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...
The text is taken from my copy of the fourth edition, 1842. This version of Political Justice, originally published in 1793, is based on the corrected third edition, published in 1798. BOOK IV OF THE OPERATION OF OPINION IN SOCIETIES AND INDIVIDUALS Appendix, page 148 OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN UNDERSTANDING AND VIRTUE Can eminent virtue exist unconnected with talents?- Nature of virtue. - It is the offspring of understanding. - It generates understanding. - Illustration from other pursuits - love - ambition - applied. Can eminent talents exist unconnected with virtue? - Argument in the affirmative from analogy - in the negative from the universality of moral speculation - from the nature of vise as founded in mistake. - The argument balanced. - Importance of a sense of justice. - Its con- nection with talents. - Illiberality with which men of talents are usually treated. A...