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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29978-8.txt b/29978-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c5b663 --- /dev/null +++ b/29978-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5652 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle, by H. N. Brailsford + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle + +Author: H. N. Brailsford + +Release Date: September 13, 2009 [EBook #29978] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHELLEY, GODWIN AND THEIR CIRCLE *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + + THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY + OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE + + LXXVII + SHELLEY, GODWIN + AND THEIR CIRCLE + + + + _EDITORS OF_ + THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY + OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE + + PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY, O.M., LL.D., F.B.A. + JULIAN S. HUXLEY, D.Sc., F.R.S. + PROFESSOR G. N. CLARK, LL.D., F.B.A. + + + + SHELLEY, GODWIN + AND THEIR CIRCLE + + + _By_ + H. N. BRAILSFORD + M.A. + + + OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + + + +_First published in 1913, and reprinted in 1919, 1925, 1927, 1930, 1936 +and 1942_ + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 7 + + II THOMAS PAINE 56 + + III WILLIAM GODWIN AND THE REVOLUTION 78 + + IV "POLITICAL JUSTICE" 94 + + V GODWIN AND THE REACTION 142 + + VI GODWIN AND SHELLEY 168 + + VII MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 186 + + VIII SHELLEY 212 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 252 + + INDEX 255 + + + + +SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND +THEIR CIRCLE + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND + + +The history of the French Revolution in England begins with a sermon and +ends with a poem. Between that famous discourse by Dr. Richard Price on +the love of our country, delivered in the first excitement that followed +the fall of the Bastille, and the publication of Shelley's _Hellas_ +there stretched a period of thirty-two years. It covered the dawn, the +clouding and the unearthly sunset of a hope. It begins with the grave +but enthusiastic prose of a divine justly respected by earnest men, who +with a limited horizon fulfilled their daily duties in the city. It ends +in the rapt vision, the magical music of a singer, who seemed as he sang +to soar beyond the range of human ears. The hope passes from the +confident expectation of instant change, through the sobrieties of +disillusionment and the recantations of despair, to the iridescent +dreams of a future which has taken wing and made its home in a fairy +world. + +In 1789 when Dr. Price preached to his ardent congregation of +Nonconformist Radicals in the meeting-house at the Old Jewry, the +prospect was definite and the place of the millennium was merely the +England over which George III. ruled. The hope was a robust but +pedestrian "mental traveller," and its limbs wore the precise garments +of political formulæ. It looked for honest Parliaments and manhood +suffrage, for the triumph of democracy and the abolition of war. Its +scene as Wordsworth put it, was + + Not in Utopia, subterraneous fields, + Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where, + But in the very world which is the world + Of all of us, the place where in the end + We find our happiness, or not at all. + + +The impetus of its own aspiration carried it swiftly beyond the prosaic +demand for Parliamentary Reform. It evolved its programme for the +reconstruction of all human institutions, and projected the amendment of +human nature itself. America had made an end of kings and France was in +the full tide of revolution. Nothing was too mighty for this +new-begotten hope, and the path to human perfectibility stretched as +plain as the narrow road to Bunyan's Heavenly City. + +There followed the phase when persecution from alarmed defenders of +things as they are, disgust at the failures of the revolution in France, +and contempt for the futilities of the revolution at home, drove the new +movement into as many refuges as its votaries had temperaments. For some +there was cynicism, for others recantation. "The French Revolution" as +Hazlitt put it, "was the only match that ever took place between +philosophy and experience; and waking from the trance of theory we hear +the words Truth, Reason, Virtue, Liberty, with the same indifference or +contempt that a cynic who has married a jilt or a termagant listens to +the rhapsodies of lovers." Godwin found his own alluring by-way, and +turning away at once from political repression and political agitation, +became the pioneer of philosophic anarchism. To Shelley at the end of +this marvellous thirty years of ardour, speculation, and despair, the +hope became winged. She had her place no longer in "the very world +which is the world of all of us." She had moved to + + Kingless continents, sinless as Eden + Around mountains and islands inviolably + Prankt on the sapphire sea. + + +It requires no inordinate effort for us who live in an equable political +climate to realise the atmosphere of Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. The +lapse of a century indeed has made him a more intelligible figure than +he could have seemed to the generation which immediately followed him. +He was temperate in his rationalism and thrifty in his philanthropy. He +tended to Unitarianism in his theology, but was a sturdy defender of +Free Will. He had written a widely-read apology for the Colonial side in +the American Civil War. A stout individualist in his political theory, +inspired, as were nearly all the English progressive thinkers of his +day, by an extreme jealousy of State action, he yet guarded himself +carefully against anarchical conclusions, and followed Saint Paul in +teaching obedience to magistrates. He had written a treatise on ethics +which on some points anticipated Kant. But his most characteristic +pre-occupation was a study of finance in the interests of national +thrift and social benevolence. This cold moralist, who despised the +emotional aspects of human nature and found no place for the affections +in his scheme of the virtues, lapsed into passion when he attacked the +National Debt, and developed an arithmetical enthusiasm when he +explained his plan for providing through voluntary insurance for the old +age of the worthy poor. He was not quite the first of the philosophers +to dream of the abolition of war, and to plan an international tribunal +for the settlement of disputes between nations. In that he followed +Leibnitz, as he anticipated Kant. + +It was such an essentially cold and calculating intellect as this which +in that age of ferment could launch the new doctrine of the infinite +perfectibility of mankind. Modern readers know the Rev. Dr. Price only +from the fulminations of Burke, in whose pages he figures now as an +incendiary and again as a fool. He was in point of fact the soul of +sobriety and the mirror of all the respectabilities in his serious +dissenting world. It is worth while to note that he was also, with his +friend Priestley, perhaps the only English Nonconformist preacher who +has ever enjoyed a European reputation. No less a man than Condorcet +refers to him as one of the formative minds of the century. + +Dr. Price's sermon is worth a glance, not merely because it was the goad +which provoked Burke to eloquent fury, but still more because it is a +document which records for us the mood in which even the older and +graver progressives of his generation greeted the French Revolution. It +was an official discourse delivered before the Society for Commemorating +the Revolution in Great Britain. This typically English club claimed to +have met annually since 1688 for a dinner and a sermon. The centenary of +our own Revolution and the events in France gave it for a moment a +central place on the political stage. It was an eminently respectable +society, mainly composed of middle-class Nonconformists, with four +Doctors of Divinity on its Committee, an entrance fee of half-a-guinea, +and a radical peer, Earl Stanhope, for its Chairman. At its annual +meeting in November, 1789, Dr. Price "disdaining national partialities +and rejoicing in every triumph of liberty and justice over arbitrary +power," had moved an address congratulating the French National Assembly +on "the Revolution in that country and on the prospect it gives to the +two first kingdoms in the world of a common participation in the +blessings of civil and religious liberty." The sermon was an eloquent +expansion of this address. + +It opens with a defence of the cosmopolitan attitude which could rejoice +at an improvement in the prospects of our hereditary rival. Christ +taught not patriotism, but universal benevolence, as the parable of the +Good Samaritan shows. "My neighbour" is he to whom I can do most good, +whether foreigner or fellow-citizen. We should love our country +"ardently but not exclusively," considering ourselves "citizens of the +world," and taking care "to maintain a just regard to the rights of +other countries." Patriotism had been in history a scourge of mankind. +It was among the Romans no better than "a principle holding together a +band of robbers in their attempts to crush all liberty but their own." +The aim of those who love their kind can be only to spread Truth, Virtue +and Liberty. To make mankind happy and free, it should suffice to +instruct them. "Ignorance is the parent of bigotry, intolerance, +persecution and slavery. Inform and instruct mankind and these evils +will be excluded." There follow some rambling remarks on the need for a +revisal of the Liturgy and the Articles, a complaint of the servility +shown in a recent address to King George, who ought to consider himself +rather the servant than the sovereign of his people, and a prediction +that France and England, each delivered from despotism by a happy +revolution, will now "not merely refrain from engaging in wars with one +another, but unite in preventing wars everywhere." As for our own +Revolution of 1688, it was a great but not a perfect work. It had left +religious toleration incomplete and the Parliamentary franchise unequal. +We must continue to enforce its principles, especially in the matter of +removing the disabilities that still weigh upon dissenters. Those +principles are briefly (1) Liberty of Conscience, (2) The right to +resist power when it is abused, and (3) The right to choose our own +governors, to cashier them for misconduct and to frame a government for +ourselves. There follows a curious little moral exhortation which shows +how far the good Dr. Price was from forgetting his duties as a preacher. +He had been distressed by the lax morals of some of his colleagues in +the agitation for Reform, and he pauses to deplore that "not all who are +zealous in this cause are as conspicuous for purity of morals as for +ability." He cannot reconcile himself to the idea of an immoral patriot, +and begs that they will at least hide their vices. The old man finds +his peroration in Simeon's prayer. He had seen the great salvation. "I +have lived to see thirty millions of people indignant and resolute, +spurning at slavery and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice, +their king led in triumph and an arbitrary monarch surrendering himself +to his subjects. And now methinks I see the ardour for liberty catching +and spreading, a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the +dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of +priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience." + +The world remembers the scholar Salmasius only because he provoked +Milton to a learned outbreak of bad manners. There is something immortal +even in the ill-temper of great men, and Dr. Price lives