William Godwin

HANDBOUND
AT THE
UMVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS
^
GODWIN'S
POLITICAL JUSTICE."
A REPRINT OF
THE ESSAY ON "PROPERTY,"

FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION.
EDITED BY
H. S. SALT.
LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & C0. r
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1890.
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SBLWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FKOME, AND LONDON.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 1
LIST OF GODWIN'S CHIEF WORKS . . . .33

I. GENUINE SYSTEM OF PROPERTY DELINEATED . 35
II. BENEFITS ARISING FROM THE GENUINE SYSTEM OF
PROPERTY 47
III. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

ADMIRABLE EFFECTS OF LUXURY . . .64
IV. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE
ALLUREMENTS OF SLOTH 68
V. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE IM-

POSSIBILITY OF ITS BEING RENDERED PERMANENT 80
VI. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

INFLEXIBILITY OF ITS RESTRICTIONS. . . 91
VII. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION .... 114
VIII. OF THE MEANS OF INTRODUCING THE GENUINE

SYSTEM OF PROPERTY . . 129
SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES
Each 2s. 6d.
1. WORK AND WAGES

Professor THOBOLD KOGEBS.
2. CIVILIZATION : Its Cause and Cure
E. CAKPENTER.
3. QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIALISM
Dr. SCHAFFLE.
" manual needed. and wise."
Precisely the Brief, lucid, fair British, Weekly*
4. DARWINISM AND POLITICS

D. G. EITCHIE, M.A.
5. RELIGION OF SOCIALISM
E. BELFOBT BAX.
6. ETHICS OF SOCIALISM
E. BELFOBT BAX,
7. THE DRINK QUESTION

Dr. KATE MITCHELL.
8. PROMOTION OF GENERAL HAPPINESS

Professor MICHAEL MACMILLAN.
g. ENGLAND'S IDEAL
EDW. CABPENTEB..
10. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND
SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.
ii GODWIN'S POLITICAL JUSTICE (On Property)
Edited by H. S. SALT.
12. BISMARCK AND STATE SOCIALISM
W. H. DAWSON.
13. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
E. BELFOBT BAX.
14. CHARITY ORGANIZATION

C. S. LOCH, Sec. to Char. Organ. Soc.
15. CRIME AND THE PRISON SYSTEM

W. DOUGLAS MOBBISON, of H.M. Gaol, Wandsmorth.
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON.

"
GODWIN'S POLITICAL JUSTICE."
A Reprint of the Essay on Property.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
IT is now on a hundred years since the world
close
was startled
by the appearance of a book which, both
by the significance of its title and the strangeness of
its conclusions, was well calculated to arrest the atten-
tion friendly or hostile, as the case might be of
every reader into whose hands might fall. It is

it
difficult for us, who live in a less speculative and
sanguine age, to realize the keen interest which at-

tached to the publication, in 1793, of William God-
win's Political Justice, at a crisis when men's minds
were strung to a high pitch of expectant enthusiasm
by the thrill of excitement of which the French
Revolution was the but the testimony of
cause
;
contemporary authors, whatever their personal sym-

" No work
pathies might be, is explicit on this point.
"
in our time," says Hazlitt, gave such a blow to
B
2 GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE"
the philosophical mind of the country as Godwin's

celebrated Enquiry concerning Political Justice. Tom
Paine was considered for the time as a Tom Fool to
him; Paley an old woman; Edmund Burke a flashy
sophist. Truth, moral truth, it was supposed, had
here taken up its abode, and these were the oracles of
thought." "Burn your books
of chemistry/' was
Wordsworth's advice to a student, " and read God-
win on " as it is in
Necessity." Faulty many parts,"
wrote Southey, "there is a mass of truth in it that
must make every man think." We are told by De
f(
Quincey that Godwin's book carried one single shock
into the bosom
of English society, fearful but momen-
" In the
tary." quarto," he adds," that is, the
original edition of his Political Justice, Mr. Godwin
advanced against thrones and dominations, powers and
principalities, with the air of some Titan slinger or
monomachist from Thebes and Troy, saying, ' Come
hither, ye wretches, that I may give your flesh to the
fowls of the air.'
"
might well have been expected, in an age when

It
government prosecutions were so rife, that the powers

thus challenged would have retaliated with full severity
on their venturesome opponent. It is said that
Political Justice owed its immunity from prosecution
solely to the fact that it
appeared in an expensive
form ;
for when the question was discussed in the
Privy Council, it was remarked by Pitt that " a three-

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
guinea book could never do much harm among those

who had not three shillings to spare." In this respect
Pitt's judgment seems to have been less shrewd than

might be supposed, for it is recorded that Political
Justice "became so popular that the poorest mechanics
were known to club subscriptions for its purchase, and
thus it was directed to mine and eat away contentment
from a nation's roots/' 1 Godwin himself indirectly
corroborates this statement. " I had a numerous
" of and
audience," he says, all classes, of every age,
of every sex. The young and the fair did not feel
deterred from consulting my pages."

The author who rose sudden notoriety as
into this
the advocate of the most revolutionary views was the
descendant on both sides of respectable middle-class
families, his father being a Dissenting minister at
Wisbeach, which place William

in Cambridgeshire, in
Godwin was born, March 3rd, 1756. He was brought
up in an atmosphere of ultra- Calvinistic doctrines as
a follower of Sandeman, " a celebrated north country

Godwin expresses "
apostle," as it, who, after Calvin
had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, con-
trived ascheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred
of the followers of Calvin." Among the boy's earliest
books were the Pilgrim's Progress and the Pious Death*
of many Godly Children; and so serious was his tern
-
1
Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1836.
4 GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE?
perament, that it was his practice, when occasion per-
mitted, to discourse to his school-fellows on the con-

genial subject of sin and damnation. From the first,
the leading traits of his character were an indefatigable
zeal in the search for truth, and a calm, intellectual
gravity, underlaid, and at times dominated, by an

insatiable self-esteem. After receiving his education
at Norwich and Hoxton College, he undertook and
discharged the duties of a Nonconformist minister at
Stowmarket, and other places, for a period of about
eight years, publishing, in 1784, a volume of six ser-
mons, under the title of Sketches of History, in which,
while in the main writing as an orthodox Calvinist,

he advanced the significant and characteristic proposi-
" God himself has no
tion that right to be a tyrant/'
In a few years from this time his religious faith,
which had already been shaken by a study of the
French philosophers, underwent a complete change,
and from 1787 onward he gave up the ministry, to
become an avowed and uncompromising advocate of the
principles of free thought. Urged by the need
partly
of finding a livelihood, for his means were very
limited, partly by a natural inclination to a literary
profession, he settled in London, where he became

acquainted with Sheridan, Canning, Holcroft, and
other men of note, and won some distinction as a
vigorous exponent of advanced political opinion. He

wrote articles for the Political Herald, contributed a
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
sketch of English History to the New Annual Register,

and published, in 1788, his first serious attempt in
literature a Life of Lord Chatham. It was during
this period that he conceived and formulated the
theories which subsequently found expression in
Political Justice a line of thought to which he was
especially stimulated by his intercourse with Holcroft.

In 1791 we find the project assuming definite shape.
" This
year," writes Godwin in his autobiographical
1 "
notes, was the main crisis of my life. I suggested
to Robinson the bookseller the idea of composing a
treatise on Political Principles, and he agreed to aid
me in executing it. In the first fervour of my enthu-

'
siasm, I entertained the vain imagination of hewing
a stone from the rock/ which, by its inherent energy
and weight, should overbear and annihilate all opposi-
tion,and place the principles of politics on an immov-
able basis." The work, which was executed with
much slowness and deliberation, was published in
February, 1793.
Political Justice, as the name
implies, is essentially a
moral " the
concerning
treatise, adoption of any prin-
ciple of morality and truth into the practice of a
community." Starting with the assumption that "we

bring into the world with us no innate principles," N y
and that " the moral qualities of men are the produce
1
Life of William Godwin. By C. Kegan Paul.
of the impressions made upon them/' Godwin pro-

ceeded to argue that, by the gradual improvement of
human surroundings and institutions, vice and misery
may be ultimately extirpated from the world. This
perfectibility of man in the future (a theory which had
already been advanced by Priestley in his First Prin-

ciples of Government), was not based by Godwin, as is
sometimes supposed, on the contingency of a sudden
and supernatural change in human nature, but rather
on a study of the improvements already effected in
the past. While admitting that both individuals
and nations are powerfully affected by the influence
of climate, heredity, and other physical causes, he yet
maintains that Keason is in the main omnipotent, and
that where the truth is
clearly enunciated it must
finally prevail; the three most effective methods of
reform being Literature, Education, and that notion
of Political Justice which it was his special purpose
1
to inculcate.
Justice is defined as "a rule of conduct originat-
ing in the connection of one percipient being with

another
"
its object is the general good, which must
;
take precedence of all considerations of a private or
personal nature. In dealing with this point, Godwin

was led by his passion for logical consistency into a
denial of the excellence of the domestic affections, as
1
Political Justice, original edition, Book i.
NOTE.
partialitieswhich are incompatible with a strict regard

for the interests of the community; but the more para-
doxical arguments of this portion of his treatise

were afterwards withdrawn by him. The doctrine of
"
rights," whether belonging to the individual or
society, in the sense of "a, full and complete power of
either doing a thing or omitting it, without liability
to animadversion or censure," is entirely contraverted, ,
every member of the community being held morally

own actions, and possessing in his
accountable for his
"
turn a diploma constituting him inquisitor- general of
the moral conduct of his neighbours." This brings
us to the subject of the duty (not " right ") of pri-
vate judgment one of the most important and most
strongly emphasized of all Godwin's contentions. "To
a rational being/' he asserts, " there can be but one
rule of conduct justice ; and one mode of ascertaining
that rule the exercise of the understanding." In
other words, he advocates an absolute intellectual
individualism, subject only to the moral censorship of
'
1
society.
Fromthe adoption of these anarchist principles he
necessarily proceeds to the condemnation of all systems

of government as at the best a temporary expedient
and makeshift. te Since government," he says, " even
in its best state is an evil, the object principally to be
1
Book ii.
8 GODWINS "POLITICAL JUSTICE?
aimed at is we should have as little of it as the
that
general peace of human society will permit/' a senti-

ment which, in one form or another, repeatedly occurs
in the pages of Political Justice. But he is careful to
add, in accordance with the dictates of his slow and

cautious temperament, that all violent resistance is
earnestly to be deprecated, and that a revolution, to

be successful, must be effected not by force, but by
argument and persuasion, and consist in a genuine
"
change of character and conviction we must care- ;
fully distinguish between informing the people and

inflaming them." To such a length did Godwin
carry his dread of popular tumult, that he objects
even to Political Associations as likely to retard the
cause of moral progress. He maintains that the
spread of intellectual enlightenment is the great engine
of liberty; and that the benevolence which prompts
men to consult the welfare of their fellows originates
in a higher motive than self-love. " Neither
philoso-
"
phy/' he says, nor morality, nor politics, will ever
show like themselves, till man shall be acknowledged
for what he really is a being capable of justice, vir-
tue, and benevolence. " 1
The doctrine of Necessity is

frankly and fully accepted by Godwin as corroborat-
ing rather than weakening the general force of his
scheme. A belief in this doctrine, he argues, so far
from paralyzing moral action, should have a contrary
result, for "the more certain the connection between
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
effects and causes, the more cheerfulness should I feel

in yielding to painful and laborious employments."
In the second volume of Political Justice we have
the application of these abstract moral principles to
various existing institutions. Monarchy and aristo-
cracy are considered and criticised in all their bear-
ings ; while all religious establishments, tests, oaths,
libel laws, and other obstacles to the development of
individual liberty, are declared to be objectionable.

It is curious to note that the introduction of the ballot
at parliamentary elections (an assembly of delegates

for common is regarded by Godwin as the
deliberation
leastblameworthy form of government) is deprecated
as teaching us
" to draw a veil of concealment over
the performance of our duty/' Even National Educa-
tion is rejected by this uncompromising individualist,
as likely to produce too much 'permanence and uni-
2
formity of thought.
To the employment of a Penal Code and coercion
of any violent kind Godwin, both as a necessarian and
a philanthropist, offers the most strenuous opposition.
Punishment, he maintains, can only be justified by the
correction of the offender. " It cannot be that just
we should inflict suffering on any man, except so far ,
as it tends to good." He
points out the impossibility
of rightly estimating the motives of a " criminal,"
1
Books iii. and iv.
2
Books v. and vi.
io GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE."
since every man's criterion of duty must lie in the

" How
exercise of his private judgment. few/' he
" are the trials which an humane and a
exclaims, just
man can read, terminating in a verdict of guilty, with-
out feeling an incontrollable repugnance against the
verdict."
The concluding portion of Godwin's Enquiry, of
which a reprint is now offered to the public, is devoted
to the momentous question of Property, which he de-
clares to be " the that
key-stone the fabric
completes
of political justice." be seen that, keeping
It will
justice in view as the sole criterion of conduct, he in-

sists that all possessions are in strict equity a common
stock, from which all men are entitled to draw accord-
ing to their own needs and those of their fellow-
citizens; and that he and emphasizes the

sets forth
evils of the present system of competition, which

results in the demoralization of rich and poor alike.
This essay on Property perhaps the most interest-
is
ing and characteristic of all Godwin's writings, con-

taining as it does an epitome of his social doctrines,
and exhibiting him both in the stronger and the
weaker aspects of his work the ardent communist,
whose creed it is that a loaf of bread " to him
belongs
who most wants " the
it ; equally ardent individualist,
who, in spite of his communism, would minimise co-
operation as at best a necessary evil ;
the enthusiastic
dreamer, whose faith in human perfectibility, and in

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. ii
the regenerating power of the mind, points to an

ultimate triumph over every physical limitation. Ifc
should be remembered by those who blame Godwin

for ignoring the intermediate steps that must be
laboriously taken before man can even approach this

state of perfection, that he was avowedly writing of
an ideal and abstract condition, and that the over-
sanguine mood which occasionally prompted him to
absurd and extravagant statements was one which he
shared with Fourier, Owen, and other thinkers of his
time. It easy to ridicule and caricature such
is
speculations by applying, or rather misapplying, the

criticism of to-day to views which have reference
solely to a future period ; but it is well, nevertheless,

that our thoughts should be sometimes directed to-
wards and ultimate goal of human aspirations.
this final
The strength of Godwin's Political Justice consists

in its moral earnestness : it is an appeal from the
fetters of restrictive institutions to the higher and
nobler elements in human nature. If eclectic rather
than original in the opinions it embodies (and God-
win fully acknowledges his various debt to Hume,
Locke, Priestley, Rousseau, and other writers), it
may, nevertheless, claim originality in the new force

which these opinions acquired when collected, re-
stated, emphasized, and made to converge towards one
unmistakable conclusion, by that intellectual calmness
and that perspicuity of language which were Godwin's
12 'GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE"
peculiar characteristics. Its weakness lies in the fact

that its author, carried too far perhaps by the ambi-
tion and enthusiasm of the to give
moment, attempted
the appearance of complete logical consistency and
scientific precision to a work which is based primarily
on humane sentiment, and does not admit of being

<c
constructed into an irrefragable system," however
powerfully it may influence a certain class of mind.
In his preface to a later volume, 1 Godwin himself re-
cognised the danger that attends such a priori reason-

ing as he had adopted in Political Justice by "laying
down one or two simple principles which seem scarcely
to be exposed to the hazard of reputation, and then
developing them, applying them to a number of points,

and following them into a variety of inferences." In
such a he " a mistake at the com-
process, adds,
mencement is fatal 3> and the critics have not been
;
lacking who have contended that Godwin made this

mistake. As far, then, as it was intended to be a
positive system, which should " overbear and annihi-

late all opposition," Political Justice must be adjudged
to have been a failure ; but, regarded as a treatise on
morals, it not only created a deep impression at the
time, but will always appeal powerfully to those
readers who have any natural tendency to sympathise
with its author's ideals. It is a grave, lucid, and
1
The Enquirer, 1797-
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
forciblepresentment of the arguments in favour of

the reorganization of society on a simpler basis, with
benevolence instead of authority as guiding prin- its
ciple ;
and
avowedly it what is immedi-
treats less of
ately practicable than of what is ultimately desirable

a fact which is of itself an answer to a good deal of
the irrelevant criticism of which Godwin has been the
mark.
That Godwin, writing before the age of Darwinian
discovery, should greatly underrate the vast scope and
power of hereditary instincts, was of course inevit-
able ;
nor could he, any more than the other philo-
sophic radicals of his day, grasp the significance of

those economic changes which were already replacing
individual by collective industry, and rendering a
policy of governmental laisser faire intolerable. In
these respects he shared the disabilities of those
among whom he lived. But he was not guilty of the
gross absurdities which some of his critics misunder-

standing his meaning through lack of sympathy with
the spirit in which he wrote are too apt to attribute
to him. It has been said that he " believes as firmly
as any Christian in the speedy revelation of a New
" 1
Jerusalem four-square and perfect in its plan
a mere caricature this, of the
theory of perfectibility,
which, as has already been stated, does not portend
1
Leslie Stephen's English Thought of the Eighteenth
Century.
14 GODWINS "POLITICAL JUSTICE."
a miraculous perfection, but is simply the belief that

an observation of human efforts in years past justifies
us in anticipating an unlimited progress in years to
come. Godwin himself, so far from being animated,
as some have supposed, by an unscientific prejudice
against the historical method, was himself a successful
student and writer of " he tells
history. History/' us,
" was a
study to which I felt a peculiar vocation."
" I trust that none of
my readers," he elsewhere re-
l " will be erroneous
marks, enough to consider the
vivid recollection of things past as hostile to that tone
of spirit which should aspire to the boldest improve-
ments in the future."
Equally false is the idea that Godwin in his tirade
against kings, priests, and tyrants, was unaware of

the consideration (gravely pointed out by his critics)
that government cannot be regarded as the external
cause of political evil, since it must itself be an effect
of some internal trait in human nature. This objec-
tion not only is not overlooked by Godwin, but is met
and answered by anticipation, his charge against
government being not that it introduced evil where

none existed before, but that it fosters and strengthens
it by "giving substance and permanence to our errors."
As to the exaggerated antipathy to kings and priests,
as the prime enemies of the human race, with which
1
Preface to Essay on Sepulchres, 1809.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
he is often accredited, it is sufficient to point out that
he declares the miseries which are caused by the un-

equal distribution of property to be worse than those
1
resulting from any other source whatsoever. Finally,
the equality of men, on which he of course insists, is
not based on the fabulous notion (which some learned
persons now-a-days think it worth their while to de-
molish), that men

are born equal in mental and
" we are
physical endowments, but on the fact that
partakers of a common nature, and the same causes
that contribute to the benefit of one contribute to the
benefit of another/'
In the second edition of his book, which appeared
in 1796, Godwin modified some of the views which
were so strongly and plainly expressed in the original
" In this
quarto. collapse of a tense excitement/'
De "I
says Quincey, myself find the true reason for
the utter extinction of the Political Justice, and of its
author considered as a philosopher." It seems more
probable, however, that the decrease of public interest

in Godwin's work was due to the subsidence of that
politicalagitation which first brought it into note.

"Books, as well as men," says Mackintosh, "are
subject to what is called fortune. The same cir-
cumstances which favoured the sudden popularity
of Political Justice have since unduly depressed its
1
See p. 47.
j 6 GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE."
reputation. The moment for doing full and exact

justice will come."
The seven years that followed the publication of
Political Justice saw Godwin in the prime of his
powers and at the zenith of his fame. While the

spirit of
enthusiasm was still strong in his mind, he
wrote his most successful novel, Caleb Williams,
designed to be "a general review of the modes of
domestic despotism, by which man becomes the de-
stroyer of man/' in which aspect it may be regarded

as the pendant and complement of the preceding
work. The main subject of the story is the persecu-
tion undergone by Caleb Williams, a raw youth, full
of natural inquisitiveness and a mild yet indomitable
pertinacity (somewhat suggestive of Godwin himself),

at the hands of his master Falkland, into whose guilty
secret he has been rash and injudicious enough to pry.
The penalties attendant on simplicity and love of
knowledge, when they offend the prejudices of the
wealthy and powerful, are thus incidentally illus-
trated;
while the character of Falkland, a courtly and
high-minded gentleman, who, to avenge a gross insult,

had been tempted, years before, into the commission
of a terrible crime, gave Godwin the opportunity of
preaching an eloquent sermon on a favourite text

the iniquity of that
" code of honour " which would
seek satisfaction for a real or supposed injury in any

other way than by argument and expostulation.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 17
Caleb Williams, which was published in 1794, attained

a wider popularity than any of Godwin's other works,
doubtless because its didactic purpose is concealed
and concealed with more skill than one would have
expected from so serious a writer under the form of
a narrative. "It is the cream of his mind," says
Allan " the rest are the skimmed milk."
Cunningham ;
The encomiums passed on this novel by Sir T. N.
Talfourd, Gilfillan, and other
contemporaries of
Godwin, were somewhat extravagant ; but the book is
a powerful and remarkable one, and less read at the
present time than its make us expect.

merits would
In this same year, 1794, Godwin wrote several
letters to the Morning Chronicle on the subject of the
state trials by which the Government was then seek-
ing to destroy some of the more prominent of the
advocates of reform; and it was in great measure
owing to his crushing answer to the charge of Chief

Justice Eyre that a verdict of acquittal was returned
in favour of the twelve men who were put on their
trial inOctober, were Holcroft, Home

among whom
" The
Tooke, and others of Godwin's friends. feeling
of triumph among the friends of liberty," says Mrs.
Shelley, "was universal. Godwin never forgot the

delightful sensations he then experienced it was his
;
honest boast, and most grateful recollection, that he

had contributed to the glorious result by his letter to
Chief Justice Eyre."
c
i8 GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE."
The Enquirer, a volume of essays published in 1797,

is said by Gilfillan to be " made up of orts and frag-
ments which were over from the great feast of the
Enquiry." It
is, however, as Godwin indicates in his
Preface, an approach on Truth from another side than

that of Political Justice, being based on a posteriori
instead of a priori reasoning, and on an tc incessant
recurrence to experiment and actual observation."
Its author confesses that he did not escape the con-
tagion of the French Revolution, but was too im-
patient and impetuous in certain passages of his
earlier work; he therefore wishes to descend into
" the
humbler walks of private life," and to study in
The Enquirer points which had been overlooked in
Political Justice.The essay, however, which treats
of "Riches and Poverty," was corroborative, in the
main, of the opinions already expressed by Godwin on
the subject of property.
At this time, as indeed during the greater part of
his life, Godwin's circle of acquaintances was very
wide. The four friends by whom he was most

strongly influenced in his intellectual development
were, as he himself records, Joseph Fawcet, Thomas
Holcroft, George Dyson, and S. T. Coleridge. With
Holcroft and Coleridge in particular he was on terms
of affectionate intimacy.Charles Lamb, Mackintosh,
Home Tooke, Dr. Parr, Mrs. Inchbald, were also
among Godwin's friends, and he was more or less
acquainted with most of the eminent men of that time.

