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 VI Opinion as a Subject of Political Institution CHAPTER VI Of Libels Public libels. - Injustice of an attempt to pre- scribe the method in which public questions shall be discussed. - Its pusillanimity. - Invita- tions to tumult. - Private libels. - Reasons in favor of their being subjected to restraint. - Answer. - 1. It is necessary the truth should be told. - Salutary effects of the unrestrained investigation of character. - Objection: freedom of speech would be productive of calumny, not of justice. - Answer. - Future history of libel. - 2. It is necessary men should be taught to be sincere. - Extent of the evil which arises from a command to be insincere. - The mind spon- taneously shrinks from the prosecution of a libel. - Conclusion. IN the examination already bestowed upon the article of heresy, political and religious,1 we have anticipated one of...