sity, again, taught by the same thinkers, he infers that argument must be omnipotent. The will is not an inscrutable faculty, but simply an act of the judgment, determined by logical impressions. And a conclusion is calmly accepted which has been indignantly repudiated by most necessitarians. A man, like a knife, is set in motion from without; the knife is moved by 'material impulse ;' the man by ‘inducement and persuasion. To hate a murderer, then, is as unreasonable as to hate his weapon. We may disapprove, indeed, more strongly because he is more dangerous, or more likely to repeat his evil deed; but the degree, not the kind, of feeling should differ. Our disapprobation of vice will be of the same kind as our disapprobation of an infectious distemper.' 2 Such a view will tend, as Godwin says, to generate a placid temper. He who regards all things-past, present, and to come-as links of an indissoluble chain, will, as often as he recollects this comprehensive view, find himself assisted to surmount the tumult of passion; and be enabled to reflect upon the moral concerns of mankind, with the same clearness of perception, the same firmness of judgment, and the same constancy of temper, as he is accustomed to do upon the truths of geometry.' Godwin is unconsciously teaching a doctrine resembling that of a very different school. Though a sceptic in metaphysics, and an ultra-utilitarian in morality, his intellectual temperament was congenial to the philosophy which would resolve all reality into pure reason, and which would naturally find the highest good in the attainment of an absolute intellectual calm.

146. Godwin, however, in the name of pure reason, thus reached a tolerably destructive conclusion. He has abolished → family affections, and moral disapprobation, and all but abolished all moral laws, except the one law which promotes the cultivation of happiness. His method as applied to politics is equally sweeping. The omnipotence of reason involves the abolition of all political institutions as well as of moral laws. To one difficulty which besets this part of his writings 2 Ib. i. 392.

1 Godwin, i. 388.

Ib. i. 396. Godwin, in later years, was rather frightened by his own logic in this as in some other cases (see the Essay on Liberty in 'Thoughts on Man,' 1831.)

he is curiously blind. If, as he seems to assume, man is but a passive receptacle for logic, and if, as he infers, truth necessarily prevails, how are we to account for the prevalence of error? Why is the perfectible being so far from perfection? ✓ As theologians explain the existence of evil by assuming an evil principle more or less subordinate to the infinite goodness and omnipotence, so Godwin sets up a dark power of imposture which fights, and has hitherto fought, with singular success against the power of truth. The fact-if Godwin cared for facts-would seem to be in singular opposition to theory. The same strange contradiction appears in the writings of Condorcet, though he endeavoured to place himself at an historical point of view. In both writers, kings and priests represent the incarnation of evil. Hume remarks, with his usual acuteness, upon the absurdity of Bolingbroke's doctrine that our constitution was perfect but our actual degeneracy due to the wickedness of our rulers. A constitution, as he said, which allowed one bad man to ruin a country might suit angels, but could not be good for human beings. The same fallacy, however, on a far larger scale, pervades the whole logic of Godwin and Condorcet. world, according to them, is inhabited by a set of beings quite ready for the millennium, if only they could shake off this monstrous incubus, but no explanation is suggested of the unnatural slavery. Such a doctrine could maintain itself only amongst minds blinded by fierce hatred of the existing order, or in that radically unhistorical stage in which the only alternative to a belief in the divine origin of religious creeds was the belief that they were conscious impostures.

The

147. Godwin, however, untroubled by the shadow of a doubt, makes short work of all existing institutions. It is, as he calmly observes, a 'first principle that monarchy is founded on imposture;' and he involves in his censure not merely virtuous despots, but elective kings, the mixed monarchies' which, indeed, were specially offensive as an embodiment of force and corruption, and even the presidential system of the United States. Aristocracy, 'like monarchy, is founded on falsehood-the offspring of art, foreign to the real nature of things-and must, therefore, like 1 Godwin, ii. 48.

