Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/345

 paralytic symptoms appearing he, under Joseph Black's guidance, recovered and retained perfect health by becoming virtually a vegetarian and a total abstainer. After his attack he rarely dined out except with Black, and Ferguson's son Adam was wont to say that it was delightful to see the two philosophers ‘rioting over a turnip’ (, p. 50). An increased sensibility to cold followed his convalescence. He regulated the temperature of his room by Fahrenheit, and went abroad so warmly clad that he ‘looked like a philosopher from Lapland.’ The details of his malady, cure, and regimen are given in a paper by Black, which is interesting as the only memorial of his medical practice (see vii. 230, &c., of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, published by the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, 1818).

As a highlander and otherwise Ferguson was disposed to believe in the genuineness of Macpherson's ‘Ossian,’ and corresponded with Macpherson on his proposal to use the Greek alphabet in printing Gaelic (, pp. 65–6). In 1781 he had an unpleasant controversy with Dean (afterwards Bishop) Percy, who represented him as having, when Percy visited him in Edinburgh in 1765, produced a student who recited in Gaelic, and, as current in the highlands, fragments which Ferguson told him were evidently the originals of passages in Macpherson's ‘Ossian.’ To this statement Ferguson gave an unqualified contradiction (see Gent. Mag. for December–January 1781–2, and, Illustr. of Lit. vi. 567–9). In 1782 he supported Principal Robertson's successful proposal for the establishment of a royal society of Scotland, of which he became a member. In the same year he published, with a dedication ‘to the King,’ his ‘History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic, illustrated with Maps,’ comprising a sketch of the history of the empire to the accession of Caligula. His military experience gives some value to parts of his narrative. Thomas Carlyle in his rectorial address to the Edinburgh students spoke of Ferguson as ‘particularly well worth reading on Roman history.’ Ferguson's work soon effaced Hooke's compilation. A second edition of it ‘revised,’ in 5 vols. 8vo, appeared in 1799, to which Ferguson prefixed an ‘advertisement’ containing a list and some account of his authorities and aids, ancient and modern. Another edition, also in 5 vols. 8vo, was published in 1813, of which the so-called ‘new’ edition of 1825, in 5 vols., is simply a reissue with a new title-page. In 1825, too, appeared a convenient edition in 1 vol., belonging to Jones's series of ‘University Editions of British Classic Authors.’ A German translation by C. D. B[leek] appeared at Leipzig in 1784–6, and at Paris two French translations, one by Demeunier and Gibelin, 7 vols., in 1784–1791, the other by J. B. Breton, 10 vols., in 1803–10.

Ferguson resigned in 1785 his professorship of moral philosophy, and was succeeded by Dugald Stewart, who often refers respectfully to his opinions. That he might continue to receive a salary the Edinburgh town council appointed him to the chair of mathematics, vacated by Dugald Stewart, with Playfair as junior and acting professor. In 1786 a former and grateful student who had assisted him in the tuition of private pupils and had risen to be governor-general of India, Sir John Macpherson, sent him a remittance towards discharging the ‘embarrassing’ feu-duty on a farm near Currie, which, soon after marrying, Ferguson had begun to cultivate, turning a barren heath into beauty and fertility. In the winter of 1786–7 the young Walter Scott for the first and last time met the poet Burns (, p. 37) in Ferguson's house, The Sciennes, on the north side of the Meadows, between Principal Robertson's house and that of Lord Cockburn's father, and then so remote that his friends called it ‘Kamtschatka.’ In 1792 appeared, in 2 vols. 4to, his ‘Principles of Moral and Political Science, being chiefly a Retrospect of Lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh.’ Ferguson's political philosophy is that of a whig of the old school. Sir William Hamilton speaks of his ethical teaching as an inculcation ‘in great measure of the need of the warrior-spirit in the moral life’ (Memoir of Dugald Stewart prefixed to his edition of Stewart's Works, x. 16–17). An appreciative and exhaustive account of Ferguson's ethical and political philosophy is given in Cousin's ‘Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophie Morale au dix-huitième Siècle’ (1839–40), pt. ii. École Écossaise. A French translation of the ‘Principles’ appeared in Paris in 1821.

In 1793, with a view to a second edition of his Roman history, Ferguson visited Germany and Italy, residing for a short time at Rome, and was elected an honorary member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1795 he lost his wife, and meditating seclusion for his remaining years, he received permission from the fourth Duke of Queensberry to take up his abode in Neidpath Castle, then being dismantled and falling into decay. A winter at Neidpath disenchanted him, and he removed to Hallyards, in the neighbourhood, which he farmed for fourteen years.