" Let me tell
you, Godwin," wrote Coleridge in a
letter of 1800, "that four such men as you, I, Davy,
and Wordsworth, do not meet together in one house

every day of the year I mean four men so distinct
with so many sympathies."
Godwin's habits were extremely simple and metho-
dicaL his mode of living frugal and unpretending, as
befitted a man of his calm, thoughtful, unimpassioned
temperament. His appearance may best be judged

from the portrait by Northcote (most of the written
accounts that have been preserved refer to a later
period of his life), which shows us a strong, stern

countenance, full of intellectual gravity and deter-
mination, with lofty, massive brow, earnest eyes, large
nose, and firmly chiselled mouth. His nose, if we
may Southey's humorous and not altogether
trust
friendly description, was the least prepossessing of his

features. "As for Godwin," he wrote in 1797, "he
has large noble eyes, and a nose oh, most abominable
nose !
Language is not vituperatious enough to
describe the effect of its downward elongation."
Godwin, in spite of his unemotional disposition, was
an ardent, and at times even a jealous friend. "Ex-
cept the one great passion of his life," says his
1 "
biographer, friendship stood to him in the place of
1
William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries. By C.
Kegan Paul.
20 GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE."
passion, as morality was to him in the place of devo-

tion. All the jealousies, misunderstandings, wounded
feelings, and the like, which some men experience in

their love affairs, Godwin suffered in his relations
with his friends. And his relations with women were
for the most part the same as those with men/' His
influence over youths, many of whom came to him for
consultation and advice, was one of his most remark-
able gifts
; and this influence seems in every case to
have been exercised with kindliness and discretion.
The "one great passion of his life" was of course
his love for the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, then
known as Mrs. Imlay, authoress of the Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, to whom he was married in the
early part of 1797. "I think you the most extra-
ordinary married pair in existence," wrote Holcroft to

Godwin, when informed of the marriage; and the
story of their wedded life, so phlegmatic in its out-
ward appearance, so tender in its inner reality, is
certainly one of the strangest on record. By the
death of Mary Wollstonecraft in the autumn of 1797,
at the birth of the daughter who was afterwards Mrs.
Shelley, Godwin was once more left alone ; and to this

bereavement may perhaps be traced many of the
troubles that beset his later life. The year after his
wife's death he edited her posthumous works, and
wrote a biographical memoir of her brief but chequered
career. In his novel St. Leon, published in 1799, the
21
character of Marguerite is in several respects a sketch

from that of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose influence
may also be seen in Godwin's change of attitude
towards those domestic ties, the "affections and
charities of private life," as he calls them, of which he
had spoken disparagingly in Political Justice. " For
more than four years," he says in his Preface to St.
Leon, "I have been anxious for opportunity and
leisure to modify some of the earlier chapters of that
work (Political Justice) in conformity to the senti-
ments inculcated in this."
Had Godwin died at the same time as Mary
Wollstonecraft, it is
probable fame would
that his
have stood far higher than it now does with posterity ;
for there has seldom been a more remarkable instance
of a lifewhich the beginning was signalized by the
in
best of a man's character, and the conclusion by the
worst. It has been well observed that Godwin " lived
in the eighteenth, and only survived in the nineteenth

" 1
and certainly his long life of eighty years
century;
may furnish an illustration of the Greek proverb that

"the half is greater than the whole." The precise
turning point in his career as far as it is possible to
assign an exact date to a general deterioration which
affected his fortune andwritings alike was the
failure, in 1800, of an ill-starred drama, Antonio, on
1
Leslie Stephen, Fortnightly Review, October, 1876.
which he had been rash enough to risk his interests

and his hopes. From that time onward we see him
rather as the needy bookmaker than the disinterested
moralist and man of letters and the repellent traits
;
of his character, the egoism and sophistry that had

been latent or observable in his earlier years,
less
were now more and more developed and accentuated.

His second marriage, which took place in 1801 (hav-
ing been preceded by two or three unsuccessful court-
ships), was not altogether a happy one, Mrs. Clairmont,
the widow to whom he allied himself, being a woman
of a strong imperious disposition, which did not con-
duce to the tranquillity of a philosopher's household ;
while the bookselling business, which he undertook
in 1805 and carried on for twenty years, first in
Hanway Street and then in Skinner Street, Holborn,
involved him in a hard, discouraging struggle, be-
ginning in difficulties and ending in complete failure.

It was under the stress of this unlucky commercial
enterprise that Godwin gave way to that demoralizing
habit of borrowing money from every one with whom
he came in contact friend, acquaintance, or stranger
with which his name is so largely and dishonourably
1
associated. It is only just, however, to note that he
In Henry Crabb Eobinson's Diary for 1812 there is re-

1
corded an occasion when Godwin met his match in this

"
practice of borrowing. Godwin and Bough met at this
party for the first time. The very next day Godwin called on
was himself open-handed enough when he chanced to

have the means of relieving the distress of others, and
his biographer records several instances of his
"
large
and self-denying charity, extending to most distant
and unexpected quarters."
During these years of misfortune and decay, Godwin
still maintained his friendship with Coleridge, Lamb,
Holcroft, Curran, Grattan, Home Tooke, and others,
whose acquaintance he had made in happier days ;
though the number of his friends was now beginning
to be thinned by death, and some few of them had
become estranged through increasing differences of

opinion. That he had also many enemies was due,
not to any personal animosity on his part a fault
from which he was singularly free but to the polemi-
cal nature of his and
revolutionary
writings the
opinions of which he was regarded as the exponent.

" He had of no ordinary kind/' says one of
courage
his contemporaries, " and needed it all to sustain the
reaction of prodigious popularity ; every species of

attack, from the sun-shafts of Burke, Mackintosh, and
me how much he liked Kough, adding, By the bye, do

to say
'
you think he would lend me 50 just now, as I am in want of

a little money ? He had not left me an hour before Bough
'
came in with a like question. He wanted a bill discounted,

and asked whether I thought Godwin would do it for him.
The habit of both was so well known that some persons were
afraid to invite them, lest it should lead to an application for
a loan from some friend who chanced to be present."
Hall, to the reptile calumnies of meaner assailants,

and a perpetual struggle with narrow circumstances."
" I am a man of no fortune or
consequence in my
country/' wrote Godwin himself in 1809;
1
"I am
the adherent of no party j I have passed the greater
part of my life in solitude and retirement: there are

numbers of men who overflow with gall and prejudice
against me God bless them " !
There was one faculty of Godwin's prime which did

not desert him in later life that of attracting and
strongly influencing youths of ardent spirit. Of those
who were thus led to sit at the feet of the revolu-
tionary prophet, the poet Shelley, afterwards his son-
in-law, was the most illustrious example. How great
was Shelley's debt to Godwin may be learnt by a
study of their respective masterpieces Prometheus
Unbound is the poetical and idealized counterpart of
Political Justice. It is a striking proof of the extent
to which Godwin's popularity had waned in the early

years of this century, that Shelley, writing to him
for the first time in 1811, confesses that he had re-
cently learnt with surprise that Godwin was still
living; in his own words, that he had "enrolled his
name on the list of the honourable dead." And, in
a sense, Shelley's supposition was not so entirely un-

founded. The true Godwin, the stern, self-denying
1
Preface to Essay on Sepulchres.
reformer, was indeed no more; but in his place was

the impecunious bookseller of Skinner Street (" that
which was Godwin," Shelley calls him in the " Letter
to Maria Gisborne"), whose " implacable exactions "
and " boundless and plausible sophistry " were destined
to become but too well known to his much-enduring
son-in-law.
Godwin's personal appearance, no less than his
" In
character, had undergone a great change.
person," wrote one who knew him, "he was remark-
l
ably sedate and solemn, resembling in dress and

manner a Dissenting minister rather than the advocate
of free thought in all things religious, moral, social,
and intellectual ;
he was short and stout, his clothes
loosely and on, and usually old and
carelessly put
worn ; his hands were generally in his pockets he ;
had a remarkably large bald head, and a weak voice ;

seeming generally half asleep when he walked, and
even when he talked. Few who saw this man of calm
exterior,quiet manners, and inexpressive features,
could have believed him to have originated three
romances, Falkland, Caleb Williams, and St. Leon,

not yet forgotten because of their terrible excite-
ments ;
and the work, Political Justice, which for a
time created a sensation that was a fear in every state
of Europe." A more favourable description is that
1
S. C. Hall, Memories of Great Men, London, 1871 .
given by Harriet Martineau, who made Godwin's ac-
quaintance as late as 1833. "I looked upon him,"

she says, " as a curious monument of a bygone
state of society ; and there was still a good deal that
was interesting in him. His fine head was striking,
and his countenance remarkable." She adds that
the which appeared in Fraser's Magazine, l
portrait
where Godwin was represented as a small, bent old
man, in long tail-coat and immense top-hat, was a
malicious caricature, from which it was impossible to
form a true estimate of his features.

In 1822, Godwin's bookselling and publishing busi-
ness had ended in complete bankruptcy, and during
the last fourteen years of his life he supported himself
by literary work ; the presence of his daughter, Mary

Shelley, who had now returned from Italy after her
husband's death, being a great help and encourage-
ment. Of his later writings, the only one of import-
ance was the answer to Malthus, published in 1820,
which has been described as " the first action in the
long warfare between the political economists and

the various prophets of Utopia/' though it may well
be doubted if Godwin was the combatant who was
" nowhere " The
in this controversy. Life of Chaucer
is marred by its
(1803) extraordinary diffuseness, a
very slender amount of material being worked up into
1
October, 1834.
two bulky quarto volumes, which drew from Sir

Walter Scott the observation that Godwin's method
was " hooking and history of every-
in the description
thing that existed upon earth at the same time with

haucer." l The Essay on Sepulchres (1809) is a brief
and pleasantly written proposal "for erecting some
memorial of the illustrious dead in all ages on the
spot where their remains have been interred."The
last work on which Godwin was engaged was the
series of essays entitled by him
" The Genius of
Christianity Unveiled/' which, however, did not see

the light until 1873, when it appeared under the
cautiously indefinite title of Essays hitherto Unpub-

lished.
In 1833, Godwin's friends, who had more than once

raised subscriptions for his assistance, obtained for
him the post of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer,
with residence in New
Palace Yard, in the possession
of which sinecure he spent the short remainder of his
life.Thus were Society and Government triumphantly
avenged for the insult offered them forty years pre-
viously in Political Justice ; and it is curious to note
that among the many subjects touched on in that
work the question of Salaries had not been overlooked
" How " will it
by Godwin. humiliating/' he said,
be to the functionary himself, amidst the complication
1
Edinburgh Eeview, iii.
and subtlety of motives, to doubt whether the salary

were not one of his inducements to the acceptance of
the office!" " Sunt lacrymce rerum;
" it is a
tragedy
of a lifetime on which it would be cruel to dwell ;
but it may at least be said in Godwin's favour, that

had he devoted his great powers to the cause of
oppression instead of that of liberty, he would have
ended days in some far more luxurious sinecure
his
than his residence in New Palace Yard. " Went to

tea at the Godwins' dwelling under the roof
little
of the Houses of Parliament," writes Harriet Marti-

neau in 1834. " Godwin had a small office there, with
a salary, a dwelling, and coals and candle ; and very
comfortable he seemed there, with his old wife to take
care of him." It was here that Godwin died on April
7th, 1836, at the age of eighty years. He was buried
in Old Saint Pancras churchyard, by the side of Mary
Wollstonecraft ;
but in 1851, when this spot was
broken up by the intrusion of the railway, their re-
mains were transferred to the churchyard at Bourne-
mouth, where their daughter, Mary Shelley, had
already been laid to rest.
Godwin's character was a strange mixture of
strength and
irresolution, candour and sophistry,
generosity and meanness. A most daring speculator,

even in that age of unlimited theorizing, and gifted
to a remarkable degree with the faculty of patiently
following out his inquiries to their logical conclusion,

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
he was yet one of the most cautious and timorous of

men in conversation and social intercourse.
tf
I am
bold and adventurous in opinions/' he wrote in an
" not in life it is im-
autobiographical fragment ;
possible that a man with my diffidence and embarrass-

ment should be. This, and perhaps only this, renders
me often cold, uninviting, and unconciliating in
society/' His strong didactic tendency, which was
unrelieved by any sense of humour or delicacy of tact,
often led him into absurd positions and incongruous
statements which many a less talented man would
have easily avoided ; while his inordinate self-esteem,
which at first stimulated him to a career of disin-
terested activity, degenerated in the latter part of his
life into mere
vanity and selfishness. He has been
called
" cold blooded "
;
this defect, however, existed
more in appearance than in reality, for under the calm
exterior of his phlegmaticand unimpassioned manner
there undoubtedly lay a large amount of real sensi-
bility and tenderness, and his writings show him to

have been one of the most humanely minded men of
the age in which he lived. Those who wish to es-
timate Godwin's character impartially will not judge
him solely or chiefly, as hostile critics have done, by
the odious traits which manifested themselves in his
declining years, but will remember him also as he

appeared in his early and better period, as the fearless
champion of intellectual and social liberty, the author
30 GODWIN'S "POLITICAL JUSTICE"
of Political Justice and Caleb Williams, the husband

of MaryWollstonecraft, and the sympathetic friend
and adviser of the many young enthusiasts who came
to him for assistanceand encouragement.
A moralist who deals as frankly as Godwin did with
subjects which excite so much controversy, must ne-

cessarily be viewed in very different lights by those
who approve and those who reprobate his ideals.
" In
weighing well his merits with his moral imper-
l "
a writer of the latter
fections/' says class, it is me-
lancholy to discover how far the latter preponderated,

and we are led to the very painful though certain con-
clusion, that it might have been better for mankind
had he never existed." This conclusion does not
strike every onenow-a-days as possessing the certainty
it ; nor has time
attributed to altogether verified the
comfortable assertion, frequently advanced during the
past three-quarters of a century by those in whom the

wish was perhaps father to the thought, that God-
win's revolutionary theories have long been dead and
buried ; for theories of this sort have a troublesome
habit of re-arising from the tomb at the very time
when their obsequies are being confidently celebrated.
A significant instance of this phenomenon may be
seen in Prof. W. 2
Smyth's essay on Godwin, in which,
1
Gentleman's Magazine, obituary notice, June, 1836.
2
Lectures on the French Revolution, vol. iii.
after stating that now impossible to read his

it is
" the worldnow in a more settled state,
works, as is
and people no longer make inquiries concerning

he proceeds to explain that " this
political justice/'
sentence was written many years ago, but I have lived
to see all the doctrines of Godwin revived they are
the same as those which now infest the world and dis-
grace the human understanding, delivered by Mr.
Owen, the Chartists, and the St. Simonians." This
was written in 1842, and now, half a century later,
the same might be said, mutatis mutandis, by the

upholders of orthodoxy and constitutionalism.
Modern revolutionists,on the other hand, however
littlethey may agree with portions of Godwin's work
or approve his a priori method of reasoning, will feel
that in choosing Justice for the watchword of his creed,
in insisting on the liberty of individual opinion as dis-
tinct from the license of individual money- making,
and in pointing with such emphasis to the accumula-
tion of private property as the main cause of human
wretchedness and depravity, he instinctively struck a
true note, and entitled himself to be regarded as one
of the pioneers of the great movement of social eman-
cipation. A
man of commanding genius he certainly
was not; but it is equally certain that his abilities
have in many quarters been unduly depreciated.
There was more in Godwin, said Coleridge, than
he was once willing to admit, though not so much as
his enthusiastic admirers fancied ;

and this is perhaps
the true and final judgment to be passed on him.
One high quality, invaluable to a moralist, he un-
doubtedly possessed the power of indoctrinating his
readers with the intellectual enthusiasm by which he
was himself " It was in the
inspired. spring of this
1
year," wrote one of Godwin's contemporaries in 1795,
" that I read a book which
gave a turn to my mind,
and directed the whole course of my life a book
which, after producing a powerful effect on the youth

of that generation, has now sunk into unmerited
oblivion. This was Godwin's Political Justice. In
one respect the book had an excellent effect on my
mind it made me feel more generously. I had never
felt before, nor, I am afraid, have I ever since felt so
strongly, the duty of not living to one's self, but of

having for one's sole object the good of the com-
munity."
It would be express more correctly the
difficult to
sum and substance of the teaching conveyed in God-

win's Political Justice.
H. S.
Henry Crabb Eobinson's Diary, i. 18.

LIST OF GODWIN'S CHIEF WORKS.
History of the Life of William Pitt, Lord Chatham,

8vo, 1783.
Sketches of History, in Six Sermons, 12 mo, 1784.
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 2 vols., 4to,
1793.
Ditto, Second Edition, 2 vols., 8vo, 1796; Third

Edition, ] 798. (A. reprint was issued by James Wat-
son, the secularist, about 1840.)
Things as they are, or the Adventures of Caleb

Williams, a novel, 1794.
The Enquirer; Reflections on Education, Manners,
and Literature, 8vo, 1797.
Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft, 8vo, 1798.
St. Leon, a Tale of the Sixteenth Century, 4 vols.,
12mo, 1799.
Antonio, or the Soldier's Return, a Tragedy, 8vo,
1800.
A Reply to Dr. Parr and others, 8vo, 1801.
Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, 2 vols., 4to, 1803.

* D
34 LIST OF GODWIN'S CHIEF WORKS.
Fables, Ancient and Modern, 1805. (This was one

of a series of educational works, written by Godwin
under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin.)
Fleet wood, or the New Man of Feeling, 3 vols.,
12mo, 1805.
Faulkner, a tragedy, 1807.
Essay on Sepulchres, 16ino, 1809.
Lives of Edward and John Phillips, nephews of
Milton, 4to, 1815.
Mandeville, a Tale of the Times of Croimuell, 3 vols.,
8vo, 1817.
Of Population, an Answer to Mai thus' Essay, 8vo,

1820.
A History of the Commonwealth of England, 4 vols.,
1824-1828.
Cloudesly, a Tale, 12 mo, 1830.
Thoughts on Man, a volume of Essays, 8vo, 1831.
Deloraine, a Novel, 3 vols., 1833.
Lives of the Necromancers, 8vo, 1834.
Essays , never before published, 1873.

AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING
POLITICAL JUSTICE.
BOOK VIIL
OF PROPERTY.
CHAPTER I.
GENUINE SYSTEM OF PROPERTY DELINEATED.

IMPORTANCE OP THIS TOPIC. ABUSES TO WHICH IT HAS
BEEN EXPOSED. CRITERION OF PROPERTY : JUSTICE.
ENTITLES EACH MAN TO THE SUPPLY OP HIS ANIMAL

WANTS AS FAR AS THE GENERAL STOCK WILL AFFORD
IT. TO THE MEANS OF WELL BEING. ESTIMATE OF
LUXURY. ITS PERNICIOUS EFFECTS ON THE INDIVI-
DUAL WHO PARTAKES OF IT. IDEA OF LABOUR AS THE
FOUNDATION OF PROPERTY CONSIDERED. ITS UNREA-
SONABLENESS. SYSTEM OF POPULAR MORALITY ON
THIS SUBJECT. DEFECTS OF THAT SYSTEM.
subject of property is the key-stone that com-

THE pletes the fabric of political justice. According
35
36 OF PROPERTY.
as our ideas respecting are crude or correct, they

it
will enlighten us as to the consequences of a simple
form of society without government, and remove the

prejudices that attach us to complexity. There is
nothing that more powerfully tends to distort our
judgment and opinions, than erroneous notions con-
cerning the goods of fortune. Finally, the period that
shall put an end to the system of coercion and punish-
mentj is intimately connected with the circumstance of

property's being placed upon an equitable basis.
Various abuses of the most incontrovertible nature
have insinuated themselves into the administration of
property. Each of these abuses might usefully be
made the subject of a separate investigation. We
might inquire into the vexations of this sort that are
produced by the dreams of national greatness or magis-
tratical vanity. This would lead us to a just estimate
of the different kinds of taxation, landed or mercan-
tile, having the necessaries or the luxuries of life for

their subject of operation. We might examine into
the abuses which have adhered to the commercial
system :
monopolies, charters, patents, protecting
duties, prohibitions and bounties. We
might remark
upon the consequences that flow from the feudal
system and the system of ranks ; seignorial duties,
fines, conveyances, entails, estates freehold, copyhold
and vassalage and primogeniture.
manorial, We
might consider the rights of the church ; first fruits
SYSTEM OF PROPERTY DELINEATED. 37
and tithes and we might enquire into the propriety

:
of the regulation by which a man, after having

possessed as sovereign a considerable property during
his permitted to dispose of it at his pleasure,
life, is
at the period which the laws of nature seem to have
fixed as the termination of his authority. All these
enquiries would tend to show the incalculable impor-

tance of this subject. But, excluding them all from
the present enquiry, it shallbe the business of what
remains of this work to consider, not any particular
abuses which have incidentally risen out of the ad-
ministration of property, but those general principles
by which it has in almost all cases been directed, and

if erroneous, must not
which, only be regarded as the
source of the abuses above enumerated, but of others
of innumerable kinds, too multifarious and subtle to
enter into so brief a catalogue.
What is the criterion that must determine whether
this or that substance, capable of contributing to the
benefit of a human being, ought to be considered as

your property or mine ? To this question there can
be but one answer Justice. Let us then recur to
1
the principles of justice.
"
1
Book
II., chap. ii. Justice is a rule of conduct originat-
ing in the connection of one percipient being with another.
A comprehensive maxim which has been laid down upon
"
this subject is that we should love our neighbours as our-
selves." But this maxim, though possessing considerable
OF PROPERTY.
To whom does any article of property, suppose a

loaf of bread, justly belong ? To him who most
wants it, or to whom the possession of it will be most
beneficial. Here are six men famished with hunger,
and the loaf
is, absolutely considered, capable of
satisfying the cravings of them all. Who is it that
has a reasonable claim to benefit by the qualities with
which this loaf is endowed ? They are all brothers
perhaps, and the law of primogeniture bestows it

exclusively on the eldest. But does justice confirm
this award ? The laws of different countries dispose
of property in a thousand different ways but there
;
can be but one way which is most comformable to

reason.
It would have been easy to put a case much
stronger than that which has just been stated. I have
an hundred loaves in my possession, and in the next
street there is a poor man
expiring with hunger, to
whom one of these loaves would be the means of pre-
serving his life. If I withhold this loaf from him, am
I not unjust ? If I impart it, am I not complying
with what justice demands ? To whom does the loaf
justly belong ?
I suppose myself in other respects to be in easy
merit as a popular principle, is not modelled with the strict-

ness of philosophical accuracy." Godwin proceeds to argue
that each person should be valued according to his usefulness
to society, without regard to domestic ties and affections.
circumstances, and that I do not want this bread as

an object of barter or sale, to procure me any of the
other necessaries of a human being. Our animal
wants have long since been defined, and are stated to
consist of food, clothing and shelter. If justice have
any meaning, nothing can be more iniquitous, than

for one man to possess superfluities, while there is a
human being in existence that is not adequately sup-
plied with these.
Justice does not stop here. Every man is entitled,

so far as the general stock will suffice, not only to the
means of being, but of well being. It is unjust, if
one man labour to the destruction of his health or his
life, man may abound in luxuries. It is
that another
unjust, if man be deprived of leisure to cultivate

one
his rational powers, while another man contributes
not a single effort to add to the common stock. The

faculties of one man are like the faculties of another
man. Justice directs that each man, unless perhaps

he be employed more beneficially to the public, should
contribute to the cultivation of the common harvest,
of which each man consumes a share. This recipro-
city indeed, as was observed when that subject was

the matter of separate consideration, is of the very
essence of justice. How the latter branch of it, the
necessary labour, is to be secured, while each man is
admitted to claim his share of the produce, we shall
presently have occasion to enquire.

