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 V OF EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE POWER CHAPTER XIII OF THE ARISTOCRATICAL CHARACTER Intolerance of aristocracy - dependent for its success upon the ignorance of the multitude. - Precautions necessary for its support. - Different kinds of aristocracy. - Aristocracy of the Romans: its virtues - its vises. Aristocratical distribution of property - regulations by which it is maintained - avarice it engenders. - Argument against innovation from the present happy establishment of affairs considered. - Conclusion. ARISTOCRACY, in its proper signification, is neither less nor more than a scheme for rendering more permanent and visible, by the interference of political institution, the inequality of mankind. Aristocracy, like monarchy, is founded in falsehood, the offspring of art foreign to the real nature of things, and must therefore, like monarchy, be supported by artifice and false pretenses. Its empire however...