they lived, and to their country; and none of them united in a more distinguished degree the acquirements of ancient learning, to a perfect knowledge of the world, or more eminently added to the manners of a most accomplished gentleman the principles of the purest virtues."
In his person, Dr Ferguson was well formed, active, and muscular; his complexion fair, his eyes blue, his features handsome, intelligent, and thoughtful. There is a very fine and correct portrait of him in an ante-room at Brompton Grove, the seat of Sir John Macpherson. Unlike many who have devoted themselves to the abstruse study of philosophy, he had an intimate knowledge of the world; having mixed much with courtiers, statesmen, politicians, and the learned and accomplished, not only in Great Britain, but throughout Europe. His knowledge of the human character was consequently accurate and extensive; his manners were polished, simple, and unostentatious; while his conversation was agreeable and instructive. Warned by an illness with which he was seized when about the age of fifty, resembling in its character an apoplectic fit, he abstained from the use of wine, and during the remainder of his life, lived most abstemiously, and enjoyed an uninterrupted course of good health. His fortune was affluent; besides the fees and salaries of his class and the price of his works, he held two pensions, one, from government of £400, and another from lord Chesterfield of £200 a year. By these means, aided by a munificent gift from his pupil, Sir John Macpherson, he was enabled to purchase a small estate near St Andrews; he was also possessed of a house and garden in that city, on which he expended a thousand pounds.
Bred in the tenets of the church of Scotland, he was a respectful believer in the truths of revelation; he did not, however, conceive himself excluded from cultivating the acquaintance of those who were directly opposed to him in their religious opinions, and his intimate friendship with David Hume subjected him to the reprehension of many of the Christian professors of his time. A list of those with whom Dr Ferguson maintained an intimate acquaintance and intercourse, would include all who rose to eminence during the last half of the 18th, and the early part of the present century. Dr Ferguson left six children; three sons, and three daughters: Adam, in the army, John, in the navy, and the third son in the East India Company's service.[1]
FERGUSON, James, an ingenious experimental philosopher, mechanist, and astronomer. Of this miracle of self-instruction and native genius, we cannot do better than give his own account, as drawn up by himself a very few years before his death, and prefixed to his "Select Mechanical Exercises." It is one of the most interesting specimens of autobiography in the language.
"I was born in the year 1710, a few miles from Keith, a little village in Banffshire, in the north of Scotland; and can with pleasure say, that my parents, though poor, were religious and honest; lived in good repute with all who knew them; and died with good characters.
As my father had nothing to support a large family but his daily labour, and the profits arising from a few acres of land which he rented, it was not to be expected that he could bestow much on the education of his children: yet they
- ↑ The following is a list of Dr Ferguson's works.
"The History of Civil Society," in one volume, published 1766
"His Institutes of Moral Philosophy," 8vo, 1769.
His answer to Dr Price's celebrated observations on Civil and Political Liberty, 1776. This pamphlet is peculiarly remarkable for the liberality and delicacy with which he treats the principles and intentions of his antagonist.
"The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic," 3 vols. 4to, 1783.
And lastly, his celebrated work, entitled, the "Principles of Moral and Political Science, being chiefly a retrospect of Lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh." 2 vols. 4to, 1792.