40 OF PROPERTY.
This subject will be placed in a still more striking
light, if we reflect for a moment on the nature of

luxuries. The wealth of any state may intelligibly
enough be considered as the aggregate of all the
incomes, which are annually consumed within that

state,without destroying the materials of an equal
consumption in the ensuing year. Considering this

income as being, what in almost all cases it will be
found to be, the produce of the industry of the in-
habitants, it will follow that in civilized countries the
peasant often does not consume more than the twen-

tieth part of the produce of his labour, while his rich
neighbour consumes perhaps the produce of the labour

of twenty peasants. The benefit that arises to this
favoured mortal ought surely to be very extraordinary.
But nothing is more evident than that the condition
of this man is the reverse of beneficial. The man of
an hundred pounds per annum, if he understand his
own happiness, is a thousand times more favourably
circumstanced. What shall the rich man do with his
enormous wealth ? Shall he eat of innumerable
dishes of the most expensive viands, or pour down
hogsheads of the most highly flavoured wines ? A
frugal diet will contribute infinitely more to health,
to a clear understanding, to cheerful spirits, and even

to the gratification of the appetites. Almost every
other expense is an expense of ostentation. No man,
but the most sordid epicure, would long continue to
maintain even a plentiful table, if he had no spectators,

visitors or servants, to behold his establishment. For
whom are our sumptuous palaces and costly furniture,
our equipages, and even our very clothes ? The noble-
man, who should for the first time let his imagination
loose to conceive the style in which he would live, if
he had nobody to observe, and no eye to please but
his own, would no doubt be surprised to find that
vanity had been the first mover in all his actions.

The object of this vanity is to procure the admira-
tion and applause of beholders. We need not here
enter into the intrinsic value of applause. Taking it
for granted that it is as estimable an acquisition as
any man can suppose how contemptible is
it, the
source of applause to which the rich man has re-
course "
?
Applaud me, because my ancestor has left
me a great estate." What merit is there in that ?
The effect then of riches is to deprive their

first
possessor of the genuine powers of understanding, and

render him incapable of discerning absolute truth.
They lead him to fix his affections on objects not
accommodated to the wants and the structure of the
human mind, and of consequence entail upon him
disappointment and unhappiness. The greatest of all
personal advantages are, independence of mind, which

makes us feel that our satisfactions are not at the
mercy either of men or of fortune; and activity of
mind, the cheerfulness that arises from industry per-

42 OF PROPERTY.
petually employed about objects, of which our judg-

ment acknowledges the intrinsic value.
In this case we have compared the happiness of the
man of extreme opulence with that of the man of one
hundred pounds per annum. But the latter side of
this alternative was assumed merely in compliance
with existing prejudices. Evenin the present state

of human society we perceive, that a man, who should
be perpetually earning the necessary competence by
a very moderate industry, and with his pursuits un-
crossed by the peevishness or caprice of his neigh-
bours, would not be less happy than if he were born

to that competence. In the state of society we are
here contemplating, where, as will presently appear,
the requisite industry will be of the lightest kind, it
will be the reverse of a misfortune to any man, to find
himself necessarily stimulated to a gentle activity, and

in consequence to feel that no reverse of fortune could
deprive him of the means of subsistence and content-

ment.
But it has been alleged, "that we find among
different men very different degrees of labour and in-
dustry, and that it is not just they should receive an
equal reward." It cannot indeed be denied that the

attainments of men in virtue and usefulness ought by
no means to be confounded. How far the present
system of property contributes to their being equit-

ably treated it is very easy to determine. The pre-
sent system of property confers on one man immense

wealth in consideration of the accident of his birth.
He that from beggary ascends to opulence is usually
known not to have effected this transition by methods
very creditable to his honesty or his usefulness. The

most industrious and active member of society is fre-
quently with great difficulty able to keep his family
from starving.
But, to pass over these iniquitous effects of the
unequal distribution of property, let us consider the
nature of the reward which is thus proposed to in-
dustry. you be industrious, you shall have an

If
hundred times more food than you can eat, and an
hundred times more clothes than you can wear. Where
is the justice of this ? If I be the greatest benefactor
the human species ever knew, is that a reason for
bestowing on me what I do not want, especially when
there are thousands to whom my superfluity would be
of the greatest advantage ? With this superfluity I
can purchase nothing but gaudy ostentation and envy,
nothing but the pitiful pleasure of returning to the
poor under the name of generosity that to which
reason gives them an irresistible claim, nothing but
prejudice, error and vice.
The doctrine of the injustice of accumulated property

has been the foundation of all religious morality. The
object of this morality has been, to excite men by
individual virtue to repair this injustice. The most
44 OF PROPERTY.
energetic teachers of religion have been irresistibly

led to assert the precise truth upon this interesting
subject. They have taught the rich, that they hold

their wealth only as a trust, that they are strictly
accountable for every atom of their expenditure, that
they are merely administrators, and by no means pro-

prietors in chief.
1
The defect of this system is, that
they rather excite us to palliate our injustice than to
forsake it.
No truth can be more simple than that which they

inculcate. There is no action of any human being,
and certainly no action that respects the disposition
of property, that is not capable of better and worse,
and concerning which reason and morality do not
prescribe a specific conduct. He that sets out with
acknowledging that other men are of the same nature

as himself, and is capable of perceiving the precise
place he would hold in the eye of an impartial specta-

tor, roust be fully sensible, that the money he employs
in procuring an object of trifling or no advantage to
himself, and which might have been employed in
purchasing substantial and indispensable benefit to

another, is
unjustly employed. He that looks at his
property with the eye of truth, will find that every
shilling of it has received its destination from the dic-
1
See Swift's Sermon on Mutual Subjection, quoted Book II.
chap. ii. [Godwin's Note.]
tates of justice. He will at the same time, however, be
exposed considerable pain, in consequence of his

to
own ignorance as to the precise disposition that justice

and public utility require.
Does any man doubt of the truth of these asser-
tions ? Does any man doubt that, when I employ a
sum of money small or great in the purchase of an
absolute luxury for myself, I am guilty of vice ? It
is high time that this subject should be adequately
understood. It is high time that we should lay aside

the very names of justice and virtue, or that we should
acknowledge that they do not authorise us to accumu-

late luxuries upon ourselves, while we see others in
want of the indispensable means of improvement and
happiness.
But, while religion inculcated on mankind the im-
partial nature of justice, its teachers have been too
apt to treat the practice of justice, not as a debt,

which it ought to be considered, but as an affair of
spontaneous generosity and bounty. They have called
upon the rich to be clement and merciful to the poor.
The consequence of this has been that the rich, when
they bestowed the most slender pittance of their
enormous wealth in acts of charity, as they were
called, took merit to themselves for what they gave,
instead of considering themselves as delinquents for
what they withheld.
Religion is in reality in all its parts an accommo-
46 OF PROPERTY.
elation to the prejudices and weaknesses of mankind.

Its authors communicated to the world as much truth
as they calculated that the world would be willing to
receive. But time that we should lay aside the
it is
instruction intended only for children in understand-
ing/ and contemplate the nature and principles of

things. If religion ha^L spoken out, and told us it
was just that all men should receive the supply of

their wants, we should presently have been led to
suspect that a gratuitous distribution to be made by

the rich was a very indirect and ineffectual way of
arriving at this object. The experience of all ages

has taught us, that this system is
productive only of a
very precarious supply. The principalobject which
it seems to propose, is to place this supply in the
disposal of a few, enabling them to make a show of
generosity with what is not truly their own, and to
purchase the gratitude of the poor by the payment of

a debt. It is a system of clemency and charity, in-
stead of a system of justice. It fills the rich with un-
reasonable pride by the spurious denominations with

which it decorates their acts, and the poor with ser-
vility, by leading them to regard the slender comforts
they obtain, not as their incontrovertible due, but as

the good pleasure and the grace of their opulent
neighbours.
1
1 Cor. iii. 1, 2. [Godwin's note.]
CHAPTER II.
BENEFITS ARISING FROM THE GENUINE

SYSTEM OF PROPERTY.
CONTRASTED WITH THE MISCHIEFS OF THE PRESENT SYS-

TEM, AS CONSISTING 1. IN A SENSE OF DEPENDENCE.
2. IN THE PERPETUAL SPECTACLE OF INJUSTICE, LEAD-

ING MEN ASTRAY IN THEIR DESIRES AND PERVERTING
THE INTEGRITY OF THEIR JUDGMENTS. THE RICH ARE
THE TRUE PENSIONERS. 3. IN THE DISCOURAGEMENT
OF INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. 4. IN THE MULTI-

PLICATION OF VICE GENERATING THE CRIMES OF THE
POOR THE PASSIONS OF THE RICH AND THE MISFOR-
TUNES OF WAR. 5. IN DEPOPULATION.
seen the justice of an equal distribution

HAVING
of property, let us next consider the benefits
with which it would be attended. And here with
grief it must be confessed,

that, however great and
extensive the evils that are produced by mon-
are
archies and courts, by the imposture of priests and the
iniquity of criminal laws, all these are imbecil and

47
48 OF PROPERTY.
impotent compared with the evils that arise out of the
established system of property.

Its first effect is that which we have already men-
tioned, a sense of dependence. It is true that courts
are mean spirited, intriguing and servile, and that this
disposition is by contagion from them to

transferred
all ranks of society. But property brings home a
servile and truckling spirit by no circuitous method
to every house in the nation. Observe the pauper

fawning with abject vileness upon his rich benefactor,
and speechless with sensations of gratitude for having
received that which he ought to have claimed with an
erect mien, and with a consciousness that his claim
was irresistible. Observe the servants that follow in
a rich man's train, watchful of his looks, anticipating
his commands, not daring to reply to his insolence,
all their time and their- efforts under the direction of
his caprice. Observe the tradesman, how he studies
the passions of his customers, not to correct, but to
pamper them, the vileness of his flattery and the

systematical constancy with which he exaggerates the
merit of his commodities. Observe the practices of a
popular election,where the great mass are purchased

by obsequiousness, by intemperance and bribery, or
driven by unmanly threats of poverty and persecu-
" the " " "l
tion. Indeed age of chivalry is not gone !
1
Burke's Reflections. [Godwin's note.]
THE GENUINE SYSTEM, ITS BENEFITS. 49
The feudal spirit still survives, that reduced the great

mass of mankind to the rank of slaves and cattle for
the service of a few.

Wehave heard much of visionary and theoretical
improvements. It would indeed be visionary and
theoretical to expect virtue from mankind, while they
are thus subjected to hourly corruption, and bred from
father to son to sell their independence and their
conscience for the vile rewards that oppression has
to bestow. No man can be either useful to others
or happy to himself who is a stranger to the grace of
firmness, and who is not habituated to prefer the

dictates of his own sense of rectitude to all the
tyranny of command, and allurements of temptation.

Here again, as upon a former occasion, religion comes
in to illustrate our thesis. Religion was the generous
ebullition of men, who their imagination loose
let
on the grandest subjects, and wandered without re-

straint in the unbounded field of inquiry. It is not
to be wondered at therefore if they brought home

imperfect ideas of the sublimest views that intellect
can furnish. In this instance religion teaches that
the true perfection of man is to divest himself of the
influence of passions; that he must have no artificial
wants, no sensuality, and no fear. But to divest the

human species under the present system of the influ-
ence of passions is an extravagant speculation. The
enquirer after truth and the benefactor of mankind
50 OF PROPERTY.
willbe desirous of removing from them those external

impressions by which their evil propensities are
cherished. The true object that should be kept in
view, is to extirpate all ideas of condescension and
superiority, to oblige every man to feel, that the
kindness he exerts is what he is bound to perform,
and the assistance he asks what he has a right to
claim.
A second . evil that arises out of the established
system of property is the perpetual spectacle of injus-

tice it exhibits. This consists partly in luxury and
partly in caprice. There is nothing more pernicious

to the human mind than luxury. Mind, being in its
own nature active, necessarily fixes on

essentially
some object public or personal, and in the latter case
on the attainment of some excellence, or something
which shall command the esteem and deference of
others. No propensity, absolutely considered, can
be more valuable than this. But the established
system of property directs it into the channel of the
acquisition of wealth. The ostentation of the rich
perpetually goads the spectator to the desire of
opulence. Wealth, by the sentiments of servility

and dependence it
produces, makes the rich man
stand forward as the only object of general esteem
and deference. In vain are sobriety, integrity, and
industry, in vain the sublimest powers of mind and
the most ardent benevolence, if their possessor be
narrowed in his circumstances. To acquire wealth

and to display
it, therefore
is the universal passion.
The whole structure of human society is made a
system of the narrowest selfishness. If self-love and
benevolence were apparently reconciled as to their
object, a man might set out with the desire of emi-
nence, and yet every day become more generous and
philanthropical in his views. But the passion we are
here describing is accustomed to be gratified at every
step by inhumanly trampling upon the interest of
others. Wealth is acquired by overreaching our
neighbours, and is spent in insulting them.
The spectacle of injustice which the established
system of property exhibits, consists partly in caprice.
Ifyou would cherish in any man the love of rectitude,
you must take care that its principles be impressed
on him, not only by words, but actions. It sometimes
happens during the period of education, that maxims
of integrity and consistency are repeatedly enforced,
and that the preceptor gives no quarter to the base
suggestions of selfishness and cunning. But how is
the lesson that has been read to the pupil confounded
and reversed, when he enters upon the scene of the
world ? If he ask, "
Why is this man honoured ? "
the ready answer " Because he is rich." If he
is,
" " the answer in
enquire further, Why is he rich ?
most cases " From the accident of
is, birth, or from
a minute and sordid attention to the cares of gain."
52 OF PROPERTY.
The system of accumulated property is the offspring

of civil policy ; and civil policy, as we are taught to
believe, the production of accumulated wisdom.

is
Thus the wisdom of legislators and senates has been

employed, to secure a distribution of property the
most profligate and unprincipled, that bids defiance
to the maxims of justice and the nature of man.
Humanity weeps over the distresses of the peasantry

of all civilized nations ; and, when she turns from
this spectacle to behold the luxury of their lords,
gross, imperious, and prodigal, her sensations certainly
are not less acute.This spectacle is the school in
which mankind have been educated. They have been
accustomed to the sight of injustice, oppression, and
iniquity, till their feelings are made callous, and their
understandings incapable of apprehending the nature

of true virtue.
In beginning to point out the evils of accumulated

property, we compared the extent of those evils with
the correspondent of monarchies and courts.
evils
No circumstances under the latter have excited a

more pointed disapprobation than pensions and pe-
cuniary corruption, by means of which hundreds of
individuals are rewarded, not for serving, but betray-
ing the public, and the hard earnings of industry are

employed to fatten the servile adherents of despot-
ism. But the rent-roll of the lands of England is a
much more formidable pension list than that which
is supposed to be employed in the purchase of minis-

terial majorities. All riches, and especially all heredi-
tary riches, are to be considered as the salary of a

sinecure office, where the labourer and the manu-
facturer perform the duties, and the principal spends
the income in luxury and idleness. 1 Hereditary
1
This idea is to be found in Ogilvie's Essay on the Right
of Property in Land, published about two years ago, Part I.,
Sect. iii. par. 38, 39. The reasonings of this author have
sometimes considerable merit, though he has by no means
gone to the source of the evil.
It might be amusing to some readers to recollect the
authorities, if the citation of authorities were a proper mode

of reasoning, by which the system of accumulated property
is openly attacked. The best known is Plato, in his treatise
of a Eepublic. His steps have been followed by Sir Thomas
More, in his Utopia. Specimens of very powerful reasoning
on the same side may be found in Gulliver's Travels, par-
ticularly, Part IV., chap. vi. Mably, in his book De la Legis-
lation, has displayed at large the advantages of equality, and
then quits the subject in despair from an opinion of the in-
corrigibleness of human depravity. Wallace, the contempo-
rary and antagonist of Hume, in a treatise entitled, Various
Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, is copious in

his eulogium of the same system, and deserts only from
it
fear of the earth becoming too populous: see below, Chap.

YIT. The great practical authorities are Crete, Sparta, Peru,
and Paraguay. It would be easy to swell this list, if we
added examples where an approach only to these principles
was attempted, and authors who have incidentally confirmed
a doctrine, so interesting and clear as never to have been
wholly eradicated from any human understanding.
It would be trifling, to object that the systems of Plato and
54 OF PROPERTY.
wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness, an

immense annuity expended to in
retain mankind
brutality and ignorance. The poor are kept in igno-
rance by the want of leisure. The rich are furnished
indeed with the means of cultivation and literature,
but they are paid for being dissipated and indolent.
The most powerful means that malignity could have
invented, are
employed prevent them from im-
to
proving their talents, and becoming useful to the

public.
This leads us to observe, thirdly, that the estab-
lished system of property is the true levelling system
with respect to the human by as much as the

species,
cultivation of intellect and truth is more valuable
and more characteristic of man, than the gratifications
of vanity or appetite. Accumulated property treads
the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the
others are full of imperfections. This indeed rather strength-

ens their authority since the evidence of the truth they
;
maintained was so great as still to preserve its hold on their

understandings, though they knew not how to remove the
difficulties that attended it. [Godwin's Note.]
William Ogilvie, referred to in this note, was an Aberdeen
Professor, whose essay on the Land Question attracted some
attention in 1781. It is strange that Godwin makes no men-
tion of Thomas Spence, the forerunner of Henry George,
whose lecture on Land Reform, read before the Newcastle
Philosophical Society in 1775, had resulted in his expulsion
from that body.
sparks of genius, and reduces the great mass of man-

kind to be immersed in sordid cares ; beside de-
priving the rich, as we have already said, of the most

salubrious and effectual motives to activity. If super-
fluity were banished, the necessity for

the greater
part of the manual industry of mankind would be

superseded ; and the rest, being amicably shared
among all the active and vigorous members of the
community, would be burdensome to none. Every

man would have a frugal, yet wholesome diet every ;
man would go forth to that moderate exercise of his
corporal functions that would give hilarity to the
spirits none would be made torpid with fatigue, but

;
all would have leisure to cultivate the kindly and
philanthropical affections of the soul, and to let loose

his faculties in the search of intellectual improvement.
What a contrast does this scene present us with the
present state of human society, where the peasant

and the labourer work till their understandings are
benumbed with toil, their sinews contracted and made

callousby on the stretch, and their
being for ever
bodies invaded with infirmities and surrendered to
an untimely grave ? What is the fruit of this dis-
proportioned and unceasing toil ? At evening they

return to a family, famished with hunger, exposed
half naked to the inclemencies of the sky, hardly
sheltered, and denied the slenderest instruction,

unless in a few instances, where it is dispensed by
56 OF PROPERTY.
the hands of ostentatious charity, and the first lesson

communicated is unprincipled servility. All this
while their rich neighbour but we visited him before.
How rapid and sublime would be the advances of
intellect, if all men were admitted into the field of
knowledge At present ninety-nine persons in an

!
hundred are no more excited to any regular exertions

of general and curious thought, than the brutes them-
selves. What would be the state of public mind in
a nation, where were wise, all had laid aside the
all
shackles of prejudice and implicit faith, all adopted

with fearless confidence the suggestions of truth, and
the lethargy of the soul was dismissed for ever ? It
is to be presumed that the inequality of mind would
in a certain degree be permanent; but it is reason-
able to believe that the geniuses of such an age would
far surpass the grandest exertions of intellect that
are at present known. Genius would not be depressed

with wants and niggardly patronage. It would
false
not exert with a sense of neglect and oppression

itself
rankling in its bosom. It would be freed from those
apprehensions that perpetually recall us to the thought

of personal emolument, and of consequence would
expatiate freely among sentiments of generosity and
public good.
From ideas of intellectual let us turn to moral
improvement. And here it is obvious that all the

occasions of crime would be cut off for ever. All
men love justice. All men are conscious that man

is a being of one common nature, and feel the pro-
priety of the treatment they receive from one another

being measured by a common standard. Every man
is desirous of assisting another; whether we should
choose to ascribe this to an instinct implanted in his
nature which renders this conduct a source of personal
gratification, or to his perception of the reasonable-
ness of such assistance. So necessary a part is this

of the constitution of mind, that no man perpetrates
any however criminal, without having first

action,
invented some sophistry, some palliation, by which
he proves to himself that it is best to be done. 1
Hence it appears, that offence, the invasion of one
man upon the security of another, is a thought alien
to mind, and which nothing could have reconciled to
us but the sharp sting of necessity. To consider
merely the present order of human society, it is

evident that the first offence must have been his who
began a monopoly, and took advantage of the weak-

ness of his neighbours to secure certain exclusive
"
1
Book II., chap. iii. The human mind is incredibly sub-
tle in inventing an apology for that to which its inclination
leads. Nothing is so rare as pure and unmingled hypocrisy.