in modern +memory chiefly because he moved Burke to declamatory rage. His +_Reflections on the French Revolution_ was an answer to the Old Jewry +sermon, which, eloquent itself, was to beget much eloquence in others. +For four years the mighty debate went on, and it became as the +disputants conversed across the echoes of the Terror, rather a dialogue +between the past and the future, than a discussion between human voices. +Burke answered Dr. Price, and to Burke in turn replied Tom Paine with +the brilliant, confident, hard-hitting logic of a pamphlet (_The Rights +of Man_) which for all the efforts of Pitt to suppress it, is still read +and circulated to-day. Two notable answers were ephemeral, one from Mary +Wollstonecraft, and another (_Vindiciae Gallicae_) from Mackintosh, who +afterwards recanted his own opinions and lived to be known as Sir James. + +To lift the discussion to the height of a philosophical argument was +reserved for William Godwin, a mind steeped in the French and English +speculation of his century, gifted with rare powers of analysis, and +inspired with a faith in human reason in general and his own logical +capacity in particular, which no English mind before him or after him +has approached. In spite of a lucid style and a certain cold eloquence +which illumines if it does not warm, Godwin's _Political Justice_ was +dead before its author, while Burke lives and was never more widely read +than to-day. + +The ghosts of great men have an erratic habit in walking. It is passion +rather than any mere intellectual momentum which drives them from the +tomb. There is, moreover, in Burke a variety and a humanity which +appeals in some one of its phases and moods to all of us in turn. The +great store-house of his emotions and his phrases has the catholicity of +the Bible. Each man can find in it what he seeks. He is like the +luminous phantom which walked in _Faust_ through the witcheries of the +Brocken. Each man saw in her his own first love. He has been hero and +prophet to Whigs and Tories, and in our own generation we have seen him +bequeath an equal inspiration to a Cecil and a Morley. It is no part of +our task to attempt even the briefest exposition of his philosophy; we +are concerned with him here chiefly as an influence which helped by its +vehemence and its superb rhetorical exaggerations to drive the +revolutionary thinkers who answered him to parallel exaggerations and +opposite extremes. Inspired himself with a distrust of generalisation, +and a hatred of philosophers, he none the less evolved a philosophy as +he talked. Against his will he was forced into the upper air in his +furious pursuit of the "political aeronauts." His was a volcanic +intellect which flung up principles in its moments of eruption, and +poured them forth pell-mell with the vituperations and the exaltations. + +No logical dissection can reach the inner truth of Burke. Every +statement of a principle in an orator or a pamphleteer is coloured by +the occasion, the emotion, and the mood of an audience to whom it is +addressed. Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the +subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French +Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of +his philosophical _obiter dicta_ were uttered. The real nerve of the +thinking of a mind so vehement, so passionate, so essentially dramatic +is to be sought not in some principle which was the major premise of his +syllogisms, but in some pervading emotion. Fanny Burney said of him that +when he spoke of the Revolution his face immediately assumed "the +expression of a man who is going to defend himself against murderers." +That is exactly the tone of all his later utterances. His mission was to +spread panic because he felt it. By no other reading can one explain or +excuse the rage of his denunciation of the excellent Dr. Price. + +If his was philosophy it was philosophy seeing red. He predicted the +Terror before it occurred, and by his work in stirring Europe to the +coalition against France, he did much to realise his own forebodings. +But, to do Burke justice, his was a disinterested fear, and it would be +fairer to call it a hatred of cruelty. Burke was not a man to take fire +because he thought a principle false. His was rather the practical logic +which found a principle false because it led to evil; and the evil which +caused his mind to blaze was nearly always cruelty. He hated the French +philosophers because in the groves of their Academy "at the end of every +vista you see nothing but the gallows." He pursued Rousseau and Dr. +Price because their teaching, on his reading of cause and effect, had +set the tumbrils rolling and weighted the guillotine for Marie +Antoinette. It was precisely the same impulse which had caused him to +pursue Warren Hastings for his cruelties towards the Begums of Oude. The +spring of all this speculation was a nerve which twitched with a +maddening sensitiveness at the sight of suffering. + +To rouse Burke's genius to its noblest utterance, there must needs be a +suffering which he could personify and dramatise. He saw nothing of the +dull peasant misery which in truth explained the Revolution. He ignored +those catalogues of injustice and wrong that composed the mandates (the +_cahiers_) which the Deputies carried with them to the National +Assembly. He forgot the famines, the exactions, the oppressive +privileges which made revolt, and saw only the pathos of the Queen's +helplessness before it. In Paine's immortal epigram, he "pitied the +plumage and forgot the dying bird." But it is paradoxically true that +while he pursued the friends of humanity, his real impulse was the +hatred of cruelty which modern men call humanitarian. To that hatred he +was always true. No abstract principle, but always this dominating +passion, covers his inconsistencies, and bridges the gulf between his +earlier Whiggery and his later Toryism. In the French Revolution he saw +only cruelty, and he opposed it as he had opposed Indian Imperialism, +negro slavery, the savage criminal justice of his day, and the penal +laws against the Irish Catholics. Of Burke one must ask not so much What +did he believe? as Whom did he pity? + +It was the contrast of temperament and attitude which made the cleavage +between Burke and the friends of the French Revolution deep and +irreconcilable. In the fundamentals of political theory he often seems +to agree with some of them, and they differ as often among themselves. +Burke seems often to retain the typical eighteenth century fiction that +the State is based on some original pact or social contract. That was +Rousseau's starting point, and it was Godwin's work (after Hume) to +shatter this heritage which French and English speculation had been +content to accept from Locke. There are passages in which Burke appears +to accept the notion, unintelligible to modern minds, of the natural, or +as he put it, "primitive," rights of man. He reserved his contempt for +those who sought to tabulate or codify these rights, and he would always +brush aside any argument based upon them, by asking the prior question, +what in the given emergency was best for the good of society, or the +happiness of men. Paine, when he was in his more _a priori_ moods, was +capable of deducing his whole practical system from the abstract rights +of man; Godwin was a modern in virtually dismissing the whole notion. +While Burke was belabouring Dr. Price, he whittled away the whole +theoretic significance of the English Revolution of 1688, but he +remained its partisan. He tried to deny Dr. Price's claim to "choose our +governors," but he could not relapse into the seventeenth-century Tory +doctrine of non-resistance, and would always allow in extreme cases the +right of rebellion. Here again there was no final opposition, for there +are passages in Godwin against rash rebellion and the anarchy of +revolution more impressive, if less emotional, than anything in Burke. + +Modern criticism is disposed to base the greatness of Burke on his +inspired anticipation of the historical view of politics. Quotation has +made classical those noble passages which glorify the continuous life of +mankind, link the present by a chain of pieties to the past, conjure up +a glowing vision of the social organism, and celebrate the wisdom of our +ancestors and the infallibility of the race. There was, indeed, a real +opposition of temperament here; but Burke had no monopoly of the +historical vision. It is a travesty to suggest that the revolutionary +school despised history. Paine, indeed, was a self-taught man, who knew +nothing of history and cared less. But Godwin wrote history with success +and even penned a remarkable essay (_On Sepulchres_) in which he +anticipated the Comtist veneration for the great dead, and proposed a +national scheme for covering the country with monuments to their memory. +Condorcet, perhaps the greatest intellect and certainly the noblest +character among them, wrote the first attempt at a systematic +evolutionary interpretation of history. + +But it makes some difference whether a man sees history from above or +from below. Burke saw it from the comfortable altitude of the Whig +aristocracy to which he had allied himself. The revolutionary school saw +its inverse, from the standpoint of the "swinish multitude" (an angry +indiscretion of Burke's) for whom it had worked to less advantage. Paine +was a man of the people, and Godwin belonged by birth to the dissenting +community for whom history had been chiefly a record of persecution, +illuminated by rebellion. For Burke the product of history was the +sacred constitution in which he saw an "entailed heritage," the social +fabric "well cramped and bolted together in all its parts." For Godwin +it was mainly a chronicle of criminal wars, savage oppressions, and +social misery. Burke, in a moment of paradoxical exaltation, was capable +of singing the praises of "prejudice," which "renders a man's virtue his +habit." For Condorcet, on the other hand, history was the orderly +procession of the human mind, advancing through a series of well-marked +epochs (he enumerated nine) from the pastoral state to the French +Revolution, each epoch marked primarily by the shedding of some moral, +social, or theological "prejudice," which had hampered its advance. + +It is easy to criticise the naïve intellectualism of such a view as +this, which ignores or thrusts into the background the economic causes +of advance and retrogression. But it is certainly not an unhistorical +view. Burke dreaded fundamental discussions which "turn men's duties +into doubts." The revolutionary school believed that all progress +depended on the daring and thoroughness of these discussions. History +for them was a continuous Socratic dialogue, in which the philosophers +of innovation were always arrayed against the sophists of authority. +They hoped everything from the leadership of the illuminated few who +gradually permeate the mass and raise it with them. Burke held that "the +individual is foolish, but the species is wise," and the "natural +aristocracy" in whom he trusted was to keep the inert mass in a +condition of stable equilibrium. + +We retain from Burke to-day the sonorous generalisations, the +epigrammatic maxims, which each of us applies in his own way. But to +Burke's contemporaries they meant only one thing--a defence of the +unreformed franchise. All his reverence for the pre-ordained order of +providence, the "divine tactic" which had made society what it was, +meant for them in bald prose that Old Sarum should have two members. +Burke had not "a doubt that the House of Commons represents perfectly +the whole commons of Great Britain." They, with no mystical view of +history to guide them, pointed out that its electors were a mere handful +of 12,000 in the whole population, and that Birmingham, Manchester, +Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford had not a Member among them. While Burke +perorated about the ways of providence, they pointed to that auctioneer +who put up for sale to the highest bidder the fee simple of the Borough +of Gatton with the power of nominating two members for ever. That +auctioneer is worth quoting: "Need I tell you, gentlemen, that this +elegant contingency is the only infallible source of fortune, titles, +and honours in this happy country? That it leads to the highest +situations in the State? And that, meandering through the tempting +sinuosities of ambition, the purchaser will find the margin strewed with +roses, and his head quickly crowned with those precious garlands that +flourish in full vigour round the fountain of honour? On this halcyon +sea, if any gentleman who has made his fortune in either of the Indies +chooses once more to embark, he may repose in perfect quiet. No +hurricanes to dread; no tormenting claims of insolent electors to +evade; no tinkers' wives to kiss.... With this elegant contingency in +his pocket, the honours of the State await his plucking, and with its +emoluments his purse will overflow." + +A reference to the elegant contingency of Gatton sufficed to deflate a +good deal of eloquence. + +Burke, indeed, believed in the pre-ordained order of the world, but he +somehow omitted the rebels. When in his sublimest periods, he appealed +to "the known march of the ordinary providence of God," and saw in +revolution and change an assault on the divine order, one sees, rigid +and forbidding, the limitations of his thinking. The man who sees in +history a divine tactic must salute the regiment in its headlong charge +no less than the regiment which stands with fixed bayonets around the +ark of the covenant. Said the Hindoo saint, who saw all things in God +and God in all things, to the soldier who was slaying him, "And Thou +also art He." The march of providence embraced 1789 as well as 1688. +Paine and Godwin, Danton and Robespierre might have answered Burke with +a reminder that they also were His children. + +The key to any understanding of the dialogue between Burke and the +Revolutionists is that each side was moved by a passion which meant +nothing to the other. Burke was hoarse with anger and fear at the +excesses in France. They were afire with an almost religious faith in +human perfectibility. Burke's is a great record of detailed reforms +achieved or advocated, but for organic change there was no place in his +system, and he indulged in no vision of human progress. "The only moral +trust with any certainty in our hands," he wrote, "is the care of our +own time." It was of to-morrow that the Revolution thought, and even of +the day after to-morrow. Nothing could shake its faith. Proscribed amid +the Terror for his moderation and independence, learning daily in the +garret where he hid of the violent deaths of friends and comrades, +witnessing, as it must have seemed to him, the ruin of his work and the +frustration of his brightest hopes, Condorcet, solitary and disguised, +sat down to write that sketch of human destinies which is, perhaps, the +most confident statement of a reasoned optimism in European literature. +He finished his _Sketch for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the +Human Mind_, left his garret, and went out to meet his death. A year +later, as if to show that the great prodigal hope could survive the +brain that conceived it, the representatives of the French people had +it circulated as a national document. + +Its thesis is that no limit can be set to the perfection of human +faculties, that the progress and perfectibility of man are independent +of any power which can arrest them, and have no term unless it be the +duration of the globe itself. The progress might be swift or slow, but +the ultimate end was sure. Twenty years before, Turgot projecting a +system of universal education in France, had promised to transform the +nation in ten years. Condorcet was less sanguine, but his perspective +was short. The indefinite advance of mankind presupposed, he argued, the +elimination of inequality (1) among peoples, and (2) among classes, and +lastly the perfection of the individual. For all this he believed that +the Revolution had already laid the foundation. Negro slavery, for +example, would end; Africa would enter on a phase of culture dependent +on settled agriculture, and the East adopt free institutions. The time +was at hand when the sun would rise only on free men, and tyrants, +slaves, and priests would live only in history. The Revolution had +proclaimed the equality of men, and the future would proceed to realise +it. Monopolies abolished, fortunes would tend to a level of equality, +and a system of insurance (Dr. Price's specific) would mitigate or +abolish poverty. Universal education would reduce the natural inequality +of talents, and break down the barriers of class, so that men, retaining +still the desire to be instructed by others, would no longer need to be +controlled by their superiors. Science had made a dizzy progress in the +past generation, but its advance must be still more rapid when general +education enables it to be cultivated by still greater numbers, and by +women as well as men. To the fear which Malthus afterwards used as the +most formidable argument against revolutionary optimism, that a denser +population would leave the means of subsistence inadequate, he opposed +intensive cultivation, synthetic chemistry, and the progress of mankind +in self-control and virtue. Human character itself will change with the +amendment of human institutions. Passion can be dominated by reflection, +and by the deliberate encouragement of gentle and altruistic sentiments. +The business of politics is to destroy the opposition between +self-interest and altruism, and to make a world in which when a man +seeks his own good, he need no longer infringe the good of others. A +great share in this moral elevation would come from the destruction of +the inequality of the sexes, which Condorcet preached in France while +Mary Wollstonecraft was its pioneer in England. That inequality has been +ruinous even to the sex which it favoured, and rests in nothing but an +abuse of force. To remove it is not merely to raise the status of women +but to increase family happiness, and to reform morals. Wars too will +end, and with them a constant menace to liberty. The ultimate dream is a +perpetual confederation of mankind. + +It would be a fascinating but too protracted study to follow this faith +in the perfectibility of mankind to its final enthusiasms of prophecy, +and to trace it to its origins in the speculations of Helvétius and +Holbach, of Priestley and Price. It was a creative impulse which made +for itself a psychology and a sociology; it rather led the thinking of +men than followed from their reasonings. They seem at every turn to +choose of two alternative views the one which would favour this +sovereign hope. Is it reason and opinion, or some innate character which +governs the actions of men? The philosophers of hope answer "opinion," +for opinion can be indefinitely changed and led from prejudice to +science. Is it climate (as Montesquieu had urged) or political +institutions which differentiate the races of men? Clearly it is +institutions, for if it were climate there would be nothing to hope from +reform. Burke opposed to all their schemes of construction and +destruction, to their generalisations and philosophisings, the +unchangeable fact of human nature. They answered (diving into Helvétius) +that human nature is itself the product of "education" or, as we should +call it, "environment." Circumstances and above all political +institutions have made man what he is. Princes, as Holbach puts it, are +gardeners who can by varying systems of cultivation alter the character +of men as they would alter the form of trees. Change the institutions +and you will change human nature itself. There seemed no limit to the +improvement which would follow if we could but discard the fetters of +prejudice and despotism. + +Wordsworth's "shades of the prison-house" which close upon the growing +boy, were an echo of this thought. Godwin's friend, Holcroft, embodied +it in a striking metaphor: "Men do not become what by nature they are +meant to be, but what society makes them. The generous feelings and +higher propensities of the soul are, as it were shrunk up, scared, +violently wrenched, and amputated, to fit us for our intercourse in the +world, something in the manner that beggars maim and mutilate their +children to make them fit for their future situation in life." + +The men of the Revolution phrased that idea each in his own way, +according as they had been influenced, primarily, by Rousseau, +Helvétius, or Condorcet. It gave to their controversy with Burke the +appearance, not so much of a dispute between rival schools, as of a +dialogue between men who spoke to each other in unknown tongues. + + * * * * * + +Burke condescended to reason with Dr. Price. But the main answer of +authority to the friends of the French Revolution, was the answer which +Burke prescribed for "infidels"--"a refutation by criminal justice." A +curious parallel movement towards extremes went on simultaneously in the +two camps. While Burke separated himself from Fox, split the Whig party, +and devoted his genius to the task of fanning the general English +dislike of the Revolution into a panic rage of anger and fear, the +progressive camp in its turn was gradually captured by the +"intellectuals," and passed from a humdrum demand for political reform +into a ferment of moral and social speculation. Societies grew up in +all the chief centres of population, always with the same programme. "An +honest Parliament. An annual Parliament. A Parliament wherein each +individual will have his representative." Of these the most active, the +most extreme, and the best organised was undoubtedly the London +Corresponding Society. + +It was founded by a Scottish boot-maker named Thomas Hardy. The sober, +limited character of the man is plain to read in his records and +pamphlets. The son of a sea-captain, who had had his education in a +village school in Perthshire where the scholars paid a penny a week, he +was a leading member of the Scots' Kirk in Covent Garden, and had drawn +his political education not at all from godless French philosophers, but +from the Protestant fanatic, Lord George Gordon, and from Dr. Price's +book on the American War. He gathered his own friends together to found +his society, and nine of them met for the first time in the "Bell" +tavern in Exeter Street in January, 1792. "They had finished their daily +labour and met there by appointment. After having their bread and cheese +and porter for supper, as usual, and their pipes afterwards, with some +conversation, on the hardness of the times and the dearness of all the +necessaries of life, which they in common with their fellow-citizens +felt to their sorrow, the business for which they had met was brought +forward--Parliamentary Reform." + +The Corresponding Society drew the bulk of its members from tradesmen, +mechanics and shopkeepers, who contributed their penny a week, and +organised itself under Hardy's methodical guidance into numerous +branches each with twenty members. It is said to have counted in the end +some 30,000 members in London alone. It was a focus of discontent and +hope which soon attracted men of more conspicuous talents and wider +experience. Horne Tooke, man about town, ex-clergyman, and philologist, +who had been at first the friend and lieutenant and then the rival and +enemy of Wilkes, was there to bridge the years between the last great +popular agitation and the new hopes of reform. He was a man cautious and +even timid in action, but there was a vanity in him which led him to say +"hanging matters" when he had an inflammable audience in front