The smallness of his salary, only L100 a year, tempted him to undertake the charge of the education of Charles, Earl of Chesterfield, nephew to the earl who wrote on manners, and he had the benefit of a continental tour with his pupil.He waited upon Voltaire at Ferney, where, he tells us, " I encouraged every attempt at conversation, even jokes against Moses, Adam, and Eve, and the rest of the prophets, till I began to be considered as a person who, though true to my own faith, had no ill-humor to the freedom of fancy in others." His description is graphic: " I found the old man in a state of perfect indifference to all authors except two sorts, -- one, those who wrote panegyrics, and those who wrote invectives on himself.There is a third kind, whose names he has been used to repeat fifty or sixty years without knowing any thing of them, --such as Locke, Boyle, Newton, &c.I forget his competitors for fame, of whom he is always either silent or speaks {258}
slightingly.The fact is, that he reads little or none; his mind exists by reminiscence, and by doing over and over what it has been used to do, -- dictates tales, dissertations, and tragedies, even the latter with all his elegance, though not with all his former force.His conversation is among the pleasantest I ever met with.He lets you forget the superiority which the public opinion gives him, which is indeed greater than we conceive in this island." In consequence of his absence, the town council tried to turn Ferguson out of his office in Edinburgh, but he resisted at law, and returned to his duties in 1775.
He had evidently a strong inclination to active life, which might bring him into new scenes and situations favorable to the study of character.So in 1778 he was appointed secretary to the commissioners appointed to discuss and settle the points in dispute between Great Britain and her American colonies.In New York the commissioners received a communication from Congress intimating that the only ground upon which they could enter on a treaty would be an acknowledgment of the independence of the States and the withdrawal of the British force from America.So he returns the following year to his professorial duties, which it is interesting to notice were performed during his absence by his pupil, Dugald Stew art.
During these years he became involved in the controversy about the authenticity of the " Poems of Ossian," taking, as might be expected of a Highlander, the side of Mr.
McPherson.He also took an active part in the formation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which originated very much with Principal Robertson, and was incorporated in 1783.He had long been engaged on the work by which he was best known in his own day, " The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic." Avoiding the early and disputed period of Roman history, and leaving the later period to Gibbon, he gives a clear and judicious account of the time which elapsed between 240 /A.U.C.| and the death of Tiberius.I am not sure that we have a better account of the republic, published prior to the investigations started by Niebuhr.
In 1766, he had published a short syllabus of his lectures, entitled "Analysis of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy, for the use of Students in the College of Edinburgh." Using this as a text-book, he lectured to his class without writing out what {259} he said.He claims, however, that he bestowed his utmost diligence in studying the subject, including the order in which it was to be treated, and in preparing himself for every successive step he was to make in his course, but to have no more in writing than the heads or short notes from which he was to speak, preparing himself, however, very diligently for every particular day's work.When his health gave way, in 1781, he wrote out his course, and during his retirement corrected it for the press and published it in 1792: " Principles of Moral and Political Science; being chiefly a retrospect of Lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh." He confesses that he is partial to the Stoic philosophy, and acknowledges his obligations to Shaftesbury, Montesquieu, Harris, and Hutcheson.The work is divided into two parts, -- the first relating to the fact of man's progressive nature; the second, to the principles of right, or the foundations of judgment and choice.The sources of knowledge are consciousness, perception, testimony, and inference.