There is no action of our lives which we were not ready at
the time of adopting it to justify, unless so far as we were
prevented by mere indolence and unconcern.'
58 OF PROPERTY.
privileges to himself.The man, on the other hand,

who determined to put an end to this monopoly, and
who peremptorily demanded what was superfluous to
v
the possessor and would be of extreme benefit to
himself, appeared to his own mind to be merely

avenging the violated laws of justice. Were it not
for the plausibleness of this
apology, be it is to
presumed that there would be no such thing as crime

in the world.
The fruitful source of crimes consists in this cir-
cumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that

of which another man is destitute. We must change
the nature of mind, before we can prevent it from
being powerfully influenced by this circumstance,
when brought strongly home to its perceptions by
the nature of its situation. Man must cease to have
senses, the pleasures of appetite and vanity must

cease to gratify, before he can look on tamely at the
monopoly of these pleasures. He must cease to have

a sense of justice, before he can clearly and fully
approve this mixed scene of superfluity and distress,

It is true that the proper method of curing this in-
equality is by reason and not by violence. But the

immediate tendency of the established system is to
persuade men that reason is impotent. The injustice

of which they complain is upheld by force, and they
are too easily induced by force to attempt its correc-
tion. All they endeavour is the partial correction of
an injustice, which education tells them is necessary,

but more powerful reason affirms to be tyrannical.
Force grew out of monopoly. It might accident-
ally have occurred among savages whose appetites
exceeded their supply, or whose passions were in-
flamed by the presence of the object of their desire ;
but it would gradually have died away, as reason and

civilization advanced. Accumulated property has
fixed its empire ; and henceforth all is an open con-
tention the strength and cunning of one party
of
against the strength and cunning of the other. In

this case the violent and premature struggles of the
necessitous are undoubtedly an evil. They tend to
defeat the very cause in the success of which they
are most deeply interested ; they tend to procrastinate
the triumph of truth. But the true crime is in the
malevolent and partial propensities of men, thinking
only of themselves, and despising the emolument of

others ;
and of these the rich have their share.
The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and
the spirit of fraud, these are the immediate growth of
the established system of property. These are alike
hostile to intellectual and moral improvement. The
other vices of envy, malice, and revenge are their
inseparable companions. In a state of society where

men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all
shared alike the bounties of nature, these sentiments
would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of
60 OF PROPERTY.
selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to

guard his little store, or provide with anxiety and
pain for his restless wants, each would lose his own
individual existence in thethought of the general
good. No man would
be an enemy to his neighbour,
for they would have nothing for which to contend ;
and of consequence philanthropy would resume the
empire which reason assigns her. Mind would be
delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal
support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought

which is congenial to her. Each man would assist
the enquiries of all.

Let us fix our attention for a moment upon the
revolution of principles and habits that immediately
grow out of an unequal distribution of property. Till

it was thus distributed, men felt what their wants
required, and sought the supply of those wants. All
that was more than this, was regarded as indifferent.
But no sooner is accumulation introduced, than they
begin to study a variety of methods for disposing of

their superfluity with least emolument to their neigh-
bour, or in other words by which it shall appear to

be most their own. They do not long continue to
buy commodities, before they begin to buy men. He
that possesses or the spectator of superfluity soon
is
discovers the hold which it affords us on the minds

of others. Hence the passions of vanity and osten-
tation. Hence the despotic manners of them who
recollect with complacence the rank they occupy, and

the restless ambition of those whose attention is en-
grossed by the possible future.

Ambition is of all the passions of the human mind
the most extensive in its ravages. It adds district to
and kingdom to kingdom. It spreads blood-

district,
shed and calamity and conquest over the face of the
earth. But the passion itself, as well as the means
of gratifying it, is the produce of the prevailing system
of property. 1 It is only by means of accumulation
that one man obtains an unresisted sway over multi-
tudes of others. It is by means of a certain distribu-
tion of income that the present governments of the

world are retained in existence. Nothing more easy
than to plunge nations so organized into war. But, if
Europe were at present covered with inhabitants, all

of them possessing competence, and none of them
superfluity, what could induce its different countries
to engage in hostility ? If you would lead men to
war, you must exhibit certain allurements. you If

be not enabled by a system, already prevailing, and
which derives force from prescription, to hire them
toyour purposes, you must bring over each individual
by dint of persuasion. How hopeless a task by such
Book V., chap. xvi.

1
"A
people among whom equality
reigned, would possess everything they wanted, where they
possessed the means of subsistence. Why
should they pursue
"
additional wealth or territory ?
62 OF PROPERTY.
means to excite mankind to murder each other It !
is clear then that war in every horrid form is the

growth of unequal property. As long as this source
of jealousy and corruption shall remain, it is
visionary
to talk of universal peace. As soon as the source
shall be dried up, it will be impossible to exclude the
consequence. It is property that forms men into one
common mass, and makes them fit to be played upon
like a brute machine. Were this stumbling block
removed, each man would be united to his neighbour
in love and mutual kindness a thousand times more
than but each man would think and judge for

now :
himself. Let then the advocates for the prevailing

system, at least consider what it is for which they
plead, and be well assured that they have arguments
in its favour which will weigh against these disad-
vantages.
There is one other circumstance which, though
inferior to those above enumerated, deserves to be
mentioned. This is population. It has been calcu-
lated that the average cultivation of Europe might be
improved, so as to maintain five times her present
number of inhabitants. 1 There is a principle in human
society by which population is perpetually kept down
to the level of the means of subsistence. Thus among
the wandering tribes of America and Asia, we never
1
Ogilvie, Part i. } Sect, iii., par. 35. [Godwin's note.]
find through the lapse of ages, that population has so

increased, as to render necessary the cultivation of the
earth. Thus, among the civilized nations of Europe,
by means of territorial monopoly the sources of sub-

sistence are kept within a certain limit, and, if the
population became overstocked, the lower ranks of the

inhabitants would be still more incapable of procuring
for themselves the necessaries of life. There are no
doubt extraordinary concurrences of circumstances, by
means of which changes are occasionally introduced in
this respect but in ordinary cases the standard of
;
population held
isin a manner stationary for centuries.
Thus the established system of property may be con-

sidered as strangling a considerable portion of our
children in their cradle. Whatever may be the value
of the life man, or rather whatever would be his
of
capability of happiness in a free and equal state of

society, the system we are here opposing may be con-
sidered as arresting upon the threshold of existence
four-fifths of that value and that
happiness.
CHAPTER III.
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM

THE ADMIRABLE EFFECTS OF LUXURY.
NATURE OP THE OBJECTION. LUXURY NOT NECESSARY
EITHER TO POPULATION OR TO THE IMPROVEMENT
OF THE MIND. ITS TRUE CHARACTER.
r I THESE ideas of justice and improvement are as

-*- old as literature and reflection themselves. They
have suggested themselves in detached parts to the
inquisitive in all ages, though they have perhaps never
been brought together so as sufficiently to strike the
mind with their consistency and beauty. But, after
having furnished an agreeable dream, they have per-
petually been laid aside as impracticable. We will
proceed to examine the objections upon which this
supposed impracticability has been founded and the ;
answer to these objections will gradually lead us to

such a development of the proposed system, as by its
completeness and the regular adjustment of its parts

willbe calculated to carry conviction to the most pre-
judiced mind.
64
SUPPOSED ADVANTAGES OF LUXURY. 65
There is one objection that has chiefly been cul-

tivated on English ground, and to which we will give
the priority of examination. It has been affirmed
"that private vices are public benefits." But this
principle, thus coarsely stated by one of its original
1
advocates, was remodelled by his more elegant suc-
cessors. 2 They observed, "that the true measure of
virtue and vice was utility, and consequently that it
was an unreasonable calumny to state luxury as a
"
vice.Luxury," they said, whatever might be the
prejudices that cynics and ascetics had excited against
it,was the rich and generous soil that brought to
perfection the true prosperity of mankind. Without
luxury men must always have remained solitary
savages. luxury by which palaces are built and
It is
cities peopled. How could there have been high

population in any country, without the various arts
in which the swarms of its inhabitants are busied ?
The true benefactor of mankind is not the scrupulous

devotee who by
his charities encourages insensibility
and not the surly philosopher who reads

sloth ; is
them lectures of barren morality ; but the elegant

voluptuary who employs thousands in sober and
healthful industry to procure dainties for his table,
who unites distant nations in commerce to supply him
1
Mandeville ; Fable of the Bees. [Godwin's note.]
2
Coventry, in a treatise entitled, Philemon to Hydaspes :
Hume; Essays, Part 3L, Essay H, [Godwin's note.]

66 OF PROPERTY.
with furniture, and who encourages the fine arts and

all the sublimities of invention to furnish decorations
for his residence/'
have brought forward this objection, rather that

I
nothing material might appear to be omitted, than

because it requires a separate answer. The true
answer has been anticipated. It has been seen that
the population of any country is measured by its
cultivation. If therefore sufficient motives can be
furnished to excite men to agriculture, there is no

doubt, that populatiou may be carried on to any ex-
tent that the land can be made to maintain. But
agriculture, when once begun, is never found to stop
in its career, but from positive discountenance. It is
territorial monopoly that obliges men unwillingly to

see vast tracts of land lying waste, or negligently and
imperfectly cultivated, while they are subjected to the

miseries of want. If land were perpetually open to
him who was willing to cultivate it, it is not to be
believed but that it would be cultivated in proportion

to the wants of the community, nor by the same
reason would there be any effectual check to the
increase of population.
Undoubtedly the quantity of manual labour would

be greatly inferior to that which is now performed
by the inhabitants of any civilized country, since at
present perhaps one-twentieth part of the inhabitants
performs the agriculture which supports the whole.
SUPPOSED ADVANTAGES OF LUXURY. 67
But it is by no means to be admitted that this leisure

would be found a real calamity.
As to what sort of a benefactor the voluptuary is
to mankind, this was sufficiently seen when we treated
of the effects of dependence and injustice. To this
species of benefit all the crimes and moral evils of
mankind are indebted for their perpetuity. If mind
be to be preferred to mere animal existence, if it ought
to be the wish of
every reasonable enquirer, not
merely that man, but that happiness should be propa-
gated, then is the
voluptuary the bane of the human
species.
CHAPTER IV.
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FEOM THE

ALLUREMENTS OF SLOTH.
THE OBJECTION STATED. SUCH A STATE OF SOCIETY MUST
HAVE BEEN PRECEDED BY GREAT INTELLECTUAL IM-
PROVEMENT. THE MANUAL LABOUR REQUIRED IN
THIS STATE WILL BE EXTREMELY SMALL. UNIVER-
SALITY OF THE LOVE OF DISTINCTION. OPERATION OF
THIS MOTIVE UNDER THE SYSTEM IN QUESTION.
WILL FINALLY BE SUPERSEDED BY A BETTER MOTIVE.
A NOTHER objection which has been urged against

-jL the system which counteracts the accumulation
of property, is, "that it would put an end to in-
dustry. We behold in commercial countries the

miracles that operated by the love of gain.
are
Their inhabitants cover the sea with their fleets,
astonish mankind by the refinement of their ingenuity,
hold vast continents in subjection in distant parts of
the world by their arms, are able to defy the most
powerful confederacies, and, oppressed with taxes and

68
PROPENSITY TO SLOTHFULNESS. 69
debts, seem to acquire fresh prosperity under their

accumulated burthens. Shall we lightly part with a
system that seems pregnant with such inexhaustible
motives ? Shall we believe that men will cultivate
assiduously what they have no assurance they shall be
permitted to apply to their personal emolument ? It
will perhaps be found with agriculture as it is with
commerce, which then nourishes best when subjected

tono control, but, when placed under rigid restraints,
languishes and expires. Once establish it as a prin-
ciple in society that no man is to apply to his personal
use more than his necessities require, and you will find
every man become indifferent to those exertions which

now the energy of his faculties.
call forth Man is the
creature of sensations and, when we endeavour to
;
strain his intellect, and govern him by reason alone,

we do but show our ignorance of his nature. Self-love
is the genuine source of our actions, 1
and, if this
should be found to bring vice and partiality along
with it, yet the system that should endeavour to su-
persede it, would be at best no more than a beau-

tiful romance. If each man found that, without being
of this principle see Book IV., chap,

For an examination
1
viii. [Godwin's note.] Godwin here contends against the

theory that virtue originates in self-interest. Man is " a
being capable of justice, virtue, and benevolence, and who
needs not always to be led to a philanthropical conduct by
foreign and frivolous considerations."
^
70 OF PROPERTY.
compelled to exert his own industry, he might lay

claim to the superfluity of his neighbour, indolence
would perpetually usurp his faculties, and such a
society must either starve, or be obliged in its own
defence to return to that system of injustice and
sordid interest, which theoretical reasoners will for
ever arraign to no purpose."
This is the principal objection that prevents men
from yielding without resistance to the accumulated
evidence that has already been adduced. In reply, it
may be observed in the first place, that the equality

for which we are pleading is an equality that would
succeed to a state of great intellectual improvement.
So bold a revolution cannot take place in human
affairs, the general mind has been highly culti-
till
vated. The present age of mankind is greatly en-

lightened; but it is to be feared is not yet enlightened
enough. Hasty and undigested tumults may take

place under the idea of an equalization of property;
but it is only a calm and clear conviction of justice,
of justice mutually to be rendered and received, of
happiness to be produced by the desertion of our

most rooted habits, that can introduce an invariable
system, of this sort.Attempts without this preparation
will be productive only of confusion. Their effect will
be momentary, and a new and more barbarous in-
equality will succeed. Each man with unaltered appe-
tite will watch his opportunity to gratify his love of
power or his love of distinction, by usurping on his
inattentive neighbours.
4
Is it to be believed then that a state of so great
intellectual improvement can be the forerunner of
barbarism ?
Savages, it is true, aresubject to the
weakness of indolence. But civilized and refined States
are the scene of peculiar activity. It is thought, acute-
ness of disquisition, and ardour of pursuit, that set the
corporeal faculties at work. Thought begets thought.

Nothing can put a stop to the progressive advances
of mind, but oppression. But here, so far from being
oppressed, every man is
equal, every man independent
and at his ease. It has been observed that the es-
tablishment of a republic is always attended with
public enthusiasm and irresistible enterprise. Is it to

be believed that equality, the true republicanism, will
be less effectual ? It is true that in republics tins

spirit sooner or later is found to languish. Republi-
canism not a remedy that strikes at the root of the
is
evil. Injustice, oppression, and misery can find an

abode in those seeming happy seats. But what shall
stop the progress of ardour and improvement, where

the monopoly of property i< unknown ?
This argument will be strengthened, if we reflect on
the amount of labour that a state of equal property
will require. What is this quantity of exertion from
which we are supposing many members of the com-
munity to shrink ? It is so light a burden as rather
72 OF PROPERTY.
to assume the appearance of agreeable relaxation and

gentle exercise, than of labour. In this community
scarcely any can be expected in consequence of their

situation or avocations to consider themselves as ex-
empted from manual industry. There will be no rich

men to recline in indolence and fatten upon the labour
of their fellows. The mathematician, the poet, and
the philosopher will derive a new stock of cheerfulness
and energy from the recurring labour that makes them
feel they are men. There will be no persons employed
in the manufacture of trinkets and luxuries and none ;
in directing the wheels of the complicated machine of

government, tax-gatherers, beadles, excisemen, tide-
waiters, clerks, and secretaries. There will be neither
fleets nor armies, neither courtiers nor footmen. It is
the unnecessary employments that at present occupy

the great mass of the inhabitants of every civilized
nation, while the peasant labours incessantly to main-

tain them in a state more pernicious than idleness.
It has been computed that not more than one-
twentieth of the inhabitants of England are employed
seriously and substantially in the labours of agricul-

ture. Add to this, that the nature of agriculture is
such as necessarily to give full occupation in some
parts of the year, and to leave others comparatively
unemployed. We
may consider these latter periods
as equivalent to a labour which, under the direction
of sufficient skill, might suffice in a simple state of
society for the fabrication of tools, for weaving, and

the occupation of tailors, bakers, and butchers. The
object in the present state of society is to multiply
labour, in another state it will be to simplify it. A
vast disproportion of the wealth of the community has
been thrown into the hands of a few, and ingenuity
has been continually upon the stretch to find out ways
in which it may be expended. In the feudal times
the great lord invited the poor to come and eat of the
produce of his estate upon condition of their wearing

his livery, and forming themselves in rank and file to
do honour to his well-born guests. Now that ex-
changes are more facilitated, we have quitted this
inartificial mode, and oblige the men we maintain out
of our incomes to exert their ingenuity and industry
in return. Thus, in the instance just mentioned, we
pay the tailor to cut our clothes to pieces, that he
may sew them together again, and to decorate them
with stitching and various ornaments, without which
experience would speedily show that they were in no

respect less useful. We are imagining in the present
case a state of the most rigid simplicity.
From the sketch which has been here given it
seems by no means impossible that the labour of every

twentieth man in the community would be sufficient
to maintain the rest in all the absolute necessaries of
human life. then this labour, instead of being per-
If
formed by so small a number, were amicably divided

74 OF PROPERTY.
among them all, it would occupy the twentieth part
of every man's time. Let us compute that the in-

dustry of a labouring man engrosses ten hours in every
day, which, when we have deducted his hours of rest,
recreation, and meals, seems an ample allowance. It
follows that half an hour a day, seriously employed in
manual labour by every member of the community,
would sufficiently supply the whole with necessaries.
Who there that would shrink from this degree of
is
industry ? Who is there that sees the incessant

industry exerted in this city and this island, and
would believe that with half an hour's industry per
diem, we should be every way happier and better
than we are at present ? Is it possible to contemplate
this fair and generous picture of independence and
virtue, where every man would have ample leisure for
the noblest energies of mind, without feeling our very
souls refreshed with admiration and hope ?
When we talk of men's sinking into idleness if
they
be not excited by the stimulus of gain, we have cer-
tainly very little considered the motives that at present
govern the human mind. We are deceived by the
apparent mercenariness of mankind, and imagine that
the accumulation of wealth is their great object. But
the case is far otherwise. The present ruling passion
of the human mind is the love of distinction. There
is no doubt a class in society that are perpetually
urged by hunger and need, and have no leisure for

motives less gross and material. But is the class next

above them less industrious than they ? I exert a
certain species of industry to supply my immediate
wants ;but these wants are soon supplied. The rest
is exerted that I may wear a better coat, that I may
clothe my wife in gay attire, that I not merely
may
have a shelter, but a handsome habitation, not merely
bread or flesh to eat, but that I may set it out with a
suitable decorum. How many of these things would
engage my attention, i I lived in a desert island, and
had no spectators of my economy ? If I survey the
appendages of my person, is there one article that is
not an appeal to the respect of my neighbours, or a

refuge against their
contempt ? It is for this that the
merchant braves the dangers of the ocean, and the

mechanical inventor brings forth the treasures of his
meditation. The soldier advances even to the cannon's
mouth, the statesman exposes himself to the rage of
an indignant people, because they cannot bear to pass
through life without distinction and esteem. Exclu-
sively of certain higher motives that will presently be
mentioned, this is the purpose of all the great exer-
tions of mankind. The man who has nothing to
provide for but his animal wants, scarcely ever shakes
off the lethargy of his mind; but the love of
praise
hurries us on to the most incredible achievements.
Nothing more common than to find persons who

is
surpass the rest of their species in activity, inexcus-

76 OF PROPERTY.
ably remiss in the amelioration of their pecuniary

affairs.
In reality, those by whom this reasoning has been

urged have mistaken the nature of their own objec-
tion. They did not sincerely believe that men could
be roused into action only by the love of gain j but
they imagined that in a state of equal property men
would have nothing to occupy their attention. What
degree of truth there is in this idea we shall presently
have occasion to estimate.

Meanwhile it is sufficiently obvious,, that the motives
which arise from the love of distinction are by no
means cut off, by a state of society incompatible with
the accumulation of property. Men, no longer able
to acquire the esteem or avoid the contempt of their
neighbours by circumstances of dress and furniture,

will divert the passion for distinction into another
channel. They will avoid the reproach of indolence,
as carefully as they now avoid the reproach of poverty.
The only persons who at present neglect the effect
which their appearance and manners may produce,
are those whose faces are ground with famine and
distress. But in a state of equal society no man will
be oppressed, and of consequence the more delicate

have time to expand them-
affections of the soul will
selves. The general mind having, as we have already

shown, arrived at a high pitch of improvement, the
impulse that carries it out into action will be stronger
PROPENSITY TO SLOTHFULNESS. 7?
than ever. The fervour of public spirit will be great.

Leisure will be multiplied, and the leisure of a cul-
tivated understanding is the precise period in which
great designs, designs the tendency of which is to

secure applause and esteem, are conceived. In tran-
quil leisure it is impossible for any but the sublimest

mind to exist without the passion for distinction. This
passion, no longer permitted to lose itself in indirect

channels and useless wanderings, will seek the noblest
course,and perpetually fructify the seeds of public
good. Mind, though it will perhaps at no time arrive
at the termination of its possible discoveries and im-
provements, advance with a rapidity
will nevertheless
and firmness of progression of which we are at present

unable to conceive the idea.
The love of fame is no doubt a delusion. This like
every other delusion will take its turn to be detected

and abjured. It is an airy phantom, which will
indeed afford us an imperfect pleasure so long as we
worship it, but will always in a considerable degree

disappoint us, and will not stand the test of examina-
tion. We ought to love nothing but good, a pure and
immutable felicity, the good of the majority, the good
of the general. If there be anything more substan-
tial than all the rest, it is
justice, a principle that rests
upon this single postulatum, that man and man are
beings of the same nature, and susceptible, under cer-

tain limitations, of the same advantages. Whether
78 OF PROPERTY.
the benefit proceed from you or me, so it be but con-
ferred, is a pitiful distinction. Justice has the further
advantage, which serves us as a countercheck to prove

the goodness of this species of arithmetic, of produc-
ing the only solid happiness to the man by whom it

is practised, as well as the good of all. But fame
cannot benefit me, any more than serve the best pur-
poses to others. The man who acts from the love of

it, may produce public good; but, if he do, it is from
indirect and spurious views. Fame is an unsubstan-
tial and delusive pursuit. If it signify an opinion
entertained of megreater than I deserve, to pursue
it is vicious. If be the precise mirror of my cha-
it
racter, it is desirable only as a means, inasmuch as I
may perhaps be able to do most good to the persons

who best know the extent of my capacity and the
rectitude of my intentions.
The love of fame, when it perishes in minds formed
under the present system, often gives place to a
greater degeneracy. Selfishness is the habit that
grows out of monopoly. When therefore this selfish-

ness ceases to seek its gratification in public exertion,
it too often narrows itself into some frigid conception
of personal pleasure, perhaps sensual, perhaps intel-
lectual. But thiscannot be the process where mo-
nopoly is banished. Selfishness has there no kindly

circumstances to foster Truth, the overpowering
it.
truth of general good, then seizes us irresistibly. It

is we should want motives, so long as we

impossible
see clearly bow multitudes and ages may be benefited
by our exertions, how causes and effects are connected
iu an endless chain, so that no honest effort can be
lost, but will operate to good, centuries after its author
is
consigned to the grave. This will be the general
passion, and all will be animated by the example of
all.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

IMPOSSIBILITY OF ITS BEING RENDERED
PERMANENT.
GROUNDS OF THE OBJECTION. ITS SERIOUS IMPORT.

