Information and Language

Another element in Adam Ferguson's "sociological" analysis of the human species is his recognition of the importance of information for the species, first through the use of language and then in the development of writing: “Man’s specific talent for expression and communication, also, notwithstanding the diversity of tongues… serves, upon the whole, to reunite the efforts of mankind… The use of writing, which extends the communications of men to any distance of place or time, though not universal, like speech, has been frequent, and even common.”[1] Thomas Reid also has comments on the social nature of language:

A man may understand and will; he may apprehend, and judge, and reason, though he should know of no intelligent being in the universe besides himself. But, when he asks information, or receives it; when he bears testimony, or receives the testimony of another; when he asks a favour, or accepts one; when he gives a command to his servant, or receives one from a superior: when he plights his faith in a promise or contract: these are acts of social intercourse between intelligent beings, and can have no place in solitude.[2]

The Scientific Method

All of the thinkers of the Enlightenment subscribed to the principles of scientific evidence following Francis Bacon, and they tried to base their thinking on experiences, but George Turnbull provides the most detailed commentary on the scientific method as applied to natural science, and he encourages its use in education:

[Natural science] rests on a very firm foundation, since it is sustained not by fanciful hypotheses or unfounded conjectures, but entirely by either Mathematical reasoning or clear and certain experiments and analogy. This is the only method by which a real knowledge of nature could be advanced and developed was described long ago by the most perceptive Verulam [Bacon, Baron Verulam]. And it is by this method that it has indeed about that this Science has reached such a peak of perfection in our time, especially through the wonderful insight and industry of the most illustrious Newton.[3]

Show them [students] how air, water, and all the elements,  and almost all bodies, have been rendered subservient to the advantage or conveniency of human society, by the knowledge of their qualities. They will thus be early led at once to perceive the beauty, and taste the pleasure of natural knowledge, and to remark, that the proper business of mankind on earth, is to obtain a large dominion, command, or lordship there, by subduing, as it were, every element, every object to their use, and that by extending their insight into natural causes, i.e. the natural properties of things, and the laws according to which they produce effects.[4]

The Knowledge Heritage

Adam Ferguson reflects on the cumulative nature of scientific knowlege, forming a heritage of the whole human species:

Discoveries of science, models of invention, or attainments of genius, wherever they may have originated, find their way to the world, and become the property of mankind... In this species, the communication extends from nation to nation, and from age to age, at any indefinite distance of place or time; and the society, or co-operations of men may be conceived as extended accordingly. The present age is perfecting what a former age began; or is now beginning what a future age is to perfect.[5]

So that the most retired student of nature, in extending the limits of knowledge, works for his community; separate communities mutually work for one another, for ages to come, and for mankind. And attainments in this branch, perhaps more than in any other, may be considered, not as local advantages gained to any particular society of men, but as steps in the progress of the human species itself.[6]

Ferguson reflects on the progression of the species: "In the human kind, the species has a progress as well as the individual; they build in every subsequent age on foundations formerly laid."[7] And each generation can contribute to the process: "Minds have occasion to learn; in the practice of arts, and in the conduct of life, events have the effect of experiment, and, make some addition to the fund of knowledge.’[8]

The Knowledge as Power

Turnbull  and Ferguson reflect on knowled as power, and as an opportunity to exert for the benefit of society:

The first thing remarkable with regard to our sphere of activity is, “that our power and dominion encreases with our knowledge.” Our power in the natural world increases with our knowledge of the natural world. Thus, by the augmentation of our knowledge of the connexions that make the material or sensible world; or, in other words, of the properties of bodies, how much is our empire over sea, air, fire, and every element encreased? when any property of matter becomes known to us, then are we able to render it subservient to some use in life. And therefore in proportion to our advances in the knowledge and imitation of nature, have arts been invented, that are really so many additions to our power and dominion in the sensible world.[Turnbull, 9]

To penetrate the order established in nature; to emulate this order in works of design and invention; to unfold the principles of estimation, and realize the conceptions of excellence and beauty, in works to be executed by human art, or in the character and mind of the artist himself, is the peculiar province of man; and in his conduct, with respect to it, gives occasion to the most improving exertion of his faculties. [Ferguson, 10]

First, each one is obliged to cultivate his own powers of body and mind so as to fit himself for what offices of goodness and humanity his statio may allow; to store his mind with useful knowledge, and with the grand maxims which conduce to a virtuous life... 'Tis also the duty of each individual toward mankind, as well as toward his peculiar friends or relations, to follow some profession or business subservient to some common good.[Hutcheson, 11]

