 Hobbes and Rousseau in particular had a good deal to say about the pre-social condition of humankind. Ferguson argues, against their theories, that there are no records whatever of a pre-social human condition; and since on the available evidence humankind has always lived in society he concludes that living in society comes naturally to us. Hence the state of nature is a social state and is not antecedent to it. Instead of state of nature and contract theory, Ferguson advocates the use of history, of the accounts of travellers, and the literature and myths of societies to build an account of types of human society. Ferguson’s discussion of types of society, ideas of civilisation and civil society has seen him credited with an influential place in the development of sociology. This method is ubiquitous across the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, with a particularly influential discussion of the method to be found in John Millar’s The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1779).