ANSWER. THE INTRODUCTION OF SUCH A SYSTEM
MUST BE OWING, 1. TO A DEEP SENSE OF JUSTICE. 2.
TO A CLEAR INSIGHT INTO THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS

AS BEING PROPERLY INTELLECTUAL NOT CONSIST-
ING IN SENSUAL PLEASURE OR THE PLEASURES OF
DELUSION. INFLUENCE OF THE PASSIONS CONSIDERED.
MEN WILL NOT ACCUMULATE EITHER FROM INDIVI-
DUAL FORESIGHT OR FROM VANITY.
~T~ ET us proceed to another objection. It has some-

-J ^ times been said by those who oppose the doc-
trine here maintained, "that equality might perhaps
contribute to the improvement and happiness of man-
kind, if it were consistent with the nature of man that

such a principle should be rendered permanent; but
that every expectation of that kind must prove abor-
tive. Confusion would be introduced under the idea
80
PERMANENCE OF THE GENUINE SYSTEM. 81
of equality to-day, but the old vices and monopolies

would return to-morrow. All that the rich would have
purchased by the most generous sacrifice, would be a

period of barbarism, from which the ideas and regula-
must commence as from a new
tions of civil society
infancy. The nature of man cannot be changed.

There would at least be some vicious and designing
members of society, who would endeavour to secure
to themselves indulgences beyond the rest. Mind
would not be reduced to that exact uniformity which a
state of equal property demands ; and the variety of
sentiments which must always in some degree pre-
vail, would inevitably subvert the refined systems of
speculative perfection."
No objection can be more essential than that which
is here adduced. It highly becomes us in so momen T
tous a subject to resist all extravagant speculations :
it would be truly to be lamented, if, while we parted
with that state of society through which mind has

been thus far advanced, we -ase-replunged into bar-
barism by the pursuit of specious appearances. But
what is worst of all is, that, if this objection be true,
it is to be feared there is no remedy. Mind must go

forward. What it sees and admires, it will some time
or other seek to attain. Such is the inevitable law of
our nature. But impossible not to see the beauty
it is
of equality, and to be charmed with the benefits it
seems to promise. The consequence is sure. Man,

a
82 OF PROPERTY.
according to the system of these reasoners, is prompted

to advance for some time with success ; but after that
time, in the very act of pursuing further improve-

ment, he necessarily plunges beyond the compass of
his powers, and has then his petty career to begin
afresh. The objection represents him as a foul abor-
tion, with just understanding enough to see what is
good, but with too little to retain him in the prac-

tice of it. Let us consider whether equality, once
established, would be so precarious as it is here
represented.
In answer to this objection it must first be re-
membered, that the state of equalization we are here

supposing is not the result of accident, of the authority
of a chief magistrate, or the over-earnest persuasion
of a few enlightened thinkers, but is produced by the
serious and deliberate conviction of the community at
large. We will suppose for the present that it is
possible for such a conviction to take place among a
given number of persons living in society with each

other and, if it be possible in a small community,
:
there seems to be no sufficient reason to prove that it

is impossible in one of larger and larger dimensions.
The question we have here to examine is concerning
the probability, when the conviction has once been
introduced, of its becoming permanent.

The conviction rests upon two intellectual im-
pressions, one of justice, and the other of happiness.

Equalization of property cannot begin to assume a

fixed appearance in human society, till the sentiment
becomes deeply wrought into the mind, that the
genuine wants of any man constitute his only just
claim to the appropriating any species of commodity.
If the general sense of mankind were once so far
enlightened, as to produce a perpetual impression of

this truth, of so forcibje a sort as to be exempt from
all
objections and doubt, we should look with equal
horror and contempt at the idea of any man's accumu-
lating a property he did not want. All the evils that

a state of monopoly never fails to engender would
stand forward in our minds, together with all the
existing happiness that attended upon a state of free-

dom. We should feel as much alienation of thought
from the consuming uselessly upon ourselves what
would be beneficial to another, or from the accumula-
ting property for the purpose of obtaining some kind
of ascendancy over the mind of our neighbours, as we
now feel from the commission of murder. No man
will dispute, that a state of equal property once esta-
blished, would greatly diminish the evil propensities
of man. But the crime we are now supposing is more
atrocious than any that is to be found in the present
state of society. Man
perhaps is incapable under any
circumstance of perpetrating an action of which he
has a clear and undoubted perception that it is con-
trary to the general good. But be this as it will, it

84 OF PROPERTY.
is hardly to be believed that any man for the sake
of some imaginary gratification to himself would

wantonly injure the whole, if his mind were not first
ulcerated with the impression of the injury that
society by its ordinances is committing against him.

The case we are here considering is that of a man,
who does not even imagine himself injured, and yet
wilfully subverts a state of happiness to which no
description can do justice, to make room for the
return of all those calamities and vices with which
mankind have been infested from the earliest page of
history.
The equalization we are describing is further in-
debted for its empire in the mind to the ideas with
which it is attended of personal happiness. It grows

out of a simple, clear and unanswerable theory of the
human mind, that we first stand in need of a certain
animal subsistence and shelter, and after that, that our
only true felicity consists in the expansion of our

intellectual powers, the knowledge of truth, and the
practice of virtue. It might seem at first sight as if
this theory omitted a part of the experimental history
of the mind, the pleasures of sense, and the pleasures
of delusion. But this omission is apparent, not real.
However many are the kinds of pleasure of which we

are susceptible, the truly prudent man will sacrifice
the inferior to the more exquisite. Now no man who

has ever produced or contemplated the happiness of
others with a liberal mind, will deny that this exercise

is
infinitely the most pleasurable of all sensations.
But he that is guilty of the smallest excess of sensual
pleasures, by so much diminishes his capacity of ob-
taining highest pleasure. Not to add, if that

this
be of any importance, that rigid temperance is the

reasonable means of tasting sensual pleasures with
the highest relish. This was the system of Epicurus,
and must be the system of every man who ever specu-
lated deeply on the nature of human happiness. For
the pleasures of delusion, they are absolutely incom-
patible with our highest pleasure. If we would either
promote or enjoy the happiness of others, we must

seek to know in what it consists. But knowledge is
the irreconcilable foe of delusion. In proportion as
mind rises to its true element, and shakes off those
prejudices which are the authors of our misery, it

becomes incapable of deriving pleasure from flattery,
fame, or power, or indeed from any source that is not
compatible with, or, in other words, does not make a
part of the common good. The most palpable of all
classes of knowledge is that I am, personally con-
sidered, but an atom in the ocean of mind. The first

rudiment, therefore, of that science of personal happi-
ness which is inseparable from a state of equalization,
is, that I shall derive infinitely more pleasure from

simplicity, frugality, and truth, than from luxury,
empire, and fame. What temptation has a man,
86 OF PROPERTY.
entertaining this opinion, and living in a state of
equal property, to accumulate ?
This question has been perpetually darkened by

the doctrine, so familiar to writers of morality, of
the independent operations of reason and passion.
Such distinctions must always darken. Of how many
parts does mind consist ? Of none. It consists
merely of a series of thought succeeding thought
from the first moment of our existence to its termina-
tion. This word passion, which has produced such
extensive mischief in the philosophy of mind, and has
no real archetype, is perpetually shifting its meaning.
Sometimes it is applied universally to all those
thoughts, which, being peculiarly vivid, and attended

with great force of argument real or imaginary,
carry us out into action with uncommon energy.
Thus we speak of the passion of benevolence, public
spirit, or courage. Sometimes it signifies those vivid
thoughts only which upon accurate examination ap-
pear to be founded in error. In the first sense the
word might have been unexceptionable. Vehement
desire the result of a certain operation of the under-
is
standing, and musb always be in a joint ratio of the

supposed clearness of the proposition and importance
of the practical effects. In the second sense, the
doctrine of the passions would have been exceedingly
harmless, if we had been accustomed to put the defi-
nition instead of the thing defined. It would then

have been found that merely affirmed that the

it
human mind must always be liable to precisely the

same mistakes as we observe in it at present, or in
other words affirmed the necessary permanence in
opposition to the necessary perfectibility of intellect.

Who is there indeed that sees not, in the case above
stated, the absurdity of supposing a man, so long as

he has a clear view of justice and interest lying on
one side of a given question, to be subject to errors
that irresistibly compel him to the other ? The mind
is no doubt liable to fluctuation. But there is a de-
gree of conviction that would render it impossible for

us any longer to derive pleasure from intemperance,
dominion or fame, and this degree in the incessant
progress of thought must one day arrive.
This proposition of the permanence of a system of
equal property, after it has once been brought into

action by the energies of reason and conviction, will
be placed out of the reach of all equitable doubt, if
we proceed to form to ourselves an accurate picture
of the action of this system. Let us suppose that we
are introduced to a community of men, who are ac-
customed to an industry proportioned to the wants of

the whole, and to communicate instantly and uncon-
ditionally, each man to his neighbour, that for which

the former has not and the latter has immediate occa-
sion. Here the first and simplest motive to personal
accumulation is instantly cut off. I need not accumu-
OF PROPERTY.
late to protect myself against accidents, sickness or

infirmity, for these are claims the validity of which is
not regarded as a subject of doubt, and with which
every man is accustomed to comply. I can accu-

mulate in a considerable degree nothing but what is
perishable, for exchange being unknown, that which
I cannot personally consume adds nothing to the sum
of my wealth. Meanwhile it should be observed that,
though accumulation for private purposes under such

a system would be in the highest degree irrational
and absurd, this by no means precludes such accumu-
lation as may be necessary to provide against public
contingencies. If therebe any truth in the preceding
reasonings, this kind of accumulation will be unat-
tended with danger. Add to this, that the perpetual
tendency of wisdom is to preclude contingency. It is
well known that dearths are principally owing to the

false precautions and false timidity of mankind ;
and
it isreasonable to suppose that a degree of skill will
hereafter be produced which will gradually annihilate
the failure of crops and other similar accidents.
It has already appeared that the principal and
unintermitting motive to private accumulation is the

love of distinction and esteem. This motive is also
withdrawn. As accumulation can have no rational
object, it would be viewed as a mark of insanity, not
a title to admiration. Men would be accustomed to
the simple principles of justice, and know that nothing
was entitled to esteem but talents and virtue. Habit-

uated to employ their superfluity to supply the wants
of their neighbour, and to dedicate the time which
was not necessary for manual labour to the cultivation
of intellect, with what sentiments would they behold
the man who was foolish enough to sew a bit of lace
upon his coat, or affix any other ornament to his
person ? In such a community property would per-
petually tend to find its level. It would be interest-
ing to all to be informed of the person in whose

hands a certain quantity of any commodity was
lodged, and every man would apply with confidence
to him for the supply of his wants in that commodity.
Putting therefore out of the question every kind of

compulsion, the feeling of depravity and absurdity
that would be excited with relation to the man who
refused to part with that for which he had no real
need would operate in all cases as a sufficient dis-
couragement to so odious an innovation. Every man
would conceive that he had a just and complete title
to make use of my superfluity. If I refused to listen
to reason and expostulation on this head, he would not
stay to adjust with me a thing so vicious as exchange,
but would leave me in order to seek the supply from
some rational being. Accumulation, instead, as now,
of calling forth everymark of respect, would tend to
cut off he individual who attempted it from all the
bonds of society, and sink him in neglect and oblivion.
90 OF PROPERTY.
The influence of accumulation at present is derived

from the idea of eventual benefit in the mind of the
observer; but the accumulator then would be in a
case still worse than that of the miser now, who, while
he adds thousands to his heap, cannot be prevailed
upon to part with a superfluous farthing, and is there-
fore the object of general desertion.
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

INFLEXIBILITY OF ITS RESTRICTIONS.
NATURE OF THE OBJECTION. NATURAL AND MORAL INDE-

PENDENCE DISTINGUISHED THE FIRST BENEFICIAL
THE SECOND INJURIOUS. TENDENCY OF RESTRICTION
PROPERLY SO CALLED. THE GENUINE SYSTEM OF PRO-
PERTY NOT A SYSTEM OF RESTRICTIONS DOES NOT
REQUIRE COMMON LABOUR, MEALS OR MAGAZINES.
SUCH RESTRICTIONS ABSURD AND UNNECESSARY.
EVILS OF CO-OPERATION. ITS PROVINCE MAY PER-
PETUALLY BE DIMINISHED. MANUAL LABOUR MAY BE
EXTINGUISHED. CONSEQUENT ACTIVITY OF INTELLECT.
IDEAS OF THE FUTURE STATE OF CO-OPERATION. ITS
LIMITS. ITS LEGITIMATE PROVINCE. EVILS OF CO-

HABITATION AND MARRIAGE. THEY OPPOSE THE
DEVELOPMENT OF OUR FACULTIES ARE INIMICAL TO
OUR HAPPINESS AND DEPRAVE OUR UNDERSTANDINGS.
MARRIAGE A BRANCH OF THE PREVAILING SYSTEM
OF PROPERTY. CONSEQUENCES OF ITS ABOLITION.
EDUCATION NEED NOT IN THAT STATE OF SOCIETY BE
91
92 OF PROPERTY.
A SUBJECT OF POSITIVE INSTITUTION. THESE FEIN-

CIPLES DO NOT LEAD TO A SULLEN INDIVIDUALITY.
PARTIAL ATTACHMENTS CONSIDERED. BENEFITS AC-
CRUING FROM A JUST AFFECTION MATERIALLY PRO-
MOTED BY THESE PRINCIPLES. THE GENUINE SYSTEM
OF PROPERTY DOES NOT PROHIBIT ACCUMULATION
IMPLIES A CERTAIN DEGREE OF APPROPRIATION AND
DIVISION OF LABOUR.
objection that has often been urged against a

AN system of equal property is,
" that it is incon-
sistent with personal independence. Every man ac-
cording to this scheme is a passive instrument in the

hands of the community. He must eat and drink
and play and sleep at the bidding of others. He has
no habitation, no period at which he can retreat into
himself, and not ask another's leave. He has nothing
that he can call his own, not even his time or his
person. Under the appearance of a perfect freedom

from oppression and tyranny, he is in reality subjected
7
to the most unlimited slavery/
To understand the force of this objection it is
necessary that we should distinguish two sorts of in-
dependence, one of which may be denominated natural

and the other moral. Natural independence, a free-
dom from constraint except that of reason and
all
argument presented to the understanding, is of the

utmost importance to the welfare and improvement of
NOT A SYSTEM OF RESTRICTIONS. 93
mind. Moral independence on the contrary is always

injurious. The dependence which is essential in this
respect to the wholesome temperament of society, in-
cludes in it articles that are no doubt unpalatable to a
multitude of the present race of mankind, but that
owe their unpopularity only to weakness and vice.
It includes a censure to be exercised by every indi-
vidual over the actions of another, a promptness to
inquire into them, and to judge them. should I Why

shrink from this ? What could be more beneficial
than for each man to derive every possible assistance
for correcting and moulding his conduct from the
perspicacity of his neighbours ? The reason why this
species of censure is at present exercised with illiber-

ality, is because it is exercised clandestinely, and we
submit to operation with impatience and aversion.
its
Moral independence is always injurious: for, as has

abundantly appeared in the course of the present in-
quiry, there is no situation in which I can be placed
where it isnot incumbent upon me to adopt a cer-
tain species of conduct in preference to all others, and
of consequence where I shall not prove an ill mem-
ber of society if I act in any other than a particular
manner. The attachment that is felt by the present
race of mankind to independence in this respect, the
desire to act as they please without beng account-

able to the principles of reason, is highly detrimental
to the general welfare.
94 OF PROPERTY.
But, if we ought never to act independently of the
principles of reason, and in no instance to shrink from

the candid examination of another, it is nevertheless
essential that we should at all times be free to culti-
vate the individuality and follow the dictates of our

own judgment. If there be anything in the scheme
of equal property that infringes this principle, the
objection is conclusive. If the scheme be, as it has
often been represented, a scheme of government, con-
straint and regulation, it is no doubt in direct hostility

with the principles of this work.
But the truth is, that a system of equal property
requires no restrictions or superintendence whatever.
There no need of common labour, common meals or
is
common magazines. These are feeble and mistaken

instruments for restraining the conduct without mak-
ing conquest of the judgment. If you cannot bring

over the hearts of the community to your party, ex-
pect no success from brute regulations. If you can,

regulation is unnecessary. Such a system was well
enough adapted to the military constitution of Sparta;
but itwholly unworthy of men who are enlisted

is
in no cause but that of reason and justice. Beware

of reducing men to the state of machines. Govern
them through no medium but that of inclination and
conviction.
Why should we have common meals? Am I obliged

to be hungry at the same time that you are ?
Ought
I to come at a certain hour, from the museum where

I amworking, the recess where I meditate, or the
observatory where I remark the phenomena of nature,
to a certain hall appropriated to the office of eating;
instead of eating, as reason bids me, at the time and
place most suited to my avocations ? Why have
common magazines ? For the purpose of carrying
our provisions a certain distance, that we may after-
wards bring them back again ? Or is this precaution
really necessary, after all that has been said in praise

of equal society and the omnipotence of reason, to
guard us against the knavery and covetousness of our
associates ? If it be, for God's sake let us discard the
parade of political justice, and go over to the standard

of those reasoners who say, that man and the practice
of justice are incompatible with each other.
Once more let us be upon our guard against re-
ducing men to the condition of brute machines. The

objectors of the last chapter were partly in the right
when they spoke of the endless variety of mind. It
would be absurd to say that we are not capable of
truth, of evidence and agreement. In these respects,
so far as mind is in a state of progressive improve-
ment, we are perpetually coming nearer to each other.

Bat there are subjects about which we shall continu-
ally differ, and ought to differ. The ideas, the associa-
tions and the circumstances of each man are properly
his own ; and it is a pernicious system that would lead
96 OF PROPERTY.
us to require all men, however different their circum-
stances, to act in many of the common affairs of life
by a precise general rule. Add to this, that, by the

doctrine of progressive improvement, we shall always
be erroneous, though we shall every day become less
erroneous. The proper method for hastening the
decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation

which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to
reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but on the
contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.
From these principles it appears that everything

that is usually understood by the term co-operation, is
in some degree anevil. A
man in solitude is obliged
to or
sacrifice postpone the execution of his best
thoughts to his own convenience. How many admir-

able designs have perished in the conception by means
of this circumstance ! The true remedy is men to
for
reduce their wants to the fewest possible, and as much

as possible to simplify the mode of supplying them.
It is still worse when a man is also obliged to consult
the convenience of others. If I be expected to eat or
to work in conjunction withneighbour, it must
my
either be at a time most convenient to me, or to him,
or to neither of us. We
cannot be reduced to a clock-
work uniformity.
Hence it follows that all supererogatory co-opera-
tion is carefully to be avoided, common labour and
" But what shall we
common meals. say to co-opera-
tion that seems to be dictated by the nature of the

work "
to be performed ? It ought to be diminished.
At present it is unreasonable to doubt, that the con-
sideration of the evil of co-operation is in certain
urgent cases to be postponed to that urgency.
Whether by the nature of things co-operation of some
sort will always be necessary, is a question that we
are scarcely competent to decide. At present, to pull
down a tree, to cut a canal, to navigate a vessel,
requires the labour of many. Will it always require
the labour of many ? When we look at the compli-
cated machines of human contrivance, various sorts of
mills, of weaving engines, of steam engines, are we

not astonished at the compendium of labour they
produce ? Who shall say where this species of im-

provement must stop ? At present such inventions
alarm the labouring part of the community ; and they
may be productive of temporary distress, though they

conduce in the sequel to the most important interests
of the multitude. But in a state of equal labour their
utility will be no dispute. Hereafter it is by

liable to
no means clear that the most extensive operations will

not be within the reach of one man ; or, to make use
of a familiar instance, that a plough may not be turned
into a field, and perform its office without the need of
superintendence. It was in this sense that the cele-

brated Franklin conjectured, that " mind would one
day become omnipotent over matter."

H
98 OF PROPERTY.
The conclusion of the progress which has here been

sketched, is something like a final close to the neces-
sity of manual labour.is highly instructive in

It
such cases to observe how

the sublime geniuses of
former times anticipated what seems likely to be the
future improvement of mankind. It was one of the
laws of Lycurgus, that no Spartan should be employed

in manual labour. For this purpose under his system
it was necessary that they should be plentifully sup-
plied with slaves devoted to drudgery. Matter, or,
to speak more accurately, the certain and unintermit-

ting laws of the universe, will be the Helots of the
period we are contemplating. We
shall end in this
respect, oh immortal legislator ! at the point from

which you began.
To
these prospects perhaps the objection will once
" that
again be repeated, men, delivered from the
manual labour, will sink into supineness."
necessity of
What narrow views of the nature and capacities of
mind do such objections imply ! The only thing
necessary to put intellect into action is motive. Are
there no motives equally cogent with the prospect
of hunger ? Whose thoughts
are most active, most
rapid and unwearied, those of Newton or the plough-

man ? When the mind is stored with prospects of
intellectual greatness and utility, can it sink into
torpor ?
To return to the subject of co-operation. It may be
a curious speculation to attend to the progressive steps
by which this feature of human society may be ex-

pected to decline. For example : shall we have con-
certs of music? The miserable state of mechanism
of the majority of the performers is so conspicuous,
as to be even at this day a topic of mortification and
ridicule. Willnot be practicable hereafter for one
it
man to perform the whole ? Shall we have theatrical

exhibitions ? This seems to include an absurd and
vicious co-operation. may be doubted whether men
It
will hereafter come forward in any mode gravely to

repeat words and ideas not their own. It may be
doubted whether any musical performer will habitually

execute the compositions of others. yield su-We
pinely to the superior merit of our predecessors, be-
cause we are accustomed to indulge the inactivity of
our own faculties. All formal repetition of other men's
ideas seems to be a scheme for imprisoning for so long
a time the operations of our own mind. It borders
perhaps in this respect upon a breach of sincerity,

which requires that we should give immediate utter-
ance to every useful and valuable idea that occurs to
our thoughts.
Having ventured to state these hints and con-

jectures, let us endeavour to mark the limits of in-
dividuality. Every man that receives an impression

from any external object, has the current of his own
thoughts modified by force ; and yet without external
OF PROPERTY.
impressions we should be nothing. We ought not,

except under certain limitations, to endeavour to free
ourselves from their approach. Every man that reads
the composition of another, suffers the succession of
his ideas to be in a considerable degree under the
direction of his author. But it does not seem as if
this would ever form a sufficient objection against

reading. One man always have stored up reflec-
will
tions and facts that another wants ; and mature and
digested discourse will perhaps always, in equal cir-
cumstances, be superior to that which is extempore.

