Inquiry Concerning Political Justice by William Godwin 1793 INQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MODERN MORALS AND HAPPINESS 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 indi...
BOOK III Principles of Government CHAPTER III OF PROMISES Promises not the foundation of morality - are absolutely considered, an evil - are of unfrequent necessity. - Imperfect promises unavoidable. - Perfect promises in some cases necessary.-Obligation of promises - of the same nature as the obligation not to invade. another man's property - admits of gradations. - Recapitulation. - Application. THE whole principle of an original contract rests upon the obligation under which we are conceived to be placed to observe our promises. The reasoning upon which it is founded is "that we have promised obedience to government, and therefore are bound to obey." The doctrine of a social contract would never have been thought worth the formality of an argument had it not been presumed to be one of our first and paramount obligations to perform our engagements. It may be proper therefore to inquire in...
ESSAY IV OF THE DURABILITY OF HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS AND PRODUCTIONS There is a view of the character of man, calculated more perhaps than any other to impress us with reverence and awe. Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him. All other animals have but one object in view in their more considerable actions, the supply of the humbler accommodations of their nature. Man has a power sufficient for the accomplishment of this object, and a residue of power beyond, which he is able, and which he not unfrequently feels himself prompted, to employ in consecutive efforts, and thus, first by the application and arrangement of material substances, and afterwards by the faculty he is found to possess of giving a permanent record to his thoughts, to realize the archetypes and conceptions which previously existed only in his mind. One method, calculated to place this fac...