2

2 Ib. ii. 8o.

monarchy, be supported by artifice and false pretence."1 Indeed, it involves a still greater sin against the primitive law of the equality of men. For men, according to Godwin, should not only be equal before the law, but may almost be said to be equal in capacity. Man, the mere recipient of logical impressions, has been stripped of all differences to which a plea for inequality could attach itself; and Godwin apparently regards all inequalities as in some sense a result of the general system of imposture, though here he admits a qualifying phrase.3 Monarchy and aristocracy could in his view be only justified on the theory which divides men from their birth into the saddled and bridled and the booted and spurred. As he holds the contrary view, that they are simple units, differing only numerically, the saddles and the spurs are artificial additions, and therefore to be summarily abolished. The doctrine of equality was susceptible of an interpretation which would allow the aggregate mass of similar units to exercise a very vigorous pressure upon the constituent atoms. But Godwin proceeds a step further by help of his moral theory. Hume had taught him the fallacy of the social contract theory which, with Rousseau and others, supplied the binding force of government. Man, being a purely reasoning animal, and as such under an obligation always to follow the course most conducive to the general happiness, could not pledge himself to obedience; and, indeed, all promises 'absolutely considered' are an evil, as hampering the free action of reason. All coercion is thus essentially wrong. That any men or body of men should impose their sense upon persons of a different opinion is, absolutely speaking, wrong and deeply to be regretted,' though it may occasionally be necessary. Now as government is nothing but regulated force," all government implies evil, and Godwin characteristically jumps to the conclusion that all government should be abolished. With the utmost calmness he sweeps away one restraint after another. The army and the church, of course, vanish at once; but even national assemblies involve that 'flagrant insult upon all truth and justice, the deciding upon

6

6 Ib. i. 258.

Ib. i. 230.

truth by the casting up of numbers," and he decides that a constitution should consist of little more than two articles; one containing a scheme for electoral districts, the other a provision for the meeting of the assembly at stated periods, 'not to say that the latter of these articles may very probably be dispensed with.' Even the punishment of criminals is wrong, because a gallows is not an argument; and the only punishment which he can find it in his heart to tolerate, even as a temporary expedient, is transportation, or, as he delicately calls it, colonisation. We have failed, even in this, from forgetfulness that the 'colonists are men for whom we ought to feel no sentiments but those of kindness and compassion.' It is but a short step to propose the abolition of laws altogether. We can scarcely hesitate to conclude universally that law is an institution of the most pernicious tendency.' Godwin, indeed, verbally admits that anarchy is an evil, and even, though reluctantly, that it is a worse evil than government. He finally decides that we shall employ just as much coercion as is necessary to exclude anarchy, though it might puzzle us to exhibit the difference between anarchy and that ideal state in which all laws and forms of government have been abolished. Godwin says, truly enough, that he differs from Rousseau in that the state of nature is with him the final, as with Rousseau it was the initial, stage of human development. He would, in fact, pulverise society. All association involves some sacrifice of individual judgment, and 'individuality is of the very essence of intellectual excellence.'7 Co-operation is so hateful to him, that he even doubts whether musical concerts or theatrical performances, which involve an absurd and vicious co-operation,' are not doomed to disappear. Cohabitation prevents an absolute independence, and the abolition of the present system of marriage appears to involve no evils." Godwin merely doubts whether the future plan will be promiscuous intercourse, or the formation of alliances terminable at the pleasure of either party. He inclines to the latter hypothesis, as it is the nature of the human mind to persist in its choice, and therefore 'the parties

Godwin, ii. 205.

2 Ib. ii. 292.

Ib. ii. 391.

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having acted upon selection are not likely to forget this selection when the interview is over."1

148. Godwin's attack upon marriage may be illustrated by the remarkable declaration in favour of woman's rights by Mary Wollstonecraft, afterwards his wife. The book is curious as an anticipation of the arguments used in a future generation. It is, in substance, an appeal against the whole theory, sanctioned curiously enough by the teaching of the great revolutionary prophet Rousseau, that women were made for the pleasure of men, and that their education should fit them to be our mistresses rather than our companions. It protests against the degrading influences of the false gallantry which lowers women, under pretence of raising them, and claims for them a perfect political and social equality. There is, indeed, an absence of those direct attacks upon marriage which have appeared in some later writings, and which were, as we have seen, implicitly adopted by Godwin. For whatever reason, that side of the question is left untouched, and the author is content with a vehement assertion of the general principle of abstract rights, and a declaration that the present evils of society are due to the unjust use of physical force, and to the wicked system of class distinctions. The book is throughout rather rhetorical than speculative; and the fervour and even religious spirit of the writer for Mary Wollstonecraft, unlike her husband, was a decided theist, though not a Christian-is impressive in spite of a very unfortunately pompous style. No two things can be less alike than her vehement declamation and the frigid ergotism of her husband. Mary Wollstonecraft has the zeal of the champion of a proselytising faith, and cares little for enquiries into the foundation of a system which commends itself to her intuitive perceptions of the just and generous.

149. The doctrines thus expounded may seem to be the very lunacy of revolutionary speculation. Godwin deifies the principle of individualism; and differs from the later thinkers who agreed with him in regarding the suppression of injustice against individuals in the community' as the only legitimate end of government, by regarding even that amount of compulsion as a temporary rather than a permanent necessity.

1 Godwin, ii. 509.