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 VI OF Forms of Government Uniformity of the nature of man. - Different degrees in which he possesses information. Imperfect schemes of society estimated. - Mode in which improvements are to be realized. -Inference. THERE is one other topic relative to general principles of government, which it seems fitting and useful to examine in this place. "Is there a scheme of political institution which, as coming nearest to perfection, ought to be prescribed to all nations; or, on the other hand, are different forms of government best adapted to the condition of different nations, each worthy to be commended in its peculiar place, but none proper to be transplanted to another soil?" The latter part of this alternative is the creed which has ordinarily prevailed; but it is attended with obvious objections. If one form of government makes one nation happ...
God and the State by Michael Bakunin WITH A PREFACE BY CARLO CAFIERO AND ELISÉE RECLUS First American Edition Price 50 Cents MOTHER EARTH PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION 10 East 125th Street New York City Preface to the First French Edition One of us is soon to tell in all its details the story of the life of Michael Bakunin, but its general features are already sufficiently familiar. Friends and enemies know that this man was great in thought, will, persistent energy; they know also with what lofty contempt he looked down upon wealth, rank, glory, all the wretched ambitions which most human beings are base enough to entertain. A Russian gentleman related by marriage to the highest nobility of the empire, he was one of the first to enter that... (From : Anarchy Archives (The text is from Michael Bakunin....)
fête at Versaille -- State of Court -- Conduct of people -- Middle classes -- King visits Paris-His plans of armed resistance come to nothing -- Insurrection in Paris spread-Emigration of nobles -- Founlon and others put to death When a revolution has once begun, each event in it not merely sums up the events hitherto accomplished; it also contains the chief elements of what is to come; so that the contemporaries of the French Revolution, if they could only have freed themselves from the momentary impressions, and separated the essential from the accidental, might have been able, on the morrow of July 14, to foresee whither events as a whole were thenceforth trending. But even on the evening of the 13th, the Court attached no importance to the movement in Paris. That evening there was a fête at Versailles. There was dancing in the Orangery, and glasses were filled to drink to the coming vic...
...We have said that man is not only the most individualistic being on earth -- he is also the most social. It was a great mistake on the part of Jean Jacques Rousseau to have thought that primitive society was established through a free agreement among savages. But Jean Jacques is not the only one to have said this. The majority of jurists and modern publicists, either of the school of Kant or any other individualist and liberal school, those who do not accept the idea of a society founded upon the divine right of the theologians nor of a society determined by the Hegelian school as a more or less mystical realization of objective morality, nor of the naturalists' concept of a primitive animal society, all accept, nolens volens, and for la... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
This work is part of the International Institute for Social History collection and appears in Anarchy Archives with ISSH's permission. Thoughts Occasioned By The Perusal Of Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, Preached At Christ Church, April 15, 1800: Being A Reply to the Attacks of Dr. Parr, Mr. Mackintosh, the Author of an Essay On Population, and Others. by William Godwin LONDON: Printed by Taylor and Wilks, Chancery-Lane; and sold by G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-Row. 1801. I HAVE now continued for some years a silent, not an inattentive, spectator of the flood of ribaldry, invective and intolerance which has been poured out against me and my writings. The work which has principally afforded a topic for the exercise of this malignity has been... (From : Anarchy Archives.)