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 PROPERTY CHAPTER XV Of Political Imposture Importance of this topic. - Example in the doctrine of eternal punishment. - Its inutility argued - from history - from the nature of mind. - Second example: the religious sanction of a legislative system. - This idea is, 1. in strict construction impracticable - 2. injurious. - Third example: principle of political order. - Vise has no essential advantage over virtue. - Motives of political im posture. - Effects that attend it. - Situation of the advocates of this system. - Absurdity of their reasonings. All the arguments that have been employed to prove the insufficiency of democracy grow out of this one root, the supposed necessity of deception and prejudice for restraining the turbulence of human passions. Without the assumption of this principle the argument could not be sustained for a moment. The direct and decisive answer would be, 'Are king...