Note: Godwin wrote this piece, according to a note in the manuscript, "while the Enquirer was in the press, under the impression that the favor of the public might have demanded another volume." The study of history may well be ranked among those pursuits which are most worthy to be chosen by a rational being. The study of history divides itself into two principal branches; the study of mankind in a mass, of the progress the fluctuations, the interests and the vises of society; and the study of the individual. The history of a nation might be written in the first of these senses, entirely in terms of abstraction, and without descending so much as to name one of those individuals to which the nation is composed. It is curious, and it is impo... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER VIII. South America Of what I may denominate the ancient history of America, we know infinitely less, than of the history of China and of India. These latter countries still exist in a state very similar to their ancient state, and have been made the subject of investigation, the former to a succession of travelers, and the latter to a number of gentlemen for the last thirty or forty years, who have studied its ancient and esoteric language, and have devoted a considerable part of their lives to the investigation of the Hindu policy and literature. But the Spaniards in their invasion of America, were, I suppose, the most merciless destroyers any where to be found in the annals of mankind: all knowledge, all history, all antiquities sunk before their savage barbarities. Yet there is something so much to the purpose of our present inquiry,...
WILLIAM GODWIN GODWIN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF CALEB WILLIAMS As written for insertion in the edition of FLEETWOOD when that novel was reprinted in Bentley's "Standard Novels' as No. XXII London, November 20, 1832 CALEB WILLIAMS has always been regarded by the public with an unusual degree of favor. The proprietor of "THE STANDARD NOVELS" has therefore imagined, that even an account of the concoction and mode of writing the work would be viewed with some interest. I had always felt in myself some vocation towards the composition of a narrative of fictitious adventure; and among the things of obscure note, which I have above referred to, were two or three pieces of this nature. It is not therefore extraordinary that some project of the sort should have suggested itself on the present occasion [after the publication of Political Justice] I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adv...