of him +within the four walls of a room. There was Tom Paine, the man who had +first dared to propose the independence of the United States, a veteran +of revolution who had served on Washington's staff, penned those +brilliant exhortations which led the American rebels to victory, and +acted as Foreign Secretary to the insurgent Congress. On the fringes of +the little inner circle of intellectuals one catches a glimpse of +William Blake the poet, and Ritson, the first teacher and theorist of +vegetarianism. Not the least interesting member of the group was Thomas +Holcroft, the inseparable friend and ally of William Godwin. Holcroft's +vivid and masterful personality stands out indeed as the most attractive +among the abler members of the circle. The son of a boot-maker, he had +earned his bread as cobbler, ostler, village schoolmaster, strolling +player and reporter. His insatiable passion for knowledge had given him +a mastery of French and German. He went in 1783 to Paris as +correspondent of the _Morning Herald_, on the modest salary of a +guinea-and-a-half a week. It was there that he acquired his familiarity +with the writings of the French political philosophers, and performed +the quaint achievement of pirating _Figaro_ for the English stage. No +printed copy was obtainable, and Holcroft contrived to commit the whole +play to memory by attending ten performances, much as Mozart had pirated +the ancient exclusive music of St. Peter's in Rome. He was at this +period a thriving literary craftsman, and the author of a series of +popular plays in which the critics of the time had just begun to note +and resent an obtrusive democratic tendency. + +Under the influence of these eager speculative spirits, the +Corresponding Society must have travelled far from its original business +of Parliamentary Reform. Here is an extract from evidence given before +the Privy Council, which relates the proceedings at one of its later +meetings: + +"The most gentlemanlike person took the chair and talked about an equal +representation of the people, and of putting an end to war. Holcroft +talked about the Powers of the Human Mind.... Mr. Holcroft talked a +great deal about Peace, of his being against any violent or coercive +means, that were usually resorted to against our fellow-creatures, urged +the more powerful operation of Philosophy and Reason to convince man of +his errors; that he would disarm his greatest enemy by these means and +oppose his Fury. He spoke also about Truth being powerful, and gave +advice to the above effect to the delegates present who all seemed to +agree, as no person opposed his arguments." + +One may doubt, however, whether the whole society was composed of +"natural Quakers," who, like Holcroft and Godwin, preached +non-resistance before Tolstoy. The dour commonsense of Hardy maintained +the theory--he vowed that it was only theory--that every citizen should +possess arms and know their use. As the Revolution went forward in +France, the agitation in England became increasingly reckless. When the +society held its anniversary dinner after the Terror, in May, 1794, at +the "Crown and Anchor" Tavern, the band played "Ça ira," the +"Carmagnole" and the "Marseillaise." The chief toasts were "the Rights +of Man," and "the Armies contending for Liberty," which was a +sufficiently clear phrase for describing the Republican armies that were +at war with England. There followed an ode composed by Sir William +Jones, a translation of the Athenian song which celebrated the deeds of +the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton; + + Verdant myrtle's branchy pride + Shall my thirsty blade entwine. + + +One may doubt whether Sir William Jones ever felt the smallest +inclination to satisfy the thirst of his blade, but there was provision +enough for more commonplace appetites. Two years before, Hardy's worthy +mechanics had supped on porter and cheese and talked of the hardness of +the times. Their movement had been captured by a group of eager, +sophisticated, literary persons, who went much farther than +Parliamentary Reform, and with the aid of claret and the subtler French +intoxicants, "turned indignant" as another Ode puts it: + + From Kings who seek in Gothic night + To hide the blaze of moral light. + Fill high the animating glass + And let the electric ruby pass. + + +It was a cheerful indignation, a festive rage. + +That dinner must have marked the height of the revolutionary tide in +England. The reaction was already rampant and vindictive, and before the +year 1794 was out it had crushed the progressive movement and postponed +for thirty-eight years the triumph of Parliamentary Reform. It requires +a strenuous exercise of the imagination to conceive the panic which +swept over England as the news of the French Terror circulated. It +fastened impartially on every class of the community, and destroyed the +emotional balance no less of Pitt and his colleagues than of the working +men who formed the Church and King mobs. Proclamations were issued to +quell insurrections which never had been planned, and the militia called +out when not a hand had been raised against the King throughout Great +Britain. So great was the fear, so deep the moral indignation that "even +respectable and honest men," (the phrase is Holcroft's) "turned spies +and informers on their friends from a sense of public duty." A mob +burned Dr. Priestley's house near Birmingham for no better reason than +because he was supposed to have attended a Reform dinner, which in fact, +he did not attend. Hardy's bookshop in Piccadilly was rushed by a mob, +and his wife, about to be confined, was injured in her efforts to +escape, and died a few hours afterwards. A hunt went on all over the +kingdom for booksellers and printers to prosecute, and when Thomas Paine +was prosecuted in his absence for publishing _The Rights of Man_, the +jury was so determined to find him guilty that they would not trouble to +hear the case for the Crown. + +Twenty years before, the French philosopher Helvétius, after an +experience of Jesuit persecution and Court disfavour in France, made a +quaint proposal for re-organising the whole discussion of moral and +political questions. The first step, he thought, was to compile a +dictionary in which all the terms required in such debates would receive +an authoritative definition. But this dictionary, he urged, must be +composed in the English language, and published first in England, for +only there was discussion free, and the press unfettered. In the +reaction over which Pitt and Dundas presided, that envied liberty was +totally eclipsed. The _Habeas Corpus_ Act was suspended; the Privy +Council sat as a sort of Star Chamber to question political suspects, +and there was even talk of importing Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries +to check an insurrection which nowhere showed its head. The frailest of +all human endowments is the sense of humour. The sense of proportion had +been eclipsed in the panic, and most of the cases which may be studied +to-day in the State trials impress the modern reader as tasteless and +cruel farces. Men were tried and sentenced never for deeds, but always +for words. For a sermon closely resembling Dr. Price's, a dissenting +minister named Winterbotham was tried at Exeter, and sentenced to four +years' imprisonment and a fine of £200. The attorney, John Frost, +returning from France, admitted in a chance conversation in a +coffee-house that he thought society could manage very well without +kings; he was imprisoned, set in the pillory and struck off the rolls. +One favourite expedient was to produce a spy who would swear that he had +heard some suspect Radical declare in a coach or a coffee-house, that he +would "as soon have the King's head off as he would tear a bit of paper" +(evidence against a group of Manchester prisoners), or that he "would +cut off the King's head as easily as he would shave himself" (case +against Thomas Hardy). The climax of really entertaining absurdity was +reached when two debtors imprisoned in the Fleet were tried and +sentenced for nailing a seditious libel to its doors. The libel was a +notice that "This house is to let," that "infamous bastilles are no +longer necessary in Europe," and that "peaceable possession" would be +secured "on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the +commencement of the first year of liberty in Great Britain." + +The farce of this panic became a tragedy when the reformers of Scotland +ventured to summon a Convention at Edinburgh to voice the demand for +shorter Parliaments and universal male suffrage. It met in October, +1793, and was attended by delegates from the London Corresponding +Society as well as from Scottish branches. Nothing was intended beyond +the holding of what we should call to-day a conference or congress. But +the word "Convention" with its reminiscence of the French revolutionary +assembly seems to have caused the Government some particular alarm. The +Convention, after some days of orderly debate, was invaded by the +magistrates and broken up. Margarot and Sinclair (the English +delegates), Skirving, Palmer and Thomas Muir, were tried before that +notorious hanging judge, whom Stevenson portrayed as Weir of Hermiston, +and sentenced to fourteen years' deportation at Botany Bay. + +Of these five, all of them young men of brilliant promise and high +courage, only one, Margarot, lived to return to England. Muir, daring, +romantic and headstrong, contributed to the history of the movement a +page of adventure which might invite the attention of a novelist. He +escaped from Botany Bay on a whaler, was wrecked on the coast of South +America, contrived to wander to the West Indies, there shipped on a +Spanish vessel for Europe, fell in with an English frigate, was wounded +in the fight that followed, and had the good fortune to find among the +officers who took him prisoner an old friend, who recognised him, and +assisted him to conceal his identity. He was landed in Spain, invited +to Paris and pensioned by the Convention, but died shortly after his +arrival. Less romantic but even finer is Sinclair's story. He obtained +bail while his comrades were tried and sentenced. He might have broken +his bail, and his friends urged him to do so, but with the certainty +that Botany Bay lay before him he none the less returned to Edinburgh, +as Horne Tooke puts it "in discharge of his faith as a private man +towards his bail, and in discharge of his duty towards an oppressed and +insulted public; he has returned not to take a fair trial, but, as he is +well persuaded, to a settled conviction and sentence." Joseph Gerrald, +another member of the same group gave the same fine example of courage, +surrendered to his bail, and was sent for fifteen years to Botany Bay. + +The ferment was more than an intellectual stirring. It brought with it a +moral elevation and a great courage that did not shrink from venturing +life and fortune for a disinterested end. The modern reader is apt to +indulge a smile when he reads in the ardent declamation of this time +professions of a love of Virtue and praises of Universal Benevolence. We +are impatient of abstractions and shy of capital letters. But it was no +abstraction which carried a man with honour to the fevers and +privations of Botany Bay, when he might have sought safety and fame in +Paris. The English reformers were resolved to brave the worst that Pitt +could do to them, and challenged the fate of their Scottish comrades. +They prepared in their turn to hold a "Convention" for Parliamentary +Reform, and showed a doubtful prudence in keeping its details secret +while the intention was boldly avowed. The counter-stroke came promptly. +Twelve of the leading members of the Corresponding Society, including +Hardy, Horne Tooke and Holcroft were arrested and sent, for the most +part to the Tower, on a charge of high treason. The