Education

Given the strong academic connection of this movement, it is not surprising to see their celebration of education. Ferguson relates education to maintaining and facilitating the knowledge heritage:

So long as the son continues to be taught what the father knew, or the pupil begins where the tutor has ended, and is equally bent on advancement; to every generation the state of the arts and accommodations already in use serves but as ground work for new invention and successive improvement...[12]

Turnbull gives the most attention to this topic, in his Observations Upon Liberal Education. In the quotation below, he reflects on how to motivate students to develop a sense of duty resulting from their education:

Give them an account of the inventors and improvers of arts, and of the manifold advantages we reap from such discoveries, and show them the glory due to them, and cheerfully rendered to them by history, and they will at once see what is the proper employment of human understanding, or wherein its riches and greatness lies, and perceive the application and order of study requisite to attain to equal glory on the account of like usefulness in society, and be fired with zeal to improve their intellectual powers in the same manner; with an antipathy against idleness on the one hand, and fraud or violence on the other, and with love of public order, liberty and justice... And are not the beginnings of this taste and temper the proper first elements or beginnings of education, in the knowledge and duties of man?[13]

Appreciation of Nature

Turnbull, in the best Western tradition, finds that the knowledge of nature is not only of practical value, but it is also pleasurable and inspiring. In the second paragraph, he provides an insight that is food for thought, that the coherence and beauty of the material world would not be complete without beings like us that can appreciate it:

How immense is the variety of the sensible world? Can there be a more delightful, or a more capacious field of study and speculation, than what the riches, the simplicity, the grandeur and perfect order of the natural world afford us? , What is greater, or more elevating than the contemplation of nature, when we are able to take in large views of it, and comprehend its laws? How agreeably do ancient philosophers expatiate upon this topic! The study of nature, according to them, is the natural food of the soul. And they indeed  justly placed a great part of man’s best happiness in contemplating and imitating the regularity, wisdom, goodness and harmony of the sensible world...[14]

But let it be observed before we proceed, that as a material world cannot be said to have order and beauty; or to be wisely contrived, but with respect to beings, who perceive it, and are affected by it... so were there not in nature such a kind of beings as we are, nature could not be full or coherent: there would be a chasm or void in nature which could not but render it deformed and imperfect to the view of any being capable of perceiving it; who hath, like us, any idea of richness, fullness, and perfection in nature...[15] 

The Fine Arts

George Turnbull was very appreciative of the inspirational value of the fine arts, and he laments their limited use in education:

For tho’ truths may be rendered evident and certain to the understanding by reasoning about them, yet they cannot reach our heart, or bestir our passionate part but by means of the imagination. The fine arts are, indeed, but so many different languages by which truths may be represented, illustrated and recommended to us... It is indeed not to be wondered at, considering how egregiously the formation of fancy is neglected in education, that it should be so irregular, desultory and turbulent a faculty, instead of a pleasant, governable and useful one... all the entertaining and embellishing arts of fancy, which give such lustre, beauty and taste to human life; to all the ingenious productions of men of wit and fine imagination: the advances that have been made towards its improvement, to which we owe so many great genius’s, and their delightful productions and compositions.[16]

He also recommends the healing power of music: "very advantageous uses might be made of that art, in several cases, for delivering the mind from disorders; or for purging and refining the passions; calming, quieting, cheering, and strengthning the mind."[17]

[1] Adam Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science (Edinburgh: W. Creech, 1792), Vol. I, 36,45.

[2] Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of the Human Mind (Dublin: L. White, 1786), Vol.1,77.

[3] George Turnbull, Philosophical Theses (45-57), 49.

[4] George Turnbull, Observations Upon Liberal Education (London: A. Millar, 1742), 182-183.

[5] Adam Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science, Vol. I, 47.

[6] Adam Ferguson, Ibid., VolI, 281.

[7] Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Dublin: Boulter Grierson, 1767), 7.

[8] Adam Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science, Vol. I, 279–280.

[9] George Turnbull, Principles of Moral Philosophy, 29.

[10] Adam Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science (Edinburgh: W. Creech, 1792), Vol. 1, 206.

[11] Francis Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy (Glasgow: A Foulis, 1755),   Vol 2, 111.

[12] Adam Ferguson, Principles of Moral and Political Science Vol. 1, 194.

[13] George Turnbull, Observations Upon Liberal Education, 194.

[14] George Turnbull, Principles of Moral Philosophy (London: John Noon, 1740), 65-66.

[15] Ibid.,63.

[16] Ibid., 56-57.

[17] Ibid.,79.