79 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS “Civil Liberty Was The Great Object Of Ferguson’s Enterprise” First edition of Ferguson’s authoritative work, positioned “between Montesquieu and Tocqueville” in its profound influence, with Jefferson owning a personal copy and Madison, who purchased a copy in 1775, naming the Essay, with Smith’s Wealth of Nations, as essential “for the use of the U.S. in Congress assembled.” Ferguson and his colleague Adam Smith, known as the “two Adams,” were born the same year and stand at the center of the Scottish Enlightenment with David Hume and Francis Hutcheson. Ferguson is also positioned by scholars—and history—”between Montesquieu and Tocqueville; his Essay stands between Spirit of the Laws and Democracy in America… [yet] it was more than an artful transcription of Spirit. For Ferguson had a science of politics which… went deeper. In particular, he formulated a theory of civil society which focused exclusively on the intrinsic and potentially fatal flaw of modern commercial society: corruption. Ferguson’s theory of politics and society was the precursor of Tocqueville’s Democracy. Like Tocqueville, Ferguson saw the potential hazards of… commerce: a new and terrible slavery was in the offing where a single tyrant would be replaced by a whole society” (McDowell, Commerce, 537-8). Ferguson was also credited by Marx “for the theory of alienation… and the young Hegel had read and reread the Essay as he was formulating his own theory of civil society” (McDowell, 539). Two leaves (3A3-4) with upper corners turned down (printer’s error), not affecting text. Only very mild occasional foxing. Expert repairs to joints and extremities of attractive contemporary calf binding. An excellent copy. 87FERGUSON, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Edinburgh, 1767. Quarto, contemporary full mottled calf. $14,000 “The strength of a nation is derived from the character, not from the wealth, nor from the multitude of its people.”
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