William Godwin
1793
ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MODERN MORALS AND HAPPINESS
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BOOK I: OF THE POWERS OF MAN CONSIDERED IN HIS SOCIAL CAPACITY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The object proposed in the following work is an investigation concerning that
form of public or political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal
action, extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found
most to conduce to the general benefit. How may the peculiar and independent
operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved?
How may the security each man ought to possess, as to his life, and the
employment of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding,
be most certainly defended from invasion? How may the individuals of the human
species be made to contribute most substantially to the general improvement and
happiness? The enquiry here undertaken has for its object to facilitate the
solution of these interesting questions.
In entering upon this investigation nothing can be more useful than to examine
into the extent of the influence that is to be ascribed to political
institutions; in other words, into the powers of man, as they have modified, or
may hereafter modify his social state of existence. Upon this subject there has
been considerable difference of opinion.
The most usually received hypothesis is that which considers the effects of
government or social institutions, whether acting by express regulations or
otherwise, as rather of a negative than positive nature. No doubt the purposes
for which government was established are in their strictest sense negative; to
maintain us in the possession of certain advantages against the occasional
hostility either of domestic or foreign invaders. But does the influence of
government stop at the point for the sake of which mankind were first prevailed
on to adopt it?
Those who believe that it does or can stop at this point necessarily regard it
as a matter of subordinate disquisition, or at most only co-ordinate with
several others. They survey man in his individual character, in his domestic
connections, and in the pursuits and attachments which his feelings may incline
him to adopt. These of course fill the principal part of the picture. These are
supposed, by the speculators of whom we now speak, to be in ordinary cases
independent of all political systems and establishments. It is only in peculiar
emergencies and matters that depart from the accustomed routine of affairs that
they conceive a private individual to have any occasion to remember, or to be in
the least affected by the government of his country. If he commit or is supposed
to commit any offence against the general welfare, if he find himself called
upon to repress the offence of another, or if any danger from foreign hostility
threaten the community in which he resides, in these cases and these only is he
obliged to recollect that he has a country. These considerations impose upon him
the further duty of consulting, even when no immediate danger is nigh, how
political liberty may best be maintained, and maladministration prevented.
Many of the best patriots and most popular writers on the subject of government
appear to have proceeded upon the principles here delineated. They have treated
morality and personal happiness as one science, and politics as a different one.
But, while they have considered the virtues and pleasures of mankind as
essentially independent of civil policy, they have justly remarked, that the
security with which the one can be exercised and the other enjoyed will be
decided by the wisdom of our public institutions and the equity with which they
are administered; and have earnestly pressed it upon the attention of mankind
not to forget, in the rectitude or happiness of the present moment, those
precautions and that "generous plan of power"(1*) which may tend to render it
impregnable to the stratagems of corruption or the insolence of tyranny.(2*)
But, while we confess ourselves indebted to the labours of these writers, and
perhaps still more to the intrepid language and behaviour of these patriots, we
are incited to enquire whether the topic which engaged their attention be not of
higher and more extensive importance than they suspected. Perhaps government is
not merely in some cases the defender, and in other the treacherous foe of the
domestic virtues. Perhaps it insinuates itself into our personal dispositions,
and insensibly communicates its own spirit to our private transactions. Were not
the inhabitants of ancient Greece and Rome indebted in some degree to their
political liberties for their excellence in art, and the illustrious theatre
they occupy in the moral history of mankind? Are not the governments of modern
Europe accountable for the slowness and inconstancy of its literary efforts, and
the unworthy selfishness that characterizes its inhabitants? Is it not owing to
the governments of the East that that part of the world can scarcely be said to
have made any progress in intellect or science?
When scepticism or a spirit of investigation has led us to start these
questions, we shall be apt not to stop at them. A wide field of speculation
opens itself before us. If government thus insinuate itself in its effects into
our most secret retirements, who shall define the extent of its operation? If it
be the author of thus much, who shall specify the points from which its
influence is excluded? May it not happen that the grand moral evils that exist
in the world, the calamities by which we are so grievously oppressed, are to be
traced to political institution as their source, and that their removal is only
to be expected from its correction? May it not be found that the attempt to
alter the morals of mankind singly and in detail is an injudicious and futile
undertaking; and that the change of their political institutions must keep pace
with their advancement in knowledge, if we expect to secure to them a real and
permanent improvement? To prove the affirmative of these questions shall be the
business of this first book.
The method to be pursued for that purpose shall be, first, to take a concise
survey of the evils existing in political society;(3*) secondly, to show that
these evils are to be ascribed to public institutions;(4*) and thirdly, that
they are not the inseparable condition of our existence, but admit of removal
and remedy.(5*)
NOTES:
1. Addison: Cato, Act iv.
2. These remarks will for the most part apply to the English writers upon
politics, from Sydney and Locke to the author of the Rights of Man. The more
comprehensive view has been strikingly delineated by Rousseau and Helvetius.
3. Chapters II, III.
4. Chapter IV.
5. Chapters V, VI, VII, VIII.
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF POLITICAL SOCIETY
The extent of the influence of political systems will be forcibly illustrated by
a concise recollection of the records of political society.
It is an old observation that the history of mankind is little else than a
record of crimes. Society comes recommended to us by its tendency to supply our
wants and promote our well being. If we consider the human species, as they were
found previously to the existence of political society, it is difficult not to
be impressed with emotions of melancholy. But, though the chief purpose of
society is to defend us from want and inconvenience, it effects this purpose in
a very imperfect degree. We are still liable to casualties, disease, infirmity
and death. Famine destroys its thousands, and pestilence its ten thousands.
Anguish visits us under every variety of form, and day after day is spent in
languor and dissatisfaction. Exquisite pleasure is a guest of very rare
approach, and not less short continuance.
But, though the evils that arise to us from the structure of the material
universe are neither trivial nor few, yet the history of political society
sufficiently shows that man is of all other beings the most formidable enemy to
man. Among the various schemes that he has formed to destroy and plague his
kind, war is the most terrible. Satiated with petty mischief and retail of
insulated crimes, he rises in this instance to a project that lays nations
waste, and thins the population of the world. Man directs the murderous engine
against the life of his brother; he invents with indefatigable care refinements
in destruction; he proceeds in the midst of gaiety and pomp to the execution of
his horrid purpose; whole ranks of sensitive beings, endowed with the most
admirable faculties, are mowed down in an instant; they perish by inches in the
midst of agony and neglect, lacerated with every variety of method that can give
torture to the frame.
This is indeed a tremendous scene! Are we permitted to console ourselves under
the spectacle of its evils by the rareness with which it occurs, and the
forcible reasons that compel men to have recourse to this ...
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