records of their +preliminary examination before the Privy Council go to show that Pitt +and Dundas had allowed themselves to be persuaded by their spies that +every species of treason and folly was in preparation, from an armed +insurrection down to a plan to murder the King by blowing a poisoned +arrow from an air-gun. The Government had said that there was a +treasonable conspiracy; it had to produce the traitors. + +There was some delay in arresting Holcroft. His conduct is worth +recording because it is so typical of the naïve courage, the doctrinaire +hardihood of the group. These men whom the reaction accused of +subverting morality, were in fact dervishes of principle, who rushed on +the bayonets in the name of manhood and truth and sincerity. Godwin when +he came in his systematic treatise to describe how a free people would +conduct a defensive war, declared that it would scorn to resort to a +stratagem or an ambuscade. In the same spirit Holcroft hearing that a +warrant was out against him for high treason, walked boldly into the +Chief Justice's court, and announced that he came to be put upon his +trial "that if I am a guilty man, the whole extent of my guilt may +become notorious, and if innocent that the rectitude of my principles +and conduct may be no less public." When a messenger did, in fact, go to +Holcroft's house about the same hour to arrest him, his daughters, +obedient to the same ideal of sincerity, actually invited him to take +their father's papers. + +One may doubt whether English liberties have ever run a graver danger in +modern times than at the trial of the twelve reformers. The Government +sought to overwhelm them with a mass of evidence which they lacked the +means to sift and confute. But no definite act was charged against them, +and the whole case turned on a monstrous attempt to give a wide +constructive interpretation to the law of high treason. High treason in +English law has the perfectly definite meaning of an attempt on the +King's life, or the levying of war against him. Chief Justice Eyre, in +his charge to the Grand Jury, sought to stretch it until it assumed a +Russian latitude, and would include any effort by agitation to alter the +form of government or the constitution of Parliament. The issue, before +a jury which probably had not escaped the general panic, seemed very +doubtful, and it was the general opinion that the decisive blow for +liberty was struck by William Godwin. Long years afterwards Horne Tooke, +in a dramatic scene, called Godwin to him in public, and kissed the hand +which had saved his life. + +Godwin contributed to the _Morning Chronicle_ a long letter, or more +properly, a pamphlet, in which he analysed the Chief Justice's charge +and brought to the light what really was latent in it, a claim to treat +as high treason any effort, however peaceful and orderly, to bring about +a fundamental change in our institutions. The letter shows none of +Godwin's speculative daring, and his gift of cold and dignified +eloquence is severely repressed. He wrote to attain his immediate end, +and from that standpoint his pleading was a masterpiece. A certain +deadly courtesy, a tone of quiet reasonableness made it possible for the +most prejudiced reader to follow it with assent. The argument was +irresistible, and the single touch of emotion at the end was worthy of a +great orator. A few lines depicted these men who, moved by public +spirit, had acted in good faith within the law, as it had been +universally understood in England, overwhelmed by a sudden extension of +its most terrible articles, applied to them without precedent or +warning. Should the awful sentence be read over these men, that they +should be hanged (but not until they were dead), and then, still living, +suffer the loss of their members and see their bowels torn out? The +ghastly barbarity of the whole procedure could not have been more +effectively exposed. Looking back upon this trial there is no reason to +think that the reformers exaggerated its importance. Had the Government +won its case, it must have succeeded in destroying the very possibility +of opposition or agitation in England. It was believed that no less than +three hundred signed warrants lay ready for issue on the day that Hardy +and his friends were convicted. But the stroke was too daring, the +threat too impudent. When the trial began, the prosecution lightened +its own task by dropping the charge against Holcroft and three of his +comrades. But for nine days the charge was pressed against Thomas Hardy, +and when he was acquitted a further six days was spent in the effort to +convict Horne Tooke, and four in a last vain attempt to succeed against +Thelwall. + +The popular victory checked the excesses of the reaction. As Holcroft +wrote: "The whole power of Government was directed against Thomas Hardy: +in his fate seemed involved the fate of the nation, and the verdict of +Not Guilty appeared to burst its bonds, and to have released it from +inconceivable miseries and ages of impending slavery." The reaction, +indeed, was restrained; but so also was the movement of reform. The +subsequent history of its leaders is one of unheroic failure, and of an +unpopularity which was harder to endure than danger. Windham referred to +the twelve in debate as "acquitted felons," and Holcroft was constrained +first to produce his plays under a borrowed name, and then to seek a +refuge in voluntary exile on the continent. The passions roused by the +Terror arrested the progress of the revolutionary movement in England. +The alarms and glories of the struggle with Napoleon buried it in +oblivion. + +It is this complex experience which lies behind Godwin's political +writings. The French Revolution produced its simple effects in Burke and +Tom Paine--revolt and disgust in the one, enthusiasm and hope in the +other. In Godwin the reaction is more complicated. He retained to the +last his ardent faith in progress, and the perfectibility of mankind. No +events could shake that, but it was the work of experience to reinforce +all the native individualism of his confident and self-reliant temper, +to harden into an extreme dogma that general belief in _laissez faire_ +which was the common property of most of the English progressives of his +day, and to beget in him not merely a doubt in the efficacy of violent +revolutions, but a dislike of all concerted political effort and the +whole collective work of political associations. He had felt the lash of +repression, saved one friend from the hangman, and seen others depart +for Botany Bay: he remained to the end, the uncompromising foe of every +species of governmental coercion. He had listened to Horne Tooke +perorating "hanging matters" at the Corresponding Society; he had seen +the "electric ruby" circulating at its dinners; he had witnessed the +collapse of Thomas Hardy's painstaking and methodical organisation. The +fruit of all these experiences was the first statement in European +literature of philosophic anarchism--a statement which hardly yields to +Tolstoy's in its trenchant and unflinching logic. + +"Logic" is more often a habit of consecutive and reasoned writing than +the source of a thinker's opinion. The logical writer is the man who can +succeed in displaying plausible reasons for what he believes by +instinct, or knows by experience. There is history and temperament +behind the coldest logic. The history which set Godwin against all State +action, whether undertaken in defence of order or privilege, or on +behalf of reform, is to be read in the excesses of Pitt and the +futilities of the Corresponding Society. The question of temperament +involves a subtler psychological judgment. If you feel in yourself +something less than the heroic temper which will make a militant +agitation or a violent revolution against the monstrous ascendency of +privilege and ordered force, you are lucky if you can convince yourself +that agitation is commonly mischievous, and association but a means of +combating one evil by creating another. Godwin was certainly no coward. +But he was fortunate in evolving a theory which excused him from +attempting the more dangerous exploits of civic courage. His ideal was +the Stoic virtue, the isolated strength, which can stand firm in passive +protest against oppression and wrong. He stood firm, and Pitt was +content to leave him standing. + + * * * * * + +We have seen the first bold statement of the hope which the French +Revolution kindled in Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. We have watched the +brave incautious effort to realise it in the plans of the Corresponding +Society. In these crowded years that began with the fall of the Bastille +and closed with the Terror, it was to enter on yet another phase, and in +this last incarnation the hope was very near despair. To men in the +early prime of life, aware of their powers and their gift of influence, +the Revolution came as a call to action. To a group of still younger +men, poets and thinkers, forming their first eager views of life in the +leisure of the Universities, it was above all a stimulus to fancy. +Godwin was their prophet, but they built upon his speculations the +superstructure of a dream that was all their own. For some years, +Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth were caught and held in the close web +of logic which Godwin gave to the world in 1793 in the first edition of +_Political Justice_. Wordsworth read and studied and continually +discussed it. Southey confessed that he "read and studied and all but +worshipped Godwin." Coleridge wrote a sonnet which he afterwards +suppressed in which he blesses his "holy guidance" and hymns Godwin +"with an ardent lay." + + For that thy voice in passion's stormy day + When wild I roamed the bleak heath of distress + Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way, + And told me that her name was Happiness. + +To us who read Godwin with many a later Utopia in our memories, his most +valuable chapters are those which give his penetrating criticisms of +existing society. To these young men the excitement was in his picture +of a free community from which laws and coercion had been eliminated, +and in which property was in a continual flux actuated by the stream of +universal benevolence. They resolved to found a community based on +Godwinian principles, and to free themselves from the cramping and +dwarfing influences of a society ruined by laws and superstitions, they +lit on the simple expedient of removing themselves beyond its reach. +They lacked the manhood and the simplicity which had turned more prosaic +natures into agitators and reformers. It is a tale which every student +of literature has delighted to read, how Coleridge and Southey, bent on +founding their Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehana, came to +Bristol to charter a ship, and while they waited, dimly aware that they +lacked funds for the adventure, anchored themselves in English homes by +marrying the Fricker sisters. + +As one of the comrades, Robert Lovell, quaintly puts it in a letter to +Holcroft, "Principle, not plan, is our object." Lovell had visited +Holcroft in gaol, and one can well understand how that near view of the +fate which awaited the reformer under Pitt, confirmed them in their idea +of crossing the Atlantic. "From the writings of William Godwin and +yourself," Lovell went on, "our minds have been illuminated; we wish our +actions to be guided by the same superior abilities." Holcroft, older +and more combative than his poet-disciples, advised the founding of a +model colony in this country. But the lure of a distant scene was too +attractive. Cottle, the friend and publisher of the Pantisocrats, has +left his account of their aims. Theirs was to be "a social colony in +which there was to be a community of property and where all that was +selfish was to be proscribed." It would