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William Godwin (1756-1836). Political Justice and Individual Growth. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays

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William Godwin (1756-1836). Political Justice and Individual Growth. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record David J. Brewer, et al., eds.  The World’s Best Essays.  1900. Political Justice and Individual Growth
By William Godwin (1756–1836) From “An Inquiry concerning Political Justice,” Book VIII.

IT would be absurd to say that we are not capable of truth, of evidence and agreement. In these respects, as far as mind is in a state of progressive improvement, we are perpetually coming nearer to each other. But there are subjects about which we shall continually differ, and ought to differ. The ideas, the associations, and the circumstances of each man are properly his own; and it is a pernicious system that would lead us to require all men, however different their circumstances, to act in many of the common affairs of life by a precise general rule. Add to this, that, by the doctrine of progressive improvement, we shall always be erroneous, though we shall every day become less erroneous. The proper method for hastening the decay of error is not by brute force, or by regulation, which is one of the classes of force, to endeavor to reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but, on the contrary, by teaching every man to think for himself.

1   From these principles it appears that everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is in some degree an evil. A man in solitude is obliged to sacrifice or postpone the execution of his best thoughts to his own convenience. How many admirable designs have perished in the conception by means of this circumstance! The true remedy is for men to reduce their wants to the fewest possible, and as much as possible to simplify the mode of supplying them. It is still worse when a man is also obliged to consult the convenience of others. If I be expected to eat or to work in conjunction with my neighbor, it must either be at a time most convenient to me, or to him, or to neither of us. We cannot be reduced to a clockwork uniformity.

2   Hence it follows that all supererogatory co-operation is carefully to be avoided (common labor and common meals). “But what shall we say to co-operation that seems to be dictated by the nature of the work to be performed?” It ought to be diminished. At present it is unreasonable to doubt that the consideration of the evil of co-operation is in certain urgent cases to be postponed to that urgency. Whether by the nature of things co-operation of some sort will always be necessary is a question that we are scarcely competent to decide. At present, to pull down a tree, to cut a canal, to navigate a vessel, requires the labor of many. Will it always require the labor of many? When we look at the complicated machines of human contrivance, various sorts of mills, of weaving engines, of steam engines, are we not astonished at the compendium of labor they produce? Who shall say where this species of improvement must stop? At present such inventions alarm the laboring part of the community; and they may be productive of temporary distress, though they conduce in the sequel to the most important interests of the multitude. But in a state of equal labor their utility will be liable to no dispute. Hereafter it is by no means clear that the most extensive operations will not be within the reach of one man; or to make use of a familiar instance, that a plow may not be turned into a field, and perform its office without the need of superintendence. It was in this sense that the celebrated Franklin conjectured that “mind would one day become omnipotent over matter.”

3   The conclusion of the progress which has here been sketched is something like a final close to the necessity of manual labor. It is highly instructive in such cases to observe how the sublime geniuses of former times anticipated what seems likely to be the future improvement of mankind. It was one of the laws of Lycurgus that no Spartan should be employed in manual labor. For this purpose under his system it was necessary that they should be plentifully supplied with slaves devoted to drudgery. Matter or, to speak more accurately, the certain and unintermitting laws of the universe, will be the Helots of the period we are contemplating. We shall end in this respect, O immortal legislator! at the point from which you began.

4   To these prospects perhaps the objection will once again be repeated, “that men, delivered from the necessity of manual labor, will sink into supineness.” What narrow views of the nature and capacities of mind do such objections imply! The only thing necessary to put intellect into action is motive. Are there no motives equally cogent with the prospect of hunger? Whose thoughts are most active, most rapid and unwearied, those of Newton or the plowman? When the mind is stored with prospects of intellectual greatness and utility, can it sink into torpor?…

5   No doubt man is formed for society. But there is a way for a man to lose his own existence in that of others that is eminently vicious and detrimental. Every man ought to rest upon his own centre, and consult his own understanding. Every man ought to feel his independence, that he can assert the principles of justice and truth, without being obliged treacherously to adapt them to the peculiarities of his situation, and the errors of them.

6   No doubt man is formed for society. But he is formed for, or, in other words, his faculties enable him to serve, the whole, and not a part. Justice obliges us to sympathize with a man of merit more fully than with an insignificant and corrupt member of society. But all partialities strictly so called tend to the injury of him who feels them, of mankind in general, and even of him who is their object. The spirit of partiality is well expressed in the memorable saying of Themistocles, “God forbid that I should sit upon a bench of justice, where my friends found no more favor than strangers!” In fact, as has been repeatedly seen in the course of this work, we sit in every action of our lives upon a bench of justice; and play in humble imitation the part of the unjust judge, whenever we indulge the smallest atom of partiality.

7   Such are the limitations of the social principle. These limitations in reality tend to improve it and render its operations beneficial. It would be a miserable mistake to suppose that the principle is not of the utmost importance to mankind. All that in which the human mind differs from the intellectual principle in animals is the growth of society. All that is excellent in man is the fruit of progressive improvement, of the circumstances of one age taking advantage of the discoveries of a preceding age, and setting out from the point at which they had arrived. Without society we should be wretchedly deficient in motives to improvement. But what is most of all, without society our improvements would be nearly useless. Mind without benevolence is a barren and a cold existence. It is in seeking the good of others, in embracing a great and expansive sphere of action, in forgetting our own individual interests, that we find our true element.

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