MR small's biographical SKETCH OF PROF. ADAM FERGUSON. 609 



He continued Professor of Natural Philosophy for about five years, and con- 

 ducted his class in a manner which gave universal satisfaction. By adapting his 

 lectures to the capacities of his students, he contrived to render his subject more 

 attractive than it had been hitherto considered, and he also published for the 

 use of his class a short analysis of his Course. 



The study of Ethical and Political Philosophy, however, in which he had dis- 

 tinguished himself as a young man, had always a greater attraction for Ferguson 

 than the physical sciences, and on the transference of Professor Balfour, of 

 Pilrig, to the Chair of the Law of Nature and Nations in 1764, Ferguson was 

 elected his successor as Professor of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy. About ten 

 years before this, when Mr Cleghorn, the predecessor of Mr Balfour, was on his 

 deathbed, he urged Ferguson to apply for this ofi&ce, for which he conceived him 

 to be particularly qualified. " Mr Cleghorn, after expressing his regret at not 

 having influence with the patrons to secure such an arrangement, added, as 

 Ferguson sometimes related with much emotion, ' I cTan only say of you as 

 Hamlet did of Fortinbras, He has my dying voice.'' " * 



On being appointed to this Chair, which had long been the object of his am- 

 bition, Ferguson applied himself to its duties with the greatest activity, and his 

 lectures were attended not only by the regular students, but by the most dis- 

 tinguished men of the country. 



Within little more than a year after his appointment he published his Essay 

 on the History of Civil Society, -^ which contributed to raise him still more in the 

 estimation of the public. This celebrated work, a portion of which had been 

 written several years previously, had been, in 1759, submitted in manuscript to 

 the critical opinion of David Hume, as a ' Treatise on Refinement.' Hume gave it 

 his approval, and stated that with some amendments it would make an admirable 

 book, " as it discovered an elegant and a singular genius." 



The ' Essay ' was again submitted in its finished state to Hume, who now 

 recommended Ferguson's friends to prevail on him to suppress it, as likely to be 

 injurious to his literary reputation. Hume had heard an opinion expressed, by 

 the French philosophers Helvetius and Saurin,! with which he at the time 

 concurred, that the fame of Montesquieu's 'Esprit des Lois' would not be 

 lasting. As Ferguson's Essay may be regarded to a certain extent as a com- 

 mentary on Montesquieu, Hume, perhaps, hastily adopted the same opinion with 

 regard to the work of his friend. When he found that the general opinion was 

 favourable to the work, he heartily joined in the congratulations which Ferguson 

 now received. 



SON made zealous efforts to induce M'Pherson to promote his further researches for the discovery of 

 ancient Gaelic Poetry, and he took part in a meeting convened by Dr Blair, in 1760, to provide 

 funds for the purpose of enabling M'Pherson to do so. — Browne's Hist, of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 43. 



* Encyc. Brit. Suppt. vol. iv. art. Ferguson. f Edinburgh, 1766. 8vo. 



J Hume's Life, by J. H. Burton, vol. ii. p. 387. 