realise "a state of society free +from the evils and turmoils that then agitated the world, and present +an example of the eminence to which men might arrive under the +unrestrained influence of sound principles." It would "regenerate the +whole complexion of society, and that not by establishing formal laws, +but by excluding all the little deteriorating passions, injustice, +wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking, and thereby setting an example +of human perfectibility." + +What is left of the dream to-day? Some verses in Coleridge's earlier +poems, the address to Chatterton for instance + + O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive, + Sure thou wouldst spread the canvas to the gale; + And love with us the tinkling team to drive + O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale. + +and those lines, half comical, half pathetic, in which the "sweet +harper" is assured as some requital for a hard life and a cruel death, +that the Pantisocrats will raise a "solemn cenotaph" to his memory +"Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream." Long afterwards, Coleridge +described Pantisocracy in _The Friend_ as "a plan as harmless as it was +extravagant," which had served a purpose by saving him from more +dangerous courses. "It was serviceable in securing myself and perhaps +some others from the paths of sedition. We were kept free from the +stains and impurities which might have remained upon us had we been +travelling with the crowd of less imaginative malcontents through the +dark lanes and foul by-roads of ordinary fanaticism." + +Pantisocracy was indeed a happy episode for English literature. One may +doubt whether the "Ancient Mariner" would have been written, had +Coleridge travelled with Gerrald and Sinclair along the "dark lane" that +led to Botany Bay. Nature can work strange miracles with the instinct of +self-preservation, and even for poets she has a care. The prudence which +teaches one man to be a Whig, will make of another a Utopian. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THOMAS PAINE + + +"Where Liberty is, there is my country." The sentiment has a Latin ring; +one can imagine an early Stoic as its author. It was spoken by Benjamin +Franklin, and no saying better expresses the spirit of eighteenth +century humanity. "Where is not Liberty, there is mine." The answer is +Thomas Paine's. It is the watchword of the knight errant, the marching +music that sent Lafayette to America, and Byron to Greece, the motto of +every man who prizes striving above enjoyment, honours comradeship above +patriotism, and follows an idea that no frontier can arrest. Paine was +indeed of no century, and no formula of classification can confine him. +His writing is of the age of enlightenment; his actions belong to +romance. His clear, manly style, his sturdy commonsense, the rapier play +of his epigrams, the formal, logical architecture of his thoughts, his +complacent limitations, his horror of mystery and Gothic half-lights, +his harsh contempt for all the sacred muddle of priestly traditions and +aristocratic politics, his assurance, his intellectual courage, his +humanity--all that, in its best and its worst, belongs to the century of +Voltaire and the Revolution. In his spirit of adventure, in his passion +for movement and combat, there Paine is romantic. Paine thought in prose +and acted epics. He drew horizons on paper and pursued the infinite in +deeds. + +Tom Paine was born, the son of a Quaker stay-maker, in 1737, at +Thetford, in the county of Norfolk. His parents were poor, but he owed +much, he tells us, to a good moral education and picked up "a tolerable +stock of useful learning," though he knew no language but his own. A +"Friend" he was to the end in his independence, his rationalism, and his +humanity, though he laughed when he thought of what a sad-coloured world +the Quakers would have made of the creation, if they had been consulted. +The boy craved adventure, and was prevented at seventeen from enlisting +in the crew of the privateer _Terrible_, Captain Death, only to sail +somewhat later in the _King of Prussia_, Captain Mendez. One cruise +under a licensed pirate was enough for him, and he soon settled in +London, making stays for a living and spending his leisure in the study +of astronomy. He qualified as an exciseman, acquiring in this employment +a grasp of finance and an interest in budgets of which he afterwards +made good use in his writings. Cashiered for negligence, he turned +schoolmaster, and even aspired to ordination in the Church of England. +Reinstated as a "gauger," he was eventually dismissed for writing a +pamphlet in defence of the excisemen's agitation for higher wages. He +was twice married, but his first wife died within a year of marriage, +and the second, with whom he had started a "tobacco-mill," agreed on its +failure, apparently for no definite fault on either side, to a mutual +separation. At thirty-seven, penniless, lonely, and stamped with +failure, yet conscious of powers which had found no scope in the Old +World, he emigrated in 1774 to America with a letter from Benjamin +Franklin as his passport to fortune. + +Opportunity came promptly, and Paine was presently settled in +Philadelphia as the editor of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_. From the +pages of this periodical, his admirable biographer, Mr. Moncure D. +Conway, has unearthed a series of articles which show that Paine had +somehow brought with him from England a mental equipment which ranked +him already among the moral pioneers of his generation. He advocates +international arbitration; he attacks duelling; he suggests more +rational ideas of marriage and divorce; he pleads for mercy to animals; +he demands justice for women. Above all, he assails negro slavery, and +with such mastery and fervour, that five weeks after the appearance of +his article, the first American Anti-Slavery Society was founded at +Philadelphia. The abolition of slavery was a cause for which he never +ceased to struggle, and when in later life he became the target of +religious persecutors, it was in their dual capacity of Christians and +slave-owners that men stoned him. The American colonies were now at the +parting of the ways in the struggle with the Mother Country. The revolt +had begun with a limited object, and few if any of its leaders realised +whither they were tending. Paine it was, who after the slaughter at +Lexington, abandoned all thoughts of reconciliation and was the first to +preach independence and republicanism. + +His pamphlet, _Common-Sense_ (1776), achieved a circulation which was an +event in the history of printing, and fixed in men's minds as firm +resolves what were, before he wrote, no more than fluid ideas. It spoke +to rebels and made a nation. Poor though Paine was, he poured the whole +of the immense profits which he received from the sale of his little +book into the colonial war-chest, shouldered a musket, joined +Washington's army as a private, and was soon promoted to be aide-de-camp +to General Greene. Paine's most valuable weapon, however, was still his +pen. Writing at night, after endless marches, by the light of camp fires +at a moment of general depression, when even Washington thought that the +game was "pretty well up," Paine began to write the series of pamphlets +afterwards collected under the title of _The American Crisis_. They did +for the American volunteers what Rouget de Lisle's immortal song did for +the French levies in the revolutionary wars, what Körner's martial +ballads did for the German patriots in the Napoleonic wars. These superb +pages of exhortation were read in every camp to the disheartened men; +their courage commanded victory. Burke himself wrote nothing finer than +the opening sentences of the first "crisis," a trumpet call indeed, but +phrased by an artist who knew the science of compelling music from +brass:-- + +"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the +sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his +country; but he that stands it now, deserves the thanks of man and +woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this +consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the +triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly; it is dearness +only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper +price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an +article as freedom should not be highly rated." + +"Common-sense" Paine was now the chief of the moral forces behind the +fighting Republic, and his power of thinking boldly and stating clearly +drove it forward to its destiny under the leadership of men whom Nature +had gifted with less trenchant minds. He was in succession Foreign +Secretary to Congress and clerk to the Pennsylvania Assembly, and we +find him converting despair into triumph by the magic of self-sacrifice. +He it was who in 1780 saved the finances of the war in a moment of +despair, by starting the patriotic subscription with the gift of his own +salary, and in 1781 proved his diplomatic gift in a journey to Paris by +obtaining money-aid from the French Court. + +Paine might have settled down to enjoy his fame, after the war, on the +little property which the State of New York gave him. He loathed +inaction and escaped middle age. In 1787 he returned to England, partly +to carry his pen where the work of liberation called for it, partly to +forward his mechanical inventions. Paine, self-educated though he was, +was a capable mathematician, and he followed the progress of the applied +sciences with passion. His inventions include a long list of things +partly useful, partly whimsical, a planing machine, a crane, a smokeless +candle and a gunpowder motor. But his fame as an inventor rests on his +construction of the first iron bridge, made after his models and plans +at Wearmouth. He was received as a leader and teacher in the ardent +circle of reformers grouped round the Revolution Society and the +Corresponding Society. Others were the dreamers and theorists of +liberty. He had been at the making of a Republic, and his American +experience gave the stimulus to English Radicalism which events in +France were presently to repeat. His fame was already European, and at +the fall of the Bastille, it was to Paine that Lafayette confided its +key, when a free France sent that symbol of defeated despotism as a +present to a free America. He seemed the natural link between three +revolutions, the one which had succeeded in the New World, the other +which was transforming France, and the third which was yet to come in +England. + +Burke's _Reflections_ rang in his ears like a challenge, and he sat +promptly down in his inn to write his reply. _The Rights of Man_ is an +answer to Burke, but it is much more. The vivid pages of history in +which he explains and defends the French Revolution which Burke had +attacked and misunderstood, are only an illustration to his main +argument. He expounds the right of revolution, and blows away the cobweb +argument of legality by which his antagonist had sought to confine +posterity within the settlement of 1688. Every age and generation must +be free to act for itself. Man has no property in man, and the claim of +one generation to govern beyond the grave is of all tyrannies the most +insolent. Burke had contended for the right of the dead to govern the +living, but that which a whole nation chooses to do, it has a right to +do. The men of 1688, who surrendered their own rights and bound +themselves to obey King William and his heirs, might indeed choose to be +slaves; but that could not lessen the right of their children to be +free. Wrongs cannot have a legal descent. Here was a bold and triumphant +answer to a sophistical argument; but it served Paine only as a preface +to his exposition of the American constitution, which was "to Liberty +what a grammar is to