated by them, from maintaining any fixed usurpation; slavery and rapine are first threatened from abroad, and war, either offensive or defensive, is the great business of every tribe. The enemy occupy their thoughts; they have no leisure for domestic dis∣sensions. It is the desire of every separate commu∣nity, however, to secure itself; and in proportion as it gains this object, by strengthening its barri∣er, by weakening its enemy, or by procuring al∣lies, the individual at home bethinks him of what he may gain or lose for himself: the leader is disposed to enlarge the advantages which belong to his station; the follower becomes jealous of rights which are open to incroachment; and par∣ties who united before, from affection and habit, or from a regard to their common preservation, dis∣agree in supporting their several claims to prece∣cedence or profit.

WHEN the animosities of faction are thus a∣wakened at home, and the pretensions of freedom are opposed to those of dominion, the members of every society find a new scene upon which to ex∣ert their activity. They had quarrelled, perhaps, on points of interest; they had balanced between different leaders; but they had never united as ci∣tizens to withstand the encroachments of sovereign∣ty, or to maintain their common rights as a peo∣ple. If the prince, in this contest, finds numbers to support, as well as to oppose his pretensions, the sword which was whetted against foreign ene∣mies, may be pointed at the bosom of fellow∣subjects, and every interval of peace from abroad,

be filled with domestic war. The sacred names of Liberty, Justice, and Civil Order, are made to re∣sound in public assemblies; and, during the ab∣sence of other alarms, give to society, within it∣self, an abundant subject of ferment and animo∣sity.

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 cha∣racter we have given of mankind under the first impressions of property, of interest, and of he∣reditary distinctions, the seditions and domestic wars which followed in those very states, the ex∣pulsion of their kings, or the questions which arose concerning the prerogatives of the sovereign, or privilege of the subject, are agreeable to the re∣presentation 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 ear∣liest form, depends on a variety of circumstan∣ces 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 began to dispute its abuses: 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 coali∣tion. If, like the real or fabulous confederacy of the Greeks for the destruction of Troy, many na∣tions 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 com∣municated from one, or a few, to the whole; and there are certain numbers of men who can be as∣sembled, and act in a body. If, while the society is not enlarged beyond this dimension, and while its members are easily assembled, political conten∣tions 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 peo∣ple 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 dig∣nity, that they pretend to equality among them∣selves, 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 col∣lective body, chuse 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 uni∣on and firmness as a body, and by their incessant ambition, deserve to be reckoned in the list of pre∣tenders 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 peo∣ple themselves are a party upon occasion; and numbers of men, however classed and distinguish∣ed, become, by their jarring pretensions and se∣parate 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 termin∣ate 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 par∣ty pursues, if suffered to prevail, will lead, by de∣grees, 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 con∣stitution may bear a form and a character as va∣rious

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, nei∣ther 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 can∣dour, are sometimes forgotten; and yet those fa∣tal consequences which such a measure of corrup∣tion seems to portend, do not unavoidably follow. The public interest is often secure, not because in∣dividuals 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 main∣tained by the continued differences and oppositi∣ons of numbers, not by their concurring zeal in behalf of equitable government. In free states, therefore, the wisest laws are never, perhaps, dic∣tated by the interest and spirit of any order of men: they are moved, they are opposed, or amend∣ed, by different hands; and come at last to ex∣press

that medium and composition which contend∣ing 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 numbers 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, to exhibit a medly of all.

IN emerging from a state of rudeness and sim∣plicity, men must be expected to act from that spirit of equality, or moderate subordination, to which they have been accustomed. When crouded together in cities, or within the compass of a small territory, they act by contagious passions, and e∣very individual feels a degree of importance pro∣portioned to his figure in the croud, and the small∣ness 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 hu∣mours 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 gene∣ral rule. This has actually happened in some of the later principalities of Greece, and modern Italy, in Sweden, Poland, and the German em∣pire. But the united states of the Netherlands, and the Swiss cantons, are perhaps the most exten∣sive 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 establish∣ed 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 perpe∣tually

alarmed by the spirit of mutiny in his peo∣ple, 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 Po∣land, may meet with equal difficulty in maintain∣ing their pretensions; and in order to avoid their danger on the side of kingly usurpation, are obliged to with-hold 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 ex∣tensive governments. If the Greeks, whose pro∣gress at home terminated in the establishment of so many independent republics, had under Aga∣memnon effected a conquest and settlement in Asia, it is propable, that they might have fur∣nished 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 are, in effecting their conquests, or in securing their possessions, hurried at once. Caesar encoun∣tered 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 conjunctions 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 proportionable 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, with∣out 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 when∣ever 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. 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 obser∣vance of certain conditions, into a grant including his heirs.

THE rank of the nobles became hereditary in every quarter, and formed a powerful and perma∣nent order of men in every state. While they held the people in servitude, they disputed the claims of their sovereign; they withdrew their at∣tendance upon occasion, or turned their arms a∣gainst him. They formed a strong and insur∣mountable 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 incroachments on the sovereign; or having made the monarchy elective, they by suc∣cessive 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 na∣tional 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 preroga∣tives 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 peo∣ple, 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 va∣riously succeeded. While they protected the peo∣ple, and thereby encouraged the practice of com∣mercial 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 op∣pressions, 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 pre∣rogative, to establish the government of law, and to exhibit a spectacle new in the history of man∣kind; monarchy mixed with republic, and exten∣sive territory, governed, during some ages, with∣out military force.

SUCH were the steps by which the nations of Europe have arrived at their present establish∣ments: in some instances, they have come to the possession of legal constitutions; in others, to the exercise of a mitigated despotism; or 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 that grave which the Ottoman conquerors found for themselves; and for the wretched race they had vanquished. The Romans were led by slow degrees to extend the limits of their empire; every new acquisition

was the result of a tedious war, and required the sending of colonies, and a variety of measures, to secure any new possession. But the feudal supe∣rior being animated, from the moment he had gained an establishment, with a desire of extend∣ing his territory, and of enlarging the list of his vassals, made frequent annexation of new provin∣ces, merely by bestowing investiture, and received independent states, without any material innova∣tion in the form of their policy, as the subjects of his growing dominion.

SEPARATE principalities were, like the parts of an engine, ready to be joined, and, like the 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 Euro∣pean 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 na∣tions, 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 op∣position 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 repub∣lics, 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 en∣gage in the conflict.

IN every society there is a casual subordina∣tion, 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 pre∣tensions to power, without a legal nomination in one instance, or without the advantage of here∣ditary honours, in another, this casual subordina∣tion, possibly arising from the distribution of pro∣perty, or from some other circumstance that be∣stows 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 suffi∣cient force, as a body, to get this invidious di∣stinction 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 ascendency of the patrician families was, for a certain period; as regular as it could be made by the avowed maxims of aristo∣cracy;

but the higher offices of state being gra∣dually 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 a∣doption 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 every subsequent age may differ from the former. Faction is ever ready to seize all occa∣sional 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 no∣thing 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 un∣derstanding, and the extent of his penetration, as he was by the manly fortitude and disinterested∣ness 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. Hap∣py are they who understand and who chuse 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 in∣dignation of Thrasea and Helvidius; and to oc∣cupy 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 a lustre on human nature.

Notes

• De Retz Memoirs.
• Part 1. sect. 10.
• See Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland, b. 1.