ABSTRACT
The "mansion," which Ferguson sought to approach in his role as intellectual comprised the principles which ought to govern the choices of virtuous men. From a Stoic point of view, a man is not virtuous because he desists from certain actions: he becomes virtuous as he gains full understanding of the logos which pervades the universe and as he consciously wills to bring his own desire into harmony with it. Ferguson's most significant departure from Stoicism appears in the special sense he often gave to the Stoic notion that each man ought to play his assigned role in society. For the Stoics, such activity is the command of a duty which the virtuous man accepts. A man becomes virtuous when he brings his will into harmony with the universal logos. The virtuous man, in brief, was urged by Ferguson to adopt some maxims incompatible with Stoicism in order to become an obedient and useful member of society.