Conversation a species of co-operation, one or the
is
other party always yielding to have his ideas guided
by the other and yet conversation and the inter-

:
course of mind with mind seem to be the most fertile

sources of improvement. It is here as it is with
punishment. He that in the gentlest manner under-

takes to reason another out of his vices, will probably
occasion pain ; but this species of punishment ought
upon no account to be superseded.

Another article which belongs to the subject of
co-operation is cohabitation. A
very simple process
will lead us a right decision in this instance.
to
Science is most effectually cultivated, when the

greatest number
of minds are employed in the pursuit
of it. If a hundred men spontaneously engage the
whole energy of their faculties upon the solution of a

given question, the chance of success will be greater
than only ten men were so employed. By the same

if
reason the chance will be also increased, in proportion

as the intellectual operations of these men are indi-
vidual, in proportion as their conclusions are directed
by the reason of the thing, uninfluenced by the force

either of compulsion or sympathy. All attachments to
individuals, except in proportion to their merits^ are
plainly unjust. It is therefore desirable, that we

should be the friends of man rather than of particular
men, and that we should pursue the chain of our own

reflections, with no other interruption than informa-
tion or philanthropy requires.
This subject of cohabitation is particularly interest-
ing, as it includes in it the subject of marriage. It

will therefore be proper to extend our inquiries some-
what further upon this head. Cohabitation is not only

an evil, as it checks the independent progress of mind,
it is also inconsistent with the imperfections and pro-
pensities of man. It is absurd to expect that the
inclinations and wishes of two human beings should
coincide through any long period of time. To oblige
them to act and to live together, is to subject them
to some inevitable portion of thwarting, bickering and
unhappiness. This cannot be otherwise, so long as

man has failed to reach the standard of absolute per-
fection. The supposition that I must have a com-
panion for life, is the result of a complication of vices.
It is the dictate of cowardice, and not of fortitude. It
OF PROPERTY.
flows from the desire of being loved and esteemed for
something that is not desert.

But the of
marriage as it is practised in
evil
European countries lies deeper than this. The habit

is, for a thoughtless and romantic youth of each sex
to come together, to see each other for a few times

and under circumstances full of delusion, and then to
vow to each other eternal attachment. What is the
consequence of this In almost every instance they

?
find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make

the best of an irretrievable mistake. They are pre-
sented with the strongest imaginable temptation to
become the dupes of falsehood. They are led to con-
ceive it shut their eyes upon
their wisest policy to
realities, happy by any perversion of intellect they

if
can persuade themselves that they were right in their

firstcrude opinion of their companion. The institu-
tion of marriage is a system of fraud ; and men who
carefully mislead their judgments in the daily affair of

their life, must always have a crippled judgment in
every other concern. We ought to dismiss our

mistake as soon as it is detected ;
but we are taught
to cherish it.
ought We to be incessant in our search
after virtue and worth but we are taught to check
;
our inquiry, and shut our eyes upon the most

attractive and admirable objects. Marriage is law,
and the worst of all laws. Whatever our understand-
ings may tell us of the person from whose connection
we should derive the greatest improvement, of the

worth of one woman and the demerits of another, we
are obliged to consider what is law, and not what is
justice.
Add to this, that marriage is an affair of property,
and the worst of all properties. So long as two
human beings are forbidden by positive institution to
follow the dictates of their own mind, prejudice is
aliveand vigorous. So long as I seek to engross one

woman to myself, and to prohibit my neighbour from
proving his superior desert and reaping the fruits of

it, I am guilty of the most odious of all monopolies.
Over this imaginary prize men watch with perpetual
jealousy, and one man will find his desires and his
capacity to circumvent as much excited, as the other

is excited to traverse his projects and frustrate his
hopes. As long as this state of society continues,

philanthropy will be crossed and checked in a thou-
sand ways, and the still augmenting stream of abuse
will continue to flow.
The abolition of marriage will be attended with no

evils. We are apt to represent it to ourselves as the
harbinger of brutal lust and depravity. But it really

happens in this as in other cases, that the positive
laws which are made to restrain our vices, irritate and
multiply them. Not to say, that the same sentiments

of justice and happiness which in a state of equal
property would destroy the relish for luxury, would

104 OF PROPERTY.
decrease our inordinate appetites of every kind, and

lead us universally to prefer the pleasures of intellect
to the pleasures of sense.
The intercourse of the sexes will in such a state fall
under the same system as any other species of friend-

ship. Exclusively of all groundless and obstinate
attachments, it will be impossible for me to live in the
world without finding one man of a worth superior to
that of any other whom I have an opportunity of
observing. To this man I shall feel a kindness in
exact proportion to my apprehension of his worth.
The case will be precisely the same with respect to
the female sex. I shall assiduously cultivate the
intercourse of that woman whose accomplishments
shall strike me in the most powerful manner. " But
it may happen that other men will feel for her the
same preference that I do/' This will create no
difficulty. We may all enjoy her conversation and ;
we shall all be wise enough to consider the sensual
intercourse as a very trivial object. This, like every

other affair in which two persons are concerned, must
be regulated in each successive instance by the un-
forced consent of either party. It is a mark of the
extreme depravity of our present habits, that we are

inclined to suppose the sensual intercourse anywise
material to the advantages arising from the purest
affection. Reasonable men now eat and drink, not
from the love of pleasure, but because eating and
drinking are essential to our healthful existence.

Eeasonable men then will propagate their species, not
because a certain sensible pleasure is annexed to this
action, but because it is right the species should be
propagated ;
and the manner in which they exercise
this function will be regulated by the dictates of
reason and duty.
Such some of the considerations that will
are
probably regulate the commerce of the sexes. It
cannot be definitely affirmed whether it will be known

in such a state of society who is the father of each
individual child. But it may be affirmed that such
knowledge will be of no importance. It is aristocracy,
self-love and family pride that teach us to set a value
upon it at present. I ought to prefer no human being

to another, because that being is my father, my wife,
or my son, but because, for reasons which equally
appeal to all understandings, that being is entitled
to preference. One among the measures which will

successively be dictated by the spirit of democracy,
and that probably at no great distance, is the abolition
of surnames.
Let us consider the way in which this state of
society will modify education. It may be imagined
that the abolition of marriage would make it in a
certain sense the affair of the public ; though, if there

be any truth in the reasonings of this work, to provide
for it by the positive institutions of a community,
io6 OF PROPERTY.
would be extremely inconsistent with the true prin-

1
ciples of the intellectual system. Education may be
regarded as consisting of various branches. First,
the personal cares which the helpless state of an
infant requires. These will probably devolve upon
the mother ; by frequent parturition or by the
unless,
very nature of these cares, that were found to render

her share of the burthen unequal; and then it would
be amicably and willingly participated by others.
Secondly, food and other necessary supplies. These,
as we have already seen, would easily find their true
level,and spontaneously flow from the quarter in

which they abounded to the quarter that was deficient.
Lastly, the term education may be used to signify
instruction. The task of instruction, under such a
form of society as that we are contemplating, will be
greatly simplified and altered from what it is at
present. It will then be thought no more legitimate
to make boy slaves, than to make men so. The
business will not then be to bring forward so many
adepts in the egg-shell, that the vanity of parents

may be flattered by hearing their praises. No man
will then think of vexing with premature learning the
feeble and inexperienced, for fear that, when they
1
In Book VI., chap, viii., Godwin contends against a
system of national education, on the ground that it stereo-
types and retards thought.
NOT A SYSTEM: OF RESTRICTIONS. 107
came to years of discretion, they should refuse to be

learned. Mind will be suffered to expand itself in
proportion as occasion and impression shall excite it,
and not tortured and enervated by being cast in a
particular mould. No creature in human form will be
expected to learn anything, but because he desires it
and has some conception of its utility and value ;

and
every man, in proportion to his capacity, will be ready
to furnish such general hints and comprehensive

views, as will suffice for the guidance and encourage-
ment of him who studies from a principle of desire.
Before we quit this part of the subject it will be
necessary to obviate an objection that will suggest
itself to some readers. will say " that man was
They
formed for society and reciprocal kindness ;
and
therefore is by his nature little adapted to the system
of individuality which is here delineated. The true
perfection of man is to blend and unite his own

existence with that of another, and therefore a system
which forbids him all partialities and attachments,
tends to degeneracy and not to improvement."
No doubt man is formed for society. But there is a
way in which, for a man to lose his own existence in

that of others, that is
eminently vicious and detri-
mental. Every man ought to rest upon his own
centre, and consult his own understanding. Every
man ought to feel his independence, that he can assert
the principles of justice and truth, without being
io8 OF PROPERTY.
obliged treacherously to adapt them to the peculiarities

of his situation, and the errors of others.
No doubt man is formed for society. But he is
formed for, or in other words his faculties enable him

to serve, the whole and not a part. Justice obliges
us to sympathise with a man of merit more fully than
with an insignificant and corrupt member of society.
But all partialities strictly so called, tend to the injury
of him who feels them, of mankind in general, and
even of him who is their object. The spirit of
partiality is well expressed in the memorable saying

of Themistocles, " God forbid that I should sit upon
a bench of justice, where my friends found no more
favour than strangers
" In fact, as has been
!
repeatedly seen in the course of this work, we sit in

every action of our lives upon a bench of justice ;
and play in humble imitation the part of the unjust
judge, whenever we indulge the smallest atom of
partiality.
Such are the limitations of the social principle.
These limitations in reality tend to improve it and
render its operations beneficial. It would be a
miserable mistake to suppose that the principle is not
of the utmost importance to mankind. All that in
which the human mind differs from the intellectual
principle in animals the growth of society.

is All
that is excellent in man is the fruit of progressive
improvement, of the circumstance of one age taking

advantage of the discoveries of a preceding age, and

setting out from the point at which they had arrived.
Without society we should be wretchedly deficient
in motives to improvement. But what is most of all,
without society our improvements would be nearly
useless. Mind without benevolence is a barren and a
cold existence. It is in seeking the good of others,
in embracing a great and expansive sphere of action,
in forgetting our own individual interests, that we

find our true element. The tendency of the whole
system delineated in this Book is to lead us to that
element. The individuality it recommends tends to
the good of the whole, and

valuable only as a means
is
to that end. Can that be termed a selfish system,

where no man desires luxury, no man dares to be
guilty of injustice, and every one devotes himself to
supply the wants, animal or intellectual, of others ?
To proceed.
As a genuine state of society is incompatible with
all laws and restrictions, so it cannot have even this

restriction, that no man shall amass property. The
security against accumulation, as has already been
said, lies in the perceived absurdity and inutility of
accumulation. The practice, if it can be conceived in
a state of society where the principles of justice were
adequately understood, would not even be dangerous.

The idea would not create alarm, apt to do
as it is
in prospect among the present advocates of political

I io OF PROPERTY.
justice. Men would feel nothing but their laughter

or their pity excited at so strange a perversity of
human intellect.
What would denominate anything my property ?

The fact, that it was necessary to my welfare. My
right would be coeval with the existence of that
necessity. The word property would probably re-
main ;
its signification only would be modified. The
mistake does not so properly lie in the idea itself, as
in the source from which it is traced. What I have,
if it be necessary for my use, is truly mine ; what I
have, though the fruit of my own industry, if un-
necessary, it is an usurpation for me to retain.
Force in such a state of society would be unknown ;

I should part with nothing without a full consent..
Caprice would be unknown ;

no man would covet that
which I used, unless he distinctly apprehended that
it would be more beneficial in his possession than it
was in mine. My apartment would be as sacred to

a certain extent as itis at present. No man would
obtrude himself upon me to interrupt the course of
my studies and meditations. No man would feel the

whim of occupying my apartment, while he could
provide himself another as good of his own. That
which was my apartment yesterday would probably
be my apartment to-day. We have few pursuits that
do not require a certain degree of apparatus ; and it
would be for the general good that I should find in
NOT A SYSTEM OF RESTRICTIONS. in
ordinary cases the apparatus ready for my use to-day

that I left yesterday. But, though the idea of pro-
perty thus modified would remain, the jealousy and
selfishness of property would be gone. Bolts and
locks would be unknown. Every man would be wel-
come to make every use of my accommodations that
did not interfere with my own use of them. Novices

as we are, we may figure to ourselves a thousand
disputes, where property was held by so slight a

tenure. But disputes would
in reality be impossible.
They are the offspring of a misshapen and dispro-

portioned love of ourselves. Do you want my table ?
Make one for yourself; or, if I be more skilful in that
respect than you, I will make one for you. Do you

want it immediately ? Let us compare the urgency
of your wants and mine, and let justice decide.
These observations lead us to the consideration of
one additional difficulty, which relates to the division
of labour. Shall each man make all his tools, his
furniture and accommodations This would perhaps

?
be a tedious operation. Every man performs the task

to which he is accustomed more skilfully and in a
shorter time than another. It is reasonable that you

should make me, that which perhaps I should be
for
three or four times as long making, and should make
imperfectly at last. Shallwe then introduce barter

and exchange ? By no means. The abstract spirit
of exchange will perhaps govern ; every man will
12 OF PROPERTY.
employ an equal portion of his time in manual labour.

But the individual application of exchange is of all
practices the most pernicious. The moment I require

any other reason for supplying you than the cogency
of your claim, the moment, in addition to the dictates
of benevolence, I demand a prospect of advantage to
myself, there is an end of that political justice and

pure society of which we treat. No man will have a
trade. It cannot be supposed that a man will con-
struct any species of commodity, but in proportion as

it iswanted. The profession paramount to all others,
and in which every man will bear his part, will be that
of man, and in addition perhaps that of cultivator.
The division of labour, as it has been treated by
commercial writers, is for the most part the offspring
of avarice. It has been found that ten persons can
make two hundred and forty times as pins in

many
a day as one person. 1 This refinement the growth
is
of luxury. The object is to see into how vast a sur-
face the industry of the lower classes may be beaten,

the more completely to gild over the indolent and the
proud. The ingenuity of the merchant is whetted by

new improvements of this sort to transport more of
the wealth of the powerful into his own coffers. The
possibility of effecting a compendium of labour by
1
Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book I., chap. i.
[Godwin's
note.
NOT A SYSTEM OF RESTRICTIONS. ii
this means be greatly diminished, when men shall

will
learn to deny themselves superfluities. The utility

of such a saving of labour, where labour is so little,
will scarcely balance against the evils of so extensive

a co-operation. From what has been said under this
head, it appears that there will be a division of labour,
if we compare the society in question with the state
of the solitaire and the savage. But it will
produce
an extensive composition of labour, if we compare it
with that to which we are at present accustomed in
civilized Europe.
CHAPTER VII.
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM

THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
THE OBJECTION STATED. REMOTENESS OF ITS OPERATION.
CONJECTURAL IDEAS RESPECTING THE ANTIDOTE.

OMNIPOTENCE OF MIND. ILLUSTRATIONS. CAUSES OF
DECREPITUDE. YOUTH IS PROLONGED BY CHEERFUL-
NESS BY CLEARNESS OF APPREHENSION AND A
BENEVOLENT CHARACTER. THE POWERS WE POSSESS
ARE ESSENTIALLY PROGRESSIVE. EFFECTS OF ATTEN-
TION. THE PHENOMENON OF SLEEP EXPLAINED.
PRESENT UTILITY OF THESE REASONINGS. APPLICA-
TION TO THE FUTURE STATE OF SOCIETY.
A N author who
has speculated widely upon sub-
-TjL_
government/ has recommended equal
jects of
or, which was rather his idea, common property, as a
complete remedy, to the usurpation and distress which
1
Wallace : Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature and
Providence, 1761. [Godwin's Note.]
PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 115
are at present the most powerful enemies of human
kind, to the vices which infect education in some

instances, and the neglect it encounters in more, to
all the turbulence of passion, and all the injustice of
selfishness. But, after having exhibited this picture,
not less true than delightful, he finds an argument
that demolishes the whole, and restores him to indif-
ference and despair, in the excessive population that
would ensue.
One of the most obvious answers to this objection
is, that to reason thus is to foresee difficulties at a
great distance. Three-fourths of the habitable globe

is now uncultivated. The parts already cultivated
are capable of immeasurable improvement. Myriads
of centuries of still increasing population may pro-
bably pass away, and the earth still be found sufficient
for the subsistence of its inhabitants. Who can say
how long the earth itself will survive the casualties of
the planetary system ? Who can say what remedies
shall suggest themselves for so distant an inconve-
enough for practical application, and of

nience, time
which we may yet at this time have not the smallest
idea ? It would be truly absurd for us to shrink
from a scheme of essential benefit to mankind, lest

they should be too happy, and by necessary conse-
quence at some distant period too populous.
But, though these remarks may be deemed a suffi-
cient answer to the objection, it

may not be amiss
u6 OF PROPERTY.
to indulge in some speculations to which such an

objection obviously leads. The earth may, to speak
in the style of one of the writers of the Christian
" abide for ever." l
Scriptures, may be in danger
It
of becoming too populous. A

remedy may then be
If it may, why should we sit down in
necessary.
supine indifference and conclude that we can discover
no glimpse of it ? made, would add
The discovery, if
to the firmness and consistency of our prospects ; nor
is it improbable to conjecture that that which would
form the regulating spring of our conduct then, might

be the medium of a salutary modification now. What
follows must be considered in some degree as a
deviation into the land of conjecture. If it be false,
it leaves the great system to which it is appended in
all sound reason as impregnable as ever. If this do
not lead us to the true remedy, it does not follow

that there is no remedy. The great object of inquiry
will still remain open, however defective may be the
suggestions that are now to be offered.
Let us here return to the sublime conjecture of
<f
Franklin, that mind will one day become omnipotent
over matter." If over all other matter, why not over
the matter of our own bodies ? If over matter at
ever so great a distance, why not over matter which,
however ignorant we may be of the tie that connects
1
Ecclesiastes i. 4. [Godwin's Note.]
itwith the thinking principle, we always carry about

with us, and which is in all cases the medium of com-
munication between that principle and the external
universe ? In a word, why may not man be one day
immortal ?
The different cases in which thought modifies the
external universe are obvious to all. It is modified
by our voluntary thoughts or design. We desire to

stretch out our hand, and it is stretched out. We
perform a thousand operations of the same species
every day, and their familiarity annihilates the wonder.
They are not in themselves less wonderful than any
of those modifications which we are least accustomed
to conceive. Mind modifies body involuntarily.
Emotion excited by some unexpected word, by a
letter that is delivered to us, occasions the most
extraordinary revolutions in our frame, accelerates the

circulation, causes the heart to palpitate, the tongue
to refuse its office, and has been known to occasion
death by extreme anguish or extreme joy. These

symptoms we may either encourage or check. By
encouraging them habits are produced of fainting or
of rage. To discourage them is one of the principal
offices of fortitude. The effort of mind in resisting
pain in the stories of Cranmer and Mucius Scaovola

is of the same kind. It is reasonable to believe that
that effort with a different direction might have cured

certain diseases of the system. There is nothing
u8 OF PROPERTY.
indeed of which physicians themselves are more fre-
quently aware, than of the power of the mind in

assisting or retarding convalescence.
Why is it that a mature man soon loses that
elasticity of limb which characterizes the heedless

gaiety of youth Because he desists from youthful
?
habits. He assumes an air of dignity incompatible

with the lightness of childish sallies. He is visited
and vexed with all the cares that rise out of our
mistaken institutions, and his heart is no longer
satisfied and gay. Hence his limbs become stiff and
unwieldy. This is the forerunner of old age and

death.
The first habit favourable to
corporeal vigour is
cheerfulness. Every time that our mind becomes
morbid, vacant and melancholy, a certain period is
cut off from the length of our lives. Listlessness of
thought is the brother of death. But cheerfulness

gives new life to our frame and circulation to our
juices. Nothing can long be stagnant in the frame

of him, whose heart is tranquil, and his imagination
active.
A second requisite in the case of which we treat is
a clear and distinct conception. If I know precisely

what I wish, it is easy for me to calm the throbs
of pain, and to assist the sluggish operations of the
system. It is not a knowledge of anatomy, but a
quiet and steady attention to my symptoms, that will

best enable me to correct the distemper from which

they spring. Fainting is nothing else but a confusion
of mind, in which the ideas appear to mix in painful
disorder, and nothing is distinguished.

