The British Constitution and Threats to the “Common Good” in the Political Philosophy of Robert Wallace

In recent historiography, reflections on the dialectical nature of the interaction between idea of the past and idea of the future are based on conceptual provisions developed within the framework of sociology, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies and other related disciplines. Subjective images of the past and the future that function in the sphere of public consciousness at a given moment in time in a specific situation of the present largely determine the actions of both individuals and social groups. The article examines the dialectic of images of the past and the future in the works of the Scottish intellectual, educator, statistician and Presbyterian minister Robert Wallace (1697—1771). An analysis of Wallace's demographic, political, philosophical and economic ideas presented in his major works, which differ significantly in their thematic priorities, genre characteristics and discursive strategies, shows not only the interconnectedness and interdependence of these images, but also the component that relied on the moral categories of “virtue” and “vice”.