language," and to his plea for the adoption in +England of the French charter of the Rights of Man. + +Paine felt that he had made one Republic with a pamphlet, why not +another? He had the unlimited faith of his generation in the efficacy of +argument, and experience had proved his power. As Carlyle, in his +whimsical dramatic fashion, said of him, "He can and will free all this +world; perhaps even the other." Godwin, as became the philosopher of the +movement, set his hopes on the slower working of education: to make men +wise was to make them free. Paine was the pamphleteer of the human camp. +He saw mankind as an embattled legion and believed, true man of action +that he was, that freedom could be won like victory by the impetus of a +resolute charge. He quotes the epigram of his fellow-soldier, Lafayette, +"For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and +to be free it is sufficient that she wills it." Godwin would have sent +men to school to liberty; Paine called them to her unfurled standard. +It is easy to understand the success of Paine's book, which appeared in +March, 1791. It was theory and practice in one; it was the armed logic +which had driven King George's regiments from America, the edged +argument which had razed the Bastille. It was bold reasoning, and it was +also inspired writing. Holcroft and Godwin helped to bring out _The +Rights of Man_, threatened with suppression or mutilation by the +publishers, and a panting incoherent shout of joy in a note from +Holcroft to Godwin is typical of the excitement which it caused:-- + +"I have got it--if this do not cure my cough it is a damned perverse +mule of a cough. The pamphlet--from the row--But mum--we don't sell +it--oh, no--ears and eggs--verbatim, except the addition of a short +preface, which as you have not seen, I send you my copy.--Not a single +castration (Laud be unto God and J. S. Jordan!) can I discover--Hey, for +the new Jerusalem! The Millennium! And peace and eternal beatitude be +unto the soul of Thomas Paine." + +The usual prosecutions of booksellers followed; but everywhere the new +societies of reform were circulating the book, and if it helped to send +some good men to Botany Bay, copies enough were sold to earn a sum of a +thousand pounds for the author, which, with his usual disinterestedness, +he promptly gave to the Corresponding Society. A second part appeared in +1792; and at length Pitt adopted Burke's opinion that criminal justice +was the proper argument with which to refute Tom Paine. Acting on a hint +from William Blake, who, in a vision more prosaic and veridical than was +usual with him, had seen the constables searching for his friend, Paine +escaped to France, and was convicted in his absence of high treason. + +Paine landed at Calais an outlaw, to find himself already elected its +deputy to the Convention. As in America, so in France, his was the first +voice to urge the uncompromising solution. He advocated the abolition of +the monarchy; but his was a courage that always served humanity. The +work which he did as a member, with Sieyès, Danton, Condorcet, and five +others, of the little committee named to draft the constitution, was +ephemeral. His brave pleading for the King's life was a deed that +deserves to live. He loved to think of himself as a woodman swinging an +axe against rotten institutions and dying beliefs; but he weighted no +guillotines. Paine argued against the command that we should "love our +enemies," but he would not persecute them. This knight-errant would +fling his shield over the very spies who tracked his steps. In Paris he +saved the life of one of Pitt's agents who had vilified him, and +procured the liberation of a bullying English officer who had struck him +in public. The Terror made mercy a traitor, and Paine found himself +overwhelmed in the vengeance which overtook all that was noblest in the +Revolution. He spent ten months in prison, racked with fever, and an +anecdote which seems to be authentic, tells how he escaped death by the +negligence of a jailor. This overworked official hastily chalked the +sign which meant that a prisoner was marked for next batch of the +guillotine's victims, on the inside instead of the outside of Paine's +cell-door. + +Condorcet, in hiding and awaiting death, wrote in these months his +_Sketch_ of human progress. Paine, meditating on the end that seemed +near, composed the first part of his _Age of Reason_. Paine was, like +Franklin, Jefferson and Washington, a deist; and he differed from them +only in the courage which prompted him to declare his belief. He came +from gaol a broken man, hardly able to stand, while the Convention, +returned to its sound senses, welcomed him back to his place of honour +on its benches. The record of his last years in America, whither he +returned in 1802, belongs rather to the history of persecution than to +the biography of a soldier of liberty. His work was done; and, though +his pen was still active and influential, slave-owners, ex-royalists, +and the fanatics of orthodoxy combined to embitter the end of the man +who had dared to deny the inspiration of the Bible. His book was burned +in England by the hangman. Bishops in their answers mingled grudging +concessions with personal abuse. An agent of Pitt's was hired to write a +scurrilous biography of the Government's most dreaded foe. In America, +the grandsons of the Puritan colonists who had flogged Quaker women as +witches, denied him a place on the stage-coach, lest an offended God +should strike it with lightning. + +Paine died, a lonely old man, in 1809. His personal character stands +written in his career; and it is unnecessary to-day even to mention the +libels which his biographer has finally refuted. In a generation of +brave men he was the boldest. He could rouse the passions of men, and he +could brave them. If the Royalist Burke was eloquent for a Queen, +Republican Paine risked his life for a King. No wrong found him +indifferent; and he used his pen not only for the democracy which might +reward him, but for animals, slaves and women. Poverty never left him, +yet he made fortunes with his pen, and gave them to the cause he served. +A naïve vanity was his only fault as a man. It was his fate to escape +the gallows in England and the guillotine in France. He deserved them +both; in that age there was no higher praise. A better democrat never +wore the armour of the knight-errant; a better Christian never assailed +Orthodoxy. + +Neither by training nor by temperament was Paine a speculative thinker; +but his political writing has none the less an immense significance. +Godwin was a writer removed by his profoundly individual genius from the +average thought of his day. Paine agreed more nearly with the advanced +minds of his generation, and he taught the rest to agree with him. No +one since him or before him has stated the plain democratic case against +monarchy and aristocracy with half his spirit and force. Earlier writers +on these themes were timid; the moderns are bored. Paine is writing of +what he understands, and feels to be of the first importance. He cares +as much about abolishing titles as a modern reformer may feel about +nationalising land. His main theory in politics has a lucid simplicity. +Men are born as God created them, free and equal; that is the assumption +alike of natural and revealed religion. Burke, who "fears God," looks +with "awe to kings," with "duty to magistrates," and with "respect to +nobility," is but erecting a wilderness of turnpike gates between man +and his Maker. Natural rights inhere in man by reason of his existence; +civil rights are founded in natural rights and are designed to secure +and guarantee them. He gives an individual twist to the doctrine of the +social compact. Some governments arise out of the people, others over +the people. The latter are based on conquest or priestcraft, and the +former on reason. Government will be firmly based on the social compact +only when nations deliberately sit down as the Americans have done, and +the French are doing, to frame a constitution on the basis of the Rights +of Man. + +As for the English Government, it clearly arose in conquest; and to +speak of a British Constitution is playing with words. Parliament, +imperfectly and capriciously elected, is supposed to hold the common +purse in trust; but the men who vote the supplies are also those who +receive them. The national purse is the common hack on which each party +mounts in turn, in the countryman's fashion of "ride and tie." They +order these things better in France. As for our system of conducting +wars, it is all done over the heads of the people. War is with us the +art of conquering at home. Taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but +wars raised to carry on taxes. The shrewd hard-hitting blows range over +the whole surface of existing institutions. Godwin from his intellectual +eminence saw in all the follies and crimes of mankind nothing worse than +the effects of "prejudice" and the consequences of fallacious reasoning. +Paine saw more self-interest in the world than prejudice. When he came +to preach the abolition of war, first through an alliance of Britain, +America and France, and then through "a confederation of nations" and a +European Congress, he saw the obstacle in the egoism of courts and +courtiers which appear to quarrel but agree to plunder. Another seven +years, he wrote in 1792, would see the end of monarchy and aristocracy +in Europe. While they continue, with war as their trade, peace has not +the security of a day. + +Paine's writing gains rather than loses in theoretic interest, because +the warmth of his sympathies melts, as he proceeds, the icy logic of his +eighteenth century individualism. He starts where all his school +started, with a sharp antithesis between society and government. + +"Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the +former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections; the +latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages +intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the +last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing; but government +even in its best state is a necessary evil.... Government, like dress, +is the badge of our lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on +the ruins of the bowers of paradise." + +That was the familiar pessimism which led in practical politics to +_laissez faire_, and in speculation to Godwin's philosophic anarchism. +Paine himself seems for a moment to take that road. He enjoys telling us +how well the American colonies managed in the early stages of the war +without any regular form of government. He assures us that "the more +perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government." But +he had served an apprenticeship to life; looking around him at the +streets filled with beggars and the jails crowded with poor men, he +suddenly forgets that the whole purpose of government is to secure the +individual against the invasion of his rights, and straightway bursts +into a new definition:--"Civil government does not consist in +executions; but in making such provision for the instruction of youth +and the support of age as to exclude as much as possible profligacy from +the one and despair from the other. Instead of this the resources of a +country are lavished upon kings ... and the poor themselves are +compelled to support the fraud that oppresses them." + +It is amazing how much good Paine can extract from a necessary evil. He +has suddenly conceived of government as the instrument of the social +conscience. He means to use it as a means of securing a better +organisation of society. Paine was a man of action, and no mere logic +could hold him. He proceeds in a breathless chapter to evolve a +programme of social reform which, after the slumbers of a century, his +Radical successors have just begun