The true source of cheerfulness is benevolence. To
a youthful mind, while everything strikes with its
novelty, the individual situation must be peculiarly

unfortunate, if gaiety of thought be not produced,
or, when interrupted, do not speedily return with its
healing oblivion. But novelty is a fading charm, and
perpetually decreases. Hence the approach of inanity
and listlessness. After we have made a certain round,
delights no more.
life A deathlike apathy invades us.
Thus the aged are generally cold and indifferent;
nothing interests their attention, or rouses the slug-
gishness of their soul. How should it be otherwise ?
The pursuits of mankind are commonly frigid and
contemptible, and the mistake comes at last to be
detected. But virtue is a charm that never fades.
The soul that perpetually overflows with kindness and
sympathy, always be cheerful. The man who is
will
perpetually busied in contemplations of public good,

will always be active.
The application of these reasonings is simple and
irresistible. If mind be now in a great degree the
ruler of the system, why should it be incapable of
extending its
empire ? If our involuntary thoughts
can derange or restore the animal economy, why
120 OF PROPERTY.
should we not in process of time, in this as in other

instances, subject the thoughts which are at present
involuntary to the government of design ? If volition

can now do something, why should it not go on to do
still more and more ? There is no principle of reason
less liable to question than this, that, if we have in
any respect a little power now, and if mind be essen-
tially progressive, that
power may, and, barring any
extraordinary concussions of nature, infallibly will,
extend beyond any bounds we are able to prescribe
to it.
Nothing can be more irrational and presumptuous

than to conclude, because a certain species of sup-
posed power is entirely out of the line of our present

observations, that it is therefore altogether beyond
the limits of the human mind. We talk familiarly
indeed of the limits of our faculties, but nothing is
more than to point them out. Mind, in a
difficult
progressive view at least, is infinite. If it could have

been told to the savage inhabitants of Europe in the
times of Theseus and Achilles, that man was capable
of predicting eclipses and weighing the air, of ex-
plaining the phenomena of nature so that no prodigies

should remain, of measuring the distance and the size
of the heavenly bodies, this would not have appeared
to them less wonderful, than if we had told them of

the possible discovery of the means of maintaining
the human body in perpetual youth and vigour. But
we have not only this analogy, showing that the
discovery in question forms as it were a regular

branch of the acquisitions that belong to an intel-
lectual nature; but in addition to this we seem to
have a glimpse of the specific manner in which the
acquisition will be secured. Let us remark a little
more distinctly the simplicity of the process.
We have called the principle of immortality in man
cheerfulness, clearness of conception, and benevolence.
Perhaps we shall in some respects have a more
accurate view of its potency, if we consider it as of
the nature of attention. It is a very old maxim of
practical conduct, that whatever is done with atten-

tion, is done well. It is because this was a principal
requisite, that many persons endowed in an eminent

degree with cheerfulness, perspicacity, and benevo-
lence, have perhaps not been longer lived than their
neighbours. We are not capable at present of attend-

ing to everything. A man who is engaged in the
sublimest and most delightful exertions of mind, will
perhaps be less attentive to his animal functions than

his most ordinary neighbour, though he will frequently
in a partial degree repair that neglect, by a more

cheerful and animated observation, when those exer-
tions are suspended. But, though the faculty of
attention may at present have a very small share of
ductility, it is probable that it

may be improved in
that respect to an inconceivable degree. The picture
122 OF PROPERTY.
that was exhibited of the subtlety of mind in an

earlier stage of this work/ gives to this supposition
a certain degree of moral evidence. If we can have
three hundred and twenty successive ideas in a second

of time, why should it be supposed that we shall not
carrying on a great
hereafter arrive at the skill of
number of contemporaneous processes without dis-
order ?
Having thus given a view of what may be the

future improvement of mind, it is proper that we
should qualify this picture to the sanguine temper of
some readers and the incredulity of others, by observ-
ing that this improvement, if
capable of being realized,
is however at a great distance. A
very obvious
remark render this eminently palpable. If an
will
unintermitted attention to the animal economy be
necessary, then, before death can be banished, we

must banish sleep, death's image. Sleep is one of the
most conspicuous infirmities of the human frame. It
is been supposed, a suspension of
not, as has often
thought, but an irregular and distempered state of the

faculty. Our tired attention resigns the helm, ideas
swim before us in wild confusion, and are attended
with less and less distinctness, till at length they
"
1
We have a multitude of different successive perceptions
in every moment of our existence." Book IV., Chap, vii.,
p. 330.
leave no traces in the memory. Whatever attention

and volition are then imposed upon us, as it were at
unawares, are but faint resemblances of our operations
in the same kind when awake. Generally speaking,
we contemplate sights of horror with little pain, and
commit the most atrocious crimes with little sense of
their true nature. The horror we sometimes attribute
to our dreams, will frequently be found upon accurate
observation to belong to our review of them when
we wake.
One other remark may be proper in this place. If
the remedies here prescribed tend to a total extirpa-
tion of the infirmities of our nature, then, though
we cannot promise to them an early and complete suc-
cess, we may probably find them of some utility now.
They may contribute to prolong our vigour, though

not to immortalize it, and, which is of more con-
sequence, to make us live while we live. Every time
the mind is invaded with anguish and gloom, the
frame becomes disordered. Every time that languor
and indifference creep upon us, our functions fall into
decay. In proportion as we cultivate fortitude and

equanimity, our circulations will be cheerful. In
proportion as we cultivate a kind and benevolent pro-
pensity, we may be secure of finding something for
ever to interest and engage us.
Medicine mayreasonably be stated to consist of
two branches, the animal and intellectual. The latter
I2 4 OF PROPERTY.
of these has been infinitely too much

neglected. It
cannot be employed to the purposes of a profession ;

or, where it has been incidentally so employed, it has
been artificiallyindirectly, not in an open and
and
avowed manner. " Herein the patient must minister
to himself." l How often do we find a sudden piece
of good news dissipating a distemper How common !
is the remark, that those accidents, which are to the
indolent a source of disease, are forgotten and extir-
pated in the busy and active It would no doubt be

!
of extreme moment to us, to be thoroughly acquainted

with the power of motives, habit, and what is called
resolution, in this respect. I walk twenty miles in
an indolent and half-determined temper, and am ex-
tremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles full of ardour
and with a motive that engrosses my soul, and I come
in as fresh and alert as when I began my journey.
We are sick and we die, generally speaking, because
we consent to suffer these accidents. This consent
in the present state of mankind is in some degree
unavoidable. We must have stronger motives and
clearer views, before we can uniformly refuse it. But,
though we cannot always, we may frequently refuse.
This is a truth of which mankind are to a certain
all
degree aware. Nothing more common than for the

most ignorant man to call upon his sick neighbour, to
Macbeth, Act Y.
1
[Godwin's Note.]
rouse himself, not to suffer himself to be conquered;

and this exhortation is always accompanied with some
consciousness of the efficacy of resolution. The wise
and the good man therefore should carry with him
the recollection of what cheerfulness and a determined
spirit are able to do, of the capacity with which he is
endowed of expelling the seeds and first slight appear-

ances of indisposition.
The principal part of the preceding paragraph is
nothing more than a particular application of what
was elsewhere delivered respecting moral and physical
causes. 1 It would have been easy to have cast the
present chapter in a different form, and to have made
it a chapter upon health, showing that one of the
advantages of a better state of society would be a

very high improvement of the vigour and animal
constitution of man. In that case the conjecture of
immortality would only have come in as an incidental
remark, and the whole would have assumed less the
air of conjecture than of close and argumentative
deduction. But it was perhaps better to give the
1
Godwin's argument is that the mind is more powerful
than the physical conditions of climate, etc. " Our communi-
cation with the material universe is at the mercy of our
choice ;
and the inability of the understanding for intellectual
exertion principally an affair of moral consideration, exist-
is
ing only in the degree in which it is deliberately preferred."

Book I., Chap, vii., Part I.
126 OF PROPERTY.
subject the most explicit form, at the risk of exciting

a certain degree of prejudice.
To apply these remarks to the subject of popula-
tion. The tendency of a cultivated and virtuous mind
is to render us indifferent to the gratifications of
sense. They please at present by their novelty, that
is, because we know not how to estimate them. They
decay in the decline of life indirectly because the
system refuses them, but directly and principally
because they no longer excite the ardour and passion
of mind. It is well known that an inflamed imagina-
tion is capable of doubling and tripling the seminal

secretions. The gratifications of sense please at
present by their imposture. We soon learn to despise
the mere animal function, which, apart from the
delusions of intellect, would be nearly the same in all
cases; and to value

it, only as
happens it to be re-
lievedby personal charms or mental excellence. We

absurdly imagine that no better road can be found to
the sympathy and intercourse of minds. But a very
slight degree of attention might convince us that this
is fall of danger and deception.
a false road, Why
should I esteem another, or by another be esteemed ?
For this reason only, because esteem is due, and only
so far as it is due.
The men therefore who exist when the earth shall
refuse itself to a more extended population, will cease
to propagate, for they will no longer have any motive,
either of error or duty, to induce them. In addition

to this they will perhaps be immortal. The whole
will be a people of men, and not of children. Genera-
tion will not succeed generation, nor truth have in a
certain degree to recommence her career at the end of
every thirty years. be no war, no crimes,
There will
no administration of justice as it is called, and no

government. These latter articles are at no great
distance; and it is not impossible that some of the
present race of men may live to see them in part
accomplished. But beside this, there will be no dis-
ease, no anguish, no melancholy, and no resentment.

Every man will seek with ineffable ardour the good
of all. Mind will be active and eager, yet never
disappointed. Men will see the progressive
advance-
ment of virtue and good, and feel that, if things
occasionally happen contrary to their hopes, the
miscarriage itself was a necessary part of that pro-
gress. They will know, that they are members of the
chain, that each has his several utility, and they will
not feel indifferent to that utility. They will be eager
good that already exists, the means
to inquire into the
by which was produced, and the greater good that

it
is yet in store. They will never want motives for

exertion; for that benefit which a man thoroughly
understands and earnestly loves, he cannot refrain
from endeavouring to promote.
Before we dismiss the subject it is
proper once again
128 OF PROPERTY.
to remind the reader, that the leading doctrine of this
chapter is given only as matter of probable conjec-

ture, and that the grand argument of this division
of the work is altogether independent of its truth or
falsehood.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE MEANS OF INTRODUCING THE GENUINE

SYSTEM OF PROPERTY.
APPREHENSIONS THAT ARE ENTERTAINED ON THIS SUBJECT.
IDEA OF MASSACRE. INFERENCE WE OUGHT TO
MAKE UPON SUPPOSITION OF THE REALITY OF THESE
APPREHENSIONS. MISCHIEF BY NO MEANS THE NECES-
SARY ATTENDANT ON IMPR07EMENT. DUTIES UNDER
THIS CIRCUMSTANCE, 1. OF THOSE WHO ARE QUALIFIED
FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTORS TEMPER SINCERITY.
PERNICIOUS EFFECTS OF DISSIMULATION IN THIS CASE.
2. OF THE RICH AND GREAT. MANY OF THEM
MAY BE EXPECTED TO BE ADVOCATES OF EQUALITY.
CONDUCT WHICH THEIR INTEREST AS A BODY PRE-
SCRIBES. 3. OF THE FRIENDS OF EQUALITY JN
GENERAL. OMNIPOTENCE OF TRUTH. IMPORTANCE OF
A MILD AND BENEVOLENT PROCEEDING. CONNECTION
BETWEEN LIBERTY AND EQUALITY. CAUSE OF
EQUALITY WILL PERPETUALLY ADVANCE. SYMPTOMS
OF ITS PROGRESS. IDEA OF ITS FUTURE SUCCESS.
CONCLUSION.
129
130 OF PROPERTY.
thus stated explicitly and without re-

HAYING
serve the great branches of this illustrious
picture, there is but one subject that remains. In

what manner shall this interesting improvement of
human society be carried into execution? Are there
not certain steps that are desirable for this purpose ?
Are there not certain steps that are inevitable ? Will
not the period that must first elapse, necessarily be
stained with a certain infusion of evil ?
No idea has excited greater horror in the minds
of a multitude of persons, than that of the mis-
chiefs that are to ensue from the dissemination of
what they call levelling principles. They believe
" that these
principles will inevitably ferment in the
minds of the vulgar, and that the attempt to carry
them into execution will be attended with every
species of calamity." They represent to themselves
" the uninformed and uncivilized
part of mankind, as
let loose from all restraint, and hurried into every kind
of excess. Knowledge and taste, the improvements
of intellect, the discoveries of sages, the beauties of
poetry and art, are trampled under foot and extin-

guished by barbarians. It is another inundation of
Goths and Vandals, with this bitter aggravation, that

the viper that stings us to death was warmed in our
own bosoms."
"
They conceive of the scene as beginning in mas-
sacre." " all that is
They suppose great, pre-eminent
INTRODUCTION OF THE GENUINE SYSTEM. 131
and illustrious as ranking among the first victims.

Such as are distinguished by peculiar elegance of
manners or energy of diction and composition, will be
the inevitable objects of envy and jealousy. Such as
intrepidly exert themselves to succour the persecuted,
or to declare to the public those truths which they are
least inclined, but which are most necessary for them
to hear, will be marked out for assassination/'
Let us not, from any partiality to the system of
equality delineated in this book, shrink from the pic-
ture here exhibited. Massacre is the too possible
attendant upon revolution, and massacre is perhaps
the most hateful scene, allowing for its momentary
duration, that any imagination can suggest. The

fearful, hopeless expectation of the defeated, and the
blood-hound fury of their conquerors, is a complica-
tion of mischief that all which has been told of
infernal regions cannot surpass. The cold-blooded
massacres that are perpetrated under the name of
criminal justice fall short of these in their most
frightful aggravations. The ministers and instru-

ments of law have by custom reconciled their minds
to the dreadful task they perform, and bear their
respective parts in the most shocking enormities,

without being sensible to the passions allied to those
enormities. But the instruments of massacre are
actuated with all the sentiments of fiends. Their
eyes emit flashes of cruelty and rage. They pursue

132 OF PROPERTY.
their victims from street to street and from house to

house. They tear them from the arms of their fathers
and their wives. They glut themselves with barbarity
and insult, and utter shouts of horrid joy at the spec-
tacle of their tortures.
We
have now contemplated the tremendous picture ;
what is the conclusion it behoves us to draw ? Must
we shrink from reason, from justice, from virtue and
happiness ? Suppose that the inevitable consequence

of communicating truth were the temporary intro-
duction of such a scene as has just been described,

must we on that account refuse to communicate it ?
The crimes that were perpetrated would in no just
estimate appear to be the result of truth, but of the
error which had previously been infused. The im-
partial inquirer would behold them as the last strug-
gles of expiring despotism, which, if it had survived,

would have produced mischiefs, scarcely less atrocious
in the hour of their commission, and infinitely more
calamitous by the length of their duration. If we
would judge truly, even admitting the unfavourable
supposition above stated, we must contrast a moment
of horror and distress with ages of felicity. No
imagination can sufficiently conceive the mental im-
provement and the tranquil virtue that would succeed,
were property once permitted to rest upon its genuine
basis.
And by what means suppress truth, and keep alive

the salutary intoxication, the tranquillizing insanity

of mind which some men desire ? Such has been,
too generally the policy of government through every
age of the world. Have we slaves? must assi- We

duously retain them in ignorance. Have we colonies
and dependencies ? The great effort of our care is to
keep them from being too populous and prosperous.
Have we subjects ? It by impotence and misery
is
that we endeavour to render them supple plenty is :
fib for nothing but to make them unmanageable, dis-

obedient and mutinous. were the true philo-
If this
sophy of social institutions, well might we shrink from

it with horror. How tremendous an abortion would
the human species be found, if all that tended to
make them wise, tended to make them unprincipled
and profligate ! But this it is impossible for any one
to believe, who will lend the subject a moment's im-
partial consideration. Can truth, the perception of

justice and a desire to execute it, be the source of
irretrievable ruin tomankind ? It may be conceived
that the first opening and illumination of mind will
be attended with disorder. But every just reasoner
must confess that regularity and happiness will suc-
ceed to this confusion. To refuse the remedy, were
this picture of its operation ever so true, would be as
if a man who had dislocated a limb, should refuse to
undergo the pain of having it replaced. If mankind

have hitherto lost the road of virtue and happiness,
134 OF PROPERTY.
that can be no just reason why they should be

suffered to go wrong for ever. We must not refuse a
conviction of error, or even the treading over again
some of the steps that were the result of it.
Another question suggests itself under this head.
Can we suppress truth ? Can we arrest the progress
of the inquiring mind ? If we can, it will only be
done by the most unmitigated despotism. Mind has
a perpetual tendency to rise. It cannot be held down
but by a power that counteracts its genuine tendency

through every moment of its existence.
Tyrannical
arid sanguinary must be the measures employed for
this purpose. Miserable and disgustful must be the
scene they produce. Their result will be thick dark-
ness of the mind, timidity, servility, hypocrisy. This
isthe alternative, so far as there is any alternative in
their power,between the opposite measures of which
the princes and governments of the earth have now
to choose they must either suppress enquiry by the
:
most arbitrary stretches of power, or preserve a clear

and tranquil field in which every man shall be at
liberty to discover and vindicate his opinion.
No doubt it is the duty of governments to maintain
the most unalterable neutrality in this important
transaction. No doubt it is the duty of individuals to
publish truth without diffidence or reserve, to publish
it in its genuine form, without seeking aid from the
meretricious arts of publication. The more it is told,

the more it is known in its true dimensions, and not

in parts, the less is it possible that it should coalesce
with or leave room for the pernicious effects of error.

The true philanthropist will be eager, instead of sup-
pressing discussion, to take an active share in the
scene, to exert the full strength of his faculties in
discovery, and to contribute by his exertions to render
the operations of thought at once perspicuous and
profound.
It being then sufficiently evident that truth must be
told at whatever expense, let us proceed to consider
the precise amount of that expense, to inquire how
much of confusion and violence is inseparable from the
transit which mind has to accomplish. And here it
plainly appears that mischief is by no means insepar-
able from the progress. In the mere circumstance of
our acquiring knowledge and accumulating one truth
after another there is no direct tendency to disorder.
Evil can only spring from the clash of mind with mind,
from one body of men in the community outstripping
another in their ideas of improvement, and becoming
impatient of the opposition they have to encounter.

In this interesting period, in which mind shall
arrive as it were at the true crisis of its story, there
are high duties incumbent upon every branch of the

community. First, upon those cultivated and power-
ful minds, that are fitted to be precursors to the rest
in the discovery of truth. They are bound to be

136 OF PROPERTY.
active, indefatigable and disinterested. It is incum-

bent upon them to abstain from inflammatory lan-
guage, from all expressions of acrimony and resent-

ment. It is absurd in any government to erect itself
into a court of criticism in this respect, and to estab-
lish a criterion of liberality and decorum ;
but for that
very reason it is doubly incumbent on those who com-
municate their thoughts to the public, to exercise a
rigid censure over themselves. The tidings of liberty
and equality are tidings of goodwill to all orders of
men. They free the peasant from the iniquity that
depresses his mind, and the privileged from the luxury
and despotism by which he is corrupted. Let those
who bear these tidings not stain their benignity, by
showing that that benignity has not yet become the

inmate of their hearts.
Nor is less necessary that they should be urged
it
whole truth without disguise. No maxim

to tell the
can be more pernicious than that which would teach

us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only
so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be
able to bear. This practice is at present almost
universal, and it is the mark of a very painful degree
of depravity. We retail and mangle truth. We

impart it to our fellows, not with the liberal measure
with which we have received it, but with such parsi-
mony as our own miserable prudence may chance to

prescribe. We pretend that truths fit to be practised
in one country, nay, truths which we confess to be
eternally right, are not fit to be practised in another.

That we may deceive others with a tranquil conscience,
we begin with deceiving ourselves. We put shackles
upon our minds, and dare not trust ourselves at large
This practice took its com-
in the pursuit of truth.
mencement from the machinations of party, and the
desire of one wise and adventurous leader to carry a
troop of weak, timid and selfish supporters in his train.

There is no reason why I should not declare in any
assembly upon the face of the earth that I am a
republican. There is no more reason why, being a

republican under a monarchical government, I should
enter into a desperate faction to invade the public tran-
quillity, than if I were monarchical under a republic.

Every community of men, as well as every individual,
must govern itself according to its ideas of justice.
What not by violence to change its
I should desire is,
institutions, but by reason to change its ideas. I have

no business with factions or intrigue, but simply to
promulgate the truth, and to wait the tranquil progress
of conviction. If there be any assembly that cannot
bear this, of such an assembly I ought to be no mem-

ber. It happens much oftener than we are willing to
imagine, that "the post of honour," or, which is better,
the post of utility, " is a private station." l
1
Addison's Cato, Act IV. [Godwin's note.]
138 OF PROPERTY.
The dissimulation here censured, beside its ill

effectsupon him who practises it, and by degrading
and unnerving his character upon society at large, has
a particular ill
consequence with respect to the point
we are considering. It lays a mine, and prepares
an explosion. This is the tendency of all unnatural
restraint. Meanwhile the unfettered progress of truth
is
always salutary. Its advances are gradual, and
each step prepares the general mind for that which is
to follow. They are sudden and unprepared emana-

tions of truth, that have the greatest tendency to
deprive men of their sobriety and self command. Re-

serve in this respect is calculated at once to give
a rugged and angry tone to the multitude whenever
they shall happen to discover what is thus concealed,

and to mislead the depositaries of political power. It
soothes them into false security, and prompts them to
maintain an inauspicious obstinacy.
Having considered what it is that belongs in such

a crisis to the enlightened and wise, let us next turn
our attention very different class of society, the
to a
rich and
great. And here in the first place it may be
remarked, that it is a very false calculation that leads
us universally to despair of having these for the
advocates of equality. Mankind are not so miserably
and courtiers have supposed. We
selfish, as satirists
never engage in any action without enquiring what
is the decision of justice respecting it. We are at
all times anxious to satisfy ourselves that what our

inclinations lead us to do, is innocent and right to
be done. Since therefore justice occupies so large
a share in the contemplations of the human mind, it
cannot reasonably be doubted that a strong and com-
manding view of justice would prove a powerful

motive to influence our choice. But that virtue which
for whatever reason we have chosen, soon becomes
recommended to us by a thousand other reasons. We
find in reputation, eminence, self-complacence and
it
the divine pleasures of an approving mind.

The rich and great are far from callous to views of
general felicity, when such views

are brought before
them with that evidence and attraction of which they
are susceptible. From one
dreadful disadvantage their
minds are free.
They have not been soured with
unrelenting tyranny, or narrowed by the perpetual

pressure of distress. They are peculiarly qualified to
judge of the emptiness of that pomp and those
gratifications, which are always most admired when
they are seen from a distance. They will frequently
be found considerably indifferent to these things,
unless confirmed by habit and rendered inveterate
by age. If you show them the attractions of gal-

lantry and magnanimity in resigning them, they will
often be resigned without reluctance. Wherever

accident of any sort has introduced an active mind,
there enterprise is a necessary consequence; and
140 OF PROPERTY.
there are few persons so inactive, as to sit down for

ever in the supine enjoyment of the indulgences to
which they were born. The same spirit that has led
forth the young nobility of successive ages to en-
counter the hardships of a camp, might easily be
employed to render them champions of the cause of

equality : nor is it to be believed that the circum-
stance of superior virtue and truth in this latter
exertion will be without its effect.
But let us suppose a considerable party of the rich
and great to be actuated by no view but to their
emolument and ease. It is not difficult to show them,
that their interest in this sense will admit of no more
than a temperate and yielding resistance. Much no
doubt of the future tranquillity or confusion of man-
kind depends upon the conduct of this party. To
them I would say " It is in vain for
:
you to fight
against truth. It is like endeavouring with the
human hand to stop the inroad of the ocean. Eetire
betimes. Seek your safety in concession.
you If
will not go over to the standard of political justice,

temporise at least with an enemy whom you cannot
overcome. Much, inexpressibly much depends upon
you. If you be wise, if you be prudent, if you would
secure at least your lives and your personal ease

amidst the general shipwreck of monopoly and folly,
you will be unwilling to irritate and defy. Unless

by your rashness, there will be no confusion, no
murder, not a drop of blood will be spilt, and you

will yourselves be made happy. If you brave the
storm and call down every species of odium on your
heads, still it is possible, still it is to be hoped that
the general tranquillity may be maintained. But,
should it prove otherwise, you will have principally to
answer for all the consequences that shall ensue.
" Above do not be lulled into a rash and head-
all,
long security. We have already seen how much the

hypocrisy and instability of the wise and enlightened
of the present day, those who confess much, and have
a confused view of still more, but dare not examine
the whole with a steady and unshrinking eye, are
calculated to increase this security. But there is a
danger more palpable.

still Do not be misled by
the unthinking and seeming general cry of those who
have no fixed principles. Addresses have been found
in every age a very uncertain criterion of the future
conduct of a people. Do not count upon the numerous

train of your adherents, retainers and servants. They
afford a very feeble dependence. They are men, and
cannot be dead to the interests and claims of man-
kind. Some of them will adhere to you as long as a
sordid interest seems to draw them in that direction.
But the moment yours shall appear to be the losing

cause, the same interest will carry them over to the
enemy's standard. They will disappear like the morn-

ing dew.
142 OF PROPERTY.
" I not
May hope that you are capable of receiving
impression from another argument ? Will you feel
no compunction at the thought of resisting the
greatest of all benefits ? Are you content to be
regarded by the most enlightened of your contem-
poraries, and to be handed down to the remotest
posterity, as the obstinate adversaries of philanthropy
and justice ? Can you reconcile it to your own minds,
that, for a sordid interest, for the cause of general
corruption and abuse, you should be found active in

stifling truth, and strangling the new-born happiness
of mankind ? " Would to God it were possible to
carry home this argument to the enlightened and
accomplished advocates of aristocracy Would to !
God they could be persuaded to consult neither pas-

sion, nor prejudice, nor the flights of imagination, in
so momentous a question " We
deciding upon !
know that truth does not stand in need of your

alliance to secure her triumph. We do not fear your
enmity. But our hearts bleed to see such gallantry,
such talents and such virtue enslaved to prejudice,
and enlisted in error. It is for your sakes that we
expostulate, and for the honour of human nature."
To the general mass of the adherents of the cause
of justice be proper to say a few words. " If
it may
there be any force in the arguments of this work, thus
much at least we are authorized to deduce from them,
that truth is irresistible. If man be endowed with
a rational nature, then whatever is clearly demon-

strated to his understanding to have the most power-
ful recommendations, so long as that clearness is
present to his mind, will inevitably engage his choice.

It is to no purpose to say that mind is fluctuating and
fickle; for it is so only in proportion as evidence is
imperfect. Let the evidence be increased, and the

persuasion will be made firmer, and the choice more
uniform. It is the nature of individual mind to be
perpetually adding to the stock of its ideas and know-

ledge. Similar to this is the nature of general mind,
exclusively of casualties which, arising from a more

comprehensive order of things, appear to disturb the
order of limited systems. This is confirmed to us, if
a truth of this universal nature can derive confirma-
tion from partial experiments, by the regular advances
of the human mind from century to century, since the
invention of printing.
" Let then this axiom of the
omnipotence of truth
be the rudder of our undertakings. Let us not pre-
cipitately endeavour to accomplish that to-day, which
the dissemination of truth will make unavoidable to-
morrow. Let us not anxiously watch for occasions
and events : the ascendancy of truth is independent
of events. Let us anxiously refrain from violence :
force is not conviction, and is

extremely unworthy of
the cause of justice. Let us admit into our bosoms
neither contempt, animosity, resentment nor revenge.
144 OF PROPERTY.
The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its

advocates should overflow with universal goodwill.
We should love this cause, for it conduces to the
general happiness of mankind. We should love it,
for there is not a man that lives, who in the natural

and tranquil progress of things willnot be made
happier by its approach. The most powerful cause

by which it has been retarded, is the mistake of its
adherents, the air of ruggedness, brutishness and
inflexibility which they have given to that which in

Nothing less than this could
itself is all benignity.
have prevented the great mass of inquirers from

bestowing upon a patient examination.
it Be it the
care of the now increasing advocates of equality to
remove this obstacle to the success of their cause.
We have but two plain duties, which, if we set out
right, it is not easy to mistake. The first is an un-

wearied attention to the great instrument of justice,
reason. We must divulge our sentiments with the
utmost frankness. We must endeavour to impress
them upon the minds of others. In this attempt we

must give way to no discouragement. We must
sharpen our intellectual weapons ; add to the stock of
our knowledge; be pervaded with a sense of the
magnitude of our cause ; and perpetually increase

that calm presence of mind and self-possession which
must enable us to do justice to our principles. Our
second duty is
tranquillity,"
It will not be right to pass over a question that

will inevitably suggest itself to the mind of the reader.
" If an
equalization of property be to take place, not
by law, regulation or public institution, but only
through the private conviction of individuals, in what
manner shall it begin ? " In answering this question
it is not necessary to prove so simple a proposition,
as that all republicanism, all equalization of ranks and
immunities, strongly tends towards an equalization

of property. Thus, in Sparta this last principle was
completely admitted. In Athens the public largesses
were so great as almost to exempt the citizens from
manual labour ; and the rich and eminent only pur-
chased a toleration for their advantages, by the liberal
manner in which they opened their stores to the
public. In Eome, agrarian laws, a wretched and ill-
chosen substitute for equality, but which grew out of

the same spirit, were perpetually agitated. If men
go on to increase in discernment, and this they cer-

tainly will with peculiar rapidity, when the ill-con-
structed governments which now retard their progress
are removed, the same arguments which showed them
the injustice of ranks, will show them the injustice
of one man's wanting that which, while it is in the
possession of another, conduces in no respect to his

well being.
It is a commonerror to imagine, that this injustice
will be felt only by the lower orders who suffer from.
146 OF PROPERTY.
it; and hence it would appear that it can

only be
corrected by violence. But in answer to this it may,
in the first place, be observed that all suffer from it,
the richwho engross, as well as the poor who want.
Secondly, it has been clearly shown in the course
of the present work, that men are not so entirely
governed by self interest as has frequently been

supposed. has been shown, if possible, still more
It
clearly, that the selfish are not governed solely by
sensual gratification or the love of gain, but that the

desire of eminence and distinction is in different de-
grees an universal passion. Thirdly and principally,

the progress of truth is the most powerful of all
causes. Nothing can be more absurd than to imagine
that theory, in the best sense of the word, is not
essentially connected with practice. That which we

can be persuaded clearly and distinctly to approve,
will inevitably modify our conduct. Mind is not an
aggregate of various faculties contending with each
other for the mastery, but on the contrary the will is
in all cases correspondent to the last judgment of
the understanding. When men shall distinctly and
habitually perceive the folly of luxury, and when their
neighbours are impressed with a similar disdain, it
will be impossible that they should pursue the means
of it with the same avidity as before.
It will not be difficult perhaps to trace, in the
progress of modern Europe from barbarism to refine-
ment, a tendency towards the equalization of property.

In the feudal times, as now in India and other parts
of the world, men were born to a certain station, and
it was nearly impossible for a peasant to rise to the
rank of a noble. Except the nobles there were no

men that were rich for commerce, either external
;
or internal, had scarcely an existence. Commerce

was one engine for throwing down this seemingly
impregnable barrier, and shocking the prejudices of
nobles, who were sufficiently willing to believe that
their retainers were a different species of beings from
themselves. Learning was another, and more power-
ful engine. In all ages of the church we see men
of the basest origin rising to the highest eminence.
Commerce proved that others could rise to wealth
beside those who were cased in mail ;
but learning
proved that the low-born were capable of surpassing
their lords. The progressive effect of these ideas
may easily be traced by the attentive observer. Long

after learning began to unfold its powers, its votaries
still submitted to those obsequious manners and ser-
vile dedications, which no man reviews at the present
day without astonishment. It is but lately that men

have known that intellectual excellence can accom-
plish its purposes without a patron. At present,
among the civilized and well informed a man of
slender wealth, but of great intellectual powers and
a firm and virtuous mind, is
constantly received with
148 OF PROPERTY.
attention and deference; and his purse-proud neigh-

bour who should attempt to treat him superciliously,
is sure to be discountenanced in his usurpation. The
inhabitants of distant villages, where long- established
prejudices are slowly destroyed, would be astonished

to see how comparatively small a share wealth has in
determining the degree of attention with which men

are treated in enlightened circles.
These no doubt are but slight indications. It is
with morality in this respect as it is with politics.
The progress is at first so slow as for the most part
to elude the observation of mankind; nor can it

indeed be adequately perceived but by the contempla-
tion and comparison of events during a considerable
portion of time. After a certain interval, the scene
is more fully unfolded, and the advances appear more
rapid and decisive. While wealth was everything,

it was to men would acquire it,
be expected that
though the at
expense of character and integrity.
Absolute and universal truth had not yet shown
itself so decidedly, as to be able to enter the lists
with what dazzled the eye or gratified the sense.

In proportion as the monopolies of rank and com-
panies are abolished, the value of superfluities will
not fail to decline. In proportion as republicanism
gains ground, men will come to be estimated for
what they are, not for what force has given, and force
may take away.
Let us reflect for a moment on the gradual conse-

quences of this revolution of opinion. Liberality of
dealing will be among its earliest results, and of con-
sequence accumulation will become less frequent and
less enormous. Men will not be disposed, as now,
to take
advantage of each other's distresses, and to
demand a price for their aid, not measured by a
general standard, but by the wants of an individual.
They will not consider how much they can extort, but
how much it is reasonable to require. The master
tradesman who employs labourers under him, will be
disposed to give a more ample reward to their in-
dustry, which he is at present enabled to tax chiefly
by the neutral circumstance of having provided a
capital. Liberality on the part of his employer will
complete in the mind of the artisan, what ideas of
political justice willprobably have begun. He will
no loDger spend the little surplus of his earnings in
that dissipation, which is at present one of the prin-
cipal causes that subject him to the arbitrary pleasure

of a superior. He will escape from the irresolution
of slavery and the fetters of despair, and perceive that
independence and ease are scarcely less within his

reach than that of any other member of the com-
munity. This is a natural step towards the still
further progression, in which the labourer will receive

consumer may be required to pay,
entire whatever the
without having a middle man, an idle and useless
ISO OF PROPERTY.
monopolizer, as lie will then be found, to fatten upon

his spoils.
The same sentiments that lead to liberality of deal-
ing, will also lead to liberality of distribution. The

trader, who is unwilling to grow rich by extorting
from his employer or his workmen, will also refuse to
become rich by the not inferior injustice of withhold-
ing from his poor neighbour the supply he wants.

The habit which was created in the former case of
being contented with moderate gains, is closely con-
nected with the habit of being contented with slender
accumulation. He that is not anxious to add to his
heap, will not be reluctant by a benevolent distribu-

tion to prevent its increase. Wealth was once almost
the single object of pursuit that presented itself to
the gross and uncultivated mind. Various objects
will hereafter divide men's attention, the love of
liberty, the love of equality, the pursuits of art and

the desire of knowledge. These objects will not, as
now, be confined to a few, but will gradually be laid

open to all. The love of liberty obviously leads to
the love of man : the sentiment of benevolence will
be increased, and the narrowness of the selfish affec-
tions will decline. The general diffusion of truth will

be productive of general improvement ; and men will
daily approximate towards those views according to
which every object will be appreciated at its true
value. Add to which, that the improvement of which
INTRODUCTION OF THE GENUINE SYSTEM.
we speak is general, not individual. The progress

isthe progress of all. Each man will find his senti-
ments of justice and rectitude echoed, encouraged and
strengthened by the sentiments of his neighbours.
Apostasy will be made eminently improbable, because
the apostate will incur, not only his own censure, but
the censure of every beholder.
One remark will suggest itself upon these con-
siderations.
" If the inevitable progress of improve-
ment insensibly lead towards an equalization of
property, what need was there of proposing it as a
" The answer
specific object to men's consideration ?
to this objection is easy. The improvement in ques-
tion consists in a knowledge of truth. But our know-
ledge will be very imperfect so long as this great
branch of universal justice fails to constitute a part
of it. All truth is useful; can this truth, which is
perhaps more fundamental than any, be without its
benefits ? Whatever be the object towards which
mind spontaneously advances, no mean import-
it is of
ance to us to have a distinct view of that object. Our
advances will thus become accelerated. It is a well-
known principle of morality, that he who proposes
perfection to himself,though he will inevitably fall
short of what he pursues, will make a more rapid
progress, than he who is contented to aim only at
what is imperfect. The benefits to be derived in the
interval from a view of equalization, as one of the
152 OF PROPERTY.
great objects towards which we are tending, are
exceedingly conspicuous. Such a view will strongly

conduce to make us disinterested now. It will teach
us to look with contempt upon mercantile speculations,
commercial prosperity, and the cares of gain. It will
impress us with a just apprehension of what it is of
which man is capable and in which his perfection
consists ; and ambition and activity upon
will fix our
the worthiest objects. Mind cannot arrive at any

great and illustrious attainment, however much the
nature of mind may carry us towards it, without
feeling some presages of its approach ; and it is

reasonable to believe that, the earlier these presages
are introduced, and the more distinct they are made,
the more auspicious will be the event.
INDEX.
Agrarian laws in Home, 145. Equality, 15, 56, 70, 82.
Annual Register, New, 5. Eyre, Chief Justice, letter to,
Antonio, a drama, 21. 17.
A priori method, 12, 18, 31. Fame, a motive to action, 74-79.
Athens, public largesses, 14-5. Fawcett, Joseph, 18.
Ballot, objections to, 9. Fourier, 11.
Benevolence, 8; the source of Franklin, Benjamin, saying of,
cheerfulness, 119. 116.
Burke, 2, 23, 48. Eraser's Magazine, portrait of
Caleb Williams, 16, 17. Godwin, 26.
Canning, 4. French Revolution, influence
Charity, a precarious substitute on political speculation, 1, 18.
for Justice, 45, 46. Genius of Christianity Unveiled,
Chatham, Lord, Life of, 5. 27.
Chaucer, Life of, 26, 27. Gentleman's Magazine 011 God-
Chronicle, The, Godwin's letters win, 3.
to, 17. Gilfillan, George, 17, 18.
Clairmont, Mrs., 22. Godwin, Mary, 17, 20, 26, 28.
Coercion condemned, 9, 36. Godwin, Mrs. See Wollstone-
Coleridge, S. T., 18, 23 opinion
;
craf't.
of Godwin, 31, 32. Godwin, Mrs. See Clairmont.
Communism advocated, 10, 38, Godwin, William, birth and
39, 55, 87-90. childhood, 3 religious train-
;
Co-operation,dangers of ,94-100. ing, 3, 4 a dissenting mini-

;
Coventry, author of Philemon ster, 4; change of faith, 4;

to Hydaspes, 65. early writings, 4, 5 writes
;
Crime, cause and cure of, 57-60. Political Justice, 5; debt to

Cunningham, Allan, quoted, 17. previous authors, 11 ; his
Curran, 23. celebrity, 16; writes Caleb
Davy, Sir H., 19. Williams, 16; letters on the
De Quincey quoted, 2, 15. state trials of 1794, 17; pub-
Disease, intellectual remedy lishes the Enquirer, 18; his
for, 118, 119. friends and enemies, 18, 19,
Dyson, George, 18. 23, 24; personality, 19, 20;
Education, objections to state influence on young men, 20,
system, 5, 105-107. 24; marries Mary Wollstone-
Enquirer, the, 18. craf t, 20 her death, 20 long
; ;
Essays, hitherto unpublished, 27. life a misfortune to Godwin,

INDEX.
21 his second marriage, 22

; ; 82-84, 139; erroneous notions
in business as bookseller, 22 ; of, 45, 46.
debts and borrowing habits, Labour, saving of, 66, 71-74,
22, 23 deterioration of cha-
;
97 ; division of, 111-113.
racter, 21, 22, 25; personal Lamb, Charles, 18, 23.
appearance, 19, 25, 26 failure ;
Land Laws, 52-54, 66.
in business, 26 later writ-
; Liberty, two kinds of, 92, 93.
ings, 26, 27 made Yeoman
; Locke, 11.
Usher of the Exchequer, 27 ; Luxury, evils of, 40-45, 50-52,
death, 28 character, 4, 8, 22,
;
64-67.
23, 28-30; his views, 5-10; Lycurgus, legislation of, 98.
their value, 11, 30-32; their Mackintosh, Sir James, 18, 23 ;
shortcomings, 12, 13 mis- ; quoted, 15.

represented by critics, 13-15. Malthus, Godwin's reply to, 26.
Government, evils of, 7, 8, 14, See Population.
109. Mandeville, Fable of the Sees
Hall, S. C., quoted, 25. quoted, 65.
Happiness, true theory of, 84, 85. Marriage, evils of, 101-105.
Hazlitt, William, quoted, 2, 3. Martineau, Harriet, quoted, 26,
Health, dependent on the will, 28.
118, 119, 125. Massacre, horrors of, 130-132.
Heredity, its influence under- Medicine, intellectual, 123, 125.
rated by Godwin, 6, 13. Mind, nature and functions of,
History not neglected by God- 86, 87, 134, 143, 146 specula- ;
win, 14. tions concerning its future

History, Sketches of, 4. supremacy over matter, 116-
Holcro'ft, Thomas, 4, 5,17,18; 125.
quoted, 20. Monarchy condemned, 9; less
Home Tooke, 17, 18, 23. injurious than property, 47,
Hume, 11, 65. More, Sir Thomas, 53. [48.
Imlay, Mrs. See Wollstone- National education, dangers of,
craft. 9,105-107.
Immortality, speculation con- Necessity, doctrine of, accepted
cerning, 120, 121. by Godwin, 8, 9.
Inchbald, Mrs., 18. Neiv Annual Register,^ 5.
Individuality, Godwin's asser- Northcote, his portrait of God-

tion of, 7, 10, 31, 95-100, 107- win, 19.
109. Ogilvie, William, 54; quoted,
Indolence, not a consequence 53, 62.
of equality, 68-71, 98. Owen, Robert, 11, 31.
Innate ideas, denied by Godwin, Parr, Dr., 18.
Paul, C. Kegan, his Life of
Justice defined, 6, 37, 38 the ; Godwin, 5, 19, 23.
one rule of conduct, 7, 31, 39, Penal Code, iniquity of, 9, 10 ;
INDEX. 155
its connection with property, Rights, doctrine of, rejected by

36. Godwin, 7.
Perfectibility, theory of, ad- Rights of Woman, Vindication

vanced by Priestley, 6. of the, 20.
Pitt, William, and Political Robinson, bookseller, 11.
Justice, 2, 3. Robinson,Henry Crabb, quoted,
Plato, 53. 22, 23, 32.
Political Associations, objec- Rome, agrarian laws, 145.
tions to, 8. Rousseau, 11.
Political Justice, origin and Salaries, 27, 28, 52.
meaning of, 5 ; contemporary Self-love not the chief motive
opinions of, 1-3 ; popularity, of conduct, 69, 138, 146.
3 ; summary of, 5-10 treats
; Sepulchres, Essay on, 14, 27.
of an ideal state, 11 ; its Shelley, P. B., his relations
faults, 12, 13; its value, 11, with Godwin, 24-26.
30-32 ; later editions of, 15 ; Shelley, Mary, 20, 26, 28;
modification of its doctrines, quoted, 17.
15, 21 ; decrease of public Sheridan, 4.
interest, 15, 16. Simplicity, benefits of, 40-42.
Population, principle of, 62, 63 ;
Sketches of History, 4.
answer to Wallace, 114-116, Sleep, an infirmity, 122, 123.
126-128 answer to Malthus,
; Smith, Adam, 112.
26, 34. Society, benefits of, 107-109;
Priestley on Perfectibility, 6, 11. not antagonistic to indivi-
Prometheus Unbound, Shelley's, duality, 109.
the poetical counterpart of Southey, quoted, 2, 19.
Political Justice, 24. Sparta, constitution of, 53, 98,
Property, Godwin's Essay on, 145.
10, 35-152 importance of the
; Spence, Thomas, 54.
subject, 35-37 ; mischievous St. Leon, Godwin's novel, 20, 21.
effects of accumulation, 48- Stephen, Leslie, quoted, 13, 21.
63; equality the only just Swift, quoted, 44, 53.
system, 39, 110; benefits of Talfourd, Sir T. N., 17.
equality, 56, 61, 110, 111, 127, Themistocles, saying of, 108.
149-151 right of property in
; Truth, power of, 132-138, 143,
land, 52-54. 151.
Reason, omnipotence of, 44. Vindication of the Rights of
Religion, its futile condemna- Woman, 20.
tion of property, 43-46, 49. Wallace, Dr. R., quoted, 53, 114.
Rich, the, pensioners of the War, the effect of property, 61 ,
poor, 52-54; appeal to the, 62.

139-142. Wealth, evils of, 41-43, 50-54.
"'Riches and Poverty," essay Wollstonecraft, Mary,20, 21, 28.
on, 18. Wordsworth, 19 ; quoted, 2.
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HANDBOUND

THE ESSAY ON "PROPERTY,"

LIST OF GODWIN'S CHIEF WORKS . . . .33

II. BENEFITS ARISING FROM THE GENUINE SYSTEM OF

III. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

V. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE IM-

VI. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

VII. OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE

VIII. OF THE MEANS OF INTRODUCING THE GENUINE

1. WORK AND WAGES

4. DARWINISM AND POLITICS

7. THE DRINK QUESTION

8. PROMOTION OF GENERAL HAPPINESS

14. CHARITY ORGANIZATION

15. CRIME AND THE PRISON SYSTEM

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON.

tion friendly or hostile, as the case might be of

every reader into whose hands might fall. It is

difficult for us, who live in a less speculative and

sanguine age, to realize the keen interest which at-

contemporary authors, whatever their personal sym-

the philosophical mind of the country as Godwin's

might well have been expected, in an age when

government prosecutions were so rife, that the powers

Privy Council, it was remarked by Pitt that " a three-

guinea book could never do much harm among those

Pitt's judgment seems to have been less shrewd than

deterred from consulting my pages."

Wisbeach, which place William

a follower of Sandeman, " a celebrated north country

perament, that it was his practice, when occasion per-

mitted, to discourse to his school-fellows on the con-

gravity, underlaid, and at times dominated, by an

mons, under the title of Sketches of History, in which,

while in the main writing as an orthodox Calvinist,

profession, he settled in London, where he became

vigorous exponent of advanced political opinion. He

sketch of English History to the New Annual Register,

Political Justice a line of thought to which he was

especially stimulated by his intercourse with Holcroft.

me in executing it. In the first fervour of my enthu-

community." Starting with the assumption that "we

of the impressions made upon them/' Godwin pro-

already been advanced by Priestley in his First Prin-

ing in the connection of one percipient being with

take precedence of all considerations of a private or

personal nature. In dealing with this point, Godwin

partialitieswhich are incompatible with a strict regard

doxical arguments of this portion of his treatise

every member of the community being held morally

necessarily proceeds to the condemnation of all systems

general peace of human society will permit/' a senti-

add, in accordance with the dictates of his slow and

earnestly to be deprecated, and that a revolution, to

fully distinguish between informing the people and

tue, and benevolence. " 1

The doctrine of Necessity is

effects and causes, the more cheerfulness should I feel

individual liberty, are declared to be objectionable.

at parliamentary elections (an assembly of delegates