to realise. Some hints came to him +from Condorcet, but most of these daringly novel ideas sprang from +Paine's own inventive brain, and all of them are presented by the +whilom exciseman, with a wealth of financial detail, as if he were a +Chancellor of the Exchequer addressing the first Republican Parliament +in the year One of Liberty. He would break up the poor laws, "these +instruments of civil torture." He has saved the major part of the cost +of defence by a naval alliance with the other Sea Powers, and the +abolition of capture at sea. Instead of poor relief he would give a +subsidy to the children of the very poor, and pensions to the aged. Four +pounds a year for every child under fourteen in every necessitous family +will ensure the health and instruction of the next generation. It will +cost two millions and a half, but it will banish ignorance. He would pay +the costs of compulsory education. Pensions are to be granted not of +grace but of right, as an aid to the infirm after fifty years, and a +subsidy to the aged after sixty. Maternity benefit is anticipated in a +donation of twenty shillings to every poor mother at the birth of a +child. Casual labour is to be cared for in some sort of +workhouse-factories in London. These reforms are to be financed partly +by economies and partly by a graduated income-tax, for which Paine +presents an elaborate schedule. When the poor are happy and the jails +empty, then at last may a nation boast of its constitution. In this +pregnant chapter Paine not only sketched the work of the future; he +exploded his own premises. + +The odium that still clings to Paine's theological writings comes mainly +from those who have not read them. When Mr. Roosevelt the other day +called him "a dirty little Atheist," he exposed nothing but his own +ignorance. Paine was a deist, and he wrote _The Age of Reason_ on the +threshold of a French prison, primarily to counteract the atheism which +he thought he saw at work among the Jacobins--an odd diagnosis, for +Robespierre was at least as ardent in his deism as Paine himself. He +believed in a God, Whose bounty he saw in nature; he taught the doctrine +of conditional immortality, and his quarrel with revealed religion was +chiefly that it set up for worship a God of cruelty and injustice. From +the stories of the Jewish massacres ordained by divine command, down to +the orthodox doctrine of the scheme of redemption, he saw nothing but a +history derogatory to the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty. To +believe the Old Testament we must unbelieve our faith in the moral +justice of God. It might "hurt the stubbornness of a priest" to destroy +this fiction, but it would tranquilise the consciences of millions. From +this starting-point he proceeds in the later second and third parts to a +detailed criticism designed to show that the books of the Bible were not +written by their reputed authors, that the miracles are incredible, that +the passages claimed as prophecy have been wrested from their contexts, +and that many inconsistencies are to be found in the narrative portions +of the Gospels. + +Acute and fearless though it is, this detailed argument has only an +historical interest to-day. When the violence of his persecutors had +goaded Paine into anger, he lost all sense of tact in controversy, and +lapsed occasionally into harsh vulgarities. But the anger was just, and +the zeal for mental honesty has had its reward. Paine had no sense for +the mystery and poetry of traditional religion. But what he attacked was +not presented to him as poetry. He was assailing a dogmatic orthodoxy +which had itself converted poetry into literal fact. As literal fact it +was incredible; and Paine, taking it all at the valuation of its own +professors, assailed it with a disbelief as prosaic as their belief, but +intellectually more honest. His interpretation of the Bible is +unscientific, if you will, but it is nearer to the truth of history than +the conventional belief of his day. If his polemics seem rough and +superfluous to us, it is only because his direct frontal attacks forced +on the work of Biblical criticism, and long ago compelled the +abandonment of most of the positions which he assailed. In spite of its +grave faults of taste and temper and manner, _The Age of Reason_ +performed an indispensable service to honesty and morals. It was the +bravest thing he did, for it threatened his name with an immortality of +libel. His place in history is secure at last. The neglected pioneer of +one revolution, the honoured victim of another, brave to the point of +folly, and as humane as he was brave, no man in his generation preached +republican virtue in better English, nor lived it with a finer disregard +of self. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WILLIAM GODWIN AND THE REVOLUTION + + +Tom Paine is still reviled and still admired. The name of Mary +Wollstonecraft is honoured by the growing army of free women. Both may +be read in cheap editions. William Godwin, a more powerful intellect, +and in his day a greater influence than either, is now forgotten, or +remembered only because he was the father of Shelley's wife. Yet he +blazed in the last decade of the eighteenth century, as Hazlitt has told +us, "as a sun in the firmament of reputation." "No one was more talked +of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, +justice was the theme, his name was not far off.... No work in our time +gave such a blow to the philosophical mind of the country as the +celebrated _Enquiry Concerning Political Justice_. Tom Paine was +considered for the time as a Tom Fool to him; Paley an old woman; Edmund +Burke a flashy sophist." + +William Godwin came into the world in 1756, at Wisbech, in the Fen +country, with the moral atmosphere of a dissenting home for inheritance. +His father and grandfather were Independent ministers, who taught the +metaphysical dissent of the extreme Calvinistic tradition. The quaint +ill-spelled letters of his mother reveal a strong character, a meagre +education and rigid beliefs. William was unwholesomely precocious as a +boy, pious, studious and greedy for distinction and praise. He was +brought up on the _Account of the Pious Deaths of Many Godly Children_, +and would move his school-fellows to tears by his early sermons on the +Last Judgment. At seventeen we find him, destined for the hereditary +profession, a student in the Theological College at Hoxton. His mental +development was by no means headlong, but he was a laborious reader and +an eager disputant, endowed with all the virtues save modesty. + +He emerged from College as he had entered it, a Tory in politics and a +Sandemanian in religion. The Sandemanians were super-Calvinists, and +their tenets may be summarily defined. A Calvinist held that of ten +souls nine will be damned. A Sandemanian hoped that of ten Calvinists +one may with difficulty be saved. In the Calvinist mould Godwin's mind +was formed, and if the doctrine was soon discarded, the habit of +thought characteristic of Calvinism remained with him to the end. It is +a French and not a British creed, Latin in its systematic completeness, +Latin in the logical courage with which it pursues its assumptions to +their last conclusion, Latin in its faith in deductive reasoning and its +disdain alike of experience and of sentiment. Had Godwin been bred a +Methodist or a Churchman, he could not have written _Political Justice_. +To him in these early years religion presented itself as a supernatural +despotism based on terror and coercion. Its central doctrine was eternal +punishment, and when in mature life, Godwin became a free-thinker, his +revolt was not so much the readjustment of a speculative thinker who has +reconsidered untenable dogmas, as the rebellion of a humane and liberal +mind against a system of terrorism. To some agnostics God is an +unnecessary hypothesis. To Godwin He was rather a tyrant to be deposed. +It was a view which Shelley with less provocation adopted with even +greater heat. + +Godwin's firm dogmatic creed began to crumble away during his early +experiences as a dissenting minister in country towns. He published a +forgotten volume of sermons, and his development both in politics and +theology was evidently slow. At twenty-seven, as a young pastor at +Beaconsfield, we find him a Whig and a Unitarian, who looked up to Dr. +Priestley as his master. He had now begun to study the French +philosophers, whom Hoxton had doubtless refuted, but did not read. He +was not a successful pastor, and it was as much his relative failure in +the pulpit as his slowly broadening beliefs which caused him to take to +letters for a livelihood. His long literary career begins in 1783 with +some years of prentice work in Grub Street. He wrote a successful +pamphlet in defence of the Coalition, which brought him to the notice of +the Whig chiefs, worked with enthusiasm at a _Life of Chatham_ which has +the merit of a rather heavy eloquence, contributed for seven years to +the _Annual Register_ and wrote three novels which evidently enjoyed an +ephemeral success. He lived the usual nomadic life of the young man of +letters, and differed from most of his kind chiefly by his industry, his +abstinence, and his methodical habits of study, which he never relaxed +even when he was writing busily for bread. + +We find him rising early, and reading some portion of a Greek or Latin +classic before breakfast. He acquired by this practice a literary +knowledge of the classics and used it in his later essays with an ease +and intimacy which many a scholar would envy. He wrote for three or four +hours in the morning, composing slowly and frequently recasting his +drafts. The afternoon and evening were devoted to eager converse and hot +debate with friends, and to the reading of modern books in English, +French and Italian, with not infrequent visits to the theatre. A brief +diary carefully kept with a system of signs and abbreviations in a queer +mixed jargon of English, French and Latin records his anxious use of his +time, and shows to the end of his eighty years few wasted days. If +industry was his most conspicuous virtue, he gave proof at the outset of +his life of an independence rare among poor men who have their career to +make. Sheridan, who acted as the literary agent of the Whigs, wished to +engage him as a professional pamphleteer and offered him a regular +salary. He refused to tie himself to a party, though his views at this +time were those of an orthodox and enthusiastic admirer of Fox. + +Godwin was to become the apostle of Universal Benevolence. It was a +virtue for which in later life he gave many an opportunity to his richer +friends, but if he stimulated it in others he never refused to practise +it himself. While he was still a struggling and underpaid journeyman +author, wandering from one cheap lodging to another, he burdened himself +with the care and maintenance of a distant relative, an orphaned +second-cousin, named Thomas Cooper. Cooper came to him at the age of +twelve and remained with him till he became an actor at seventeen. +Godwin had read Rousseau's _Emile_, not seldom with dissent, and all +through his life was deeply interested in the problems of education. +They furnished him with the themes of some of the best essays in his +_Enquirer_ and his _Thoughts on Man_, and young Cooper was evidently the +subject on whom he experimented. He was a difficult, proud, +high-spirited lad, and the process of tuition was clearly not as smooth +as it was conscientious. Godwin's leading thought was that the utmost +reverence is due to boys. He cared little how much he imparted of +scholastic knowledge. He aimed at arousing the intellectual curiosity of +his charge and fostering independence and self-respect. Sincerity and +plain-speaking were to govern the relation of tutor and pupil. Corporal +punishment was of course a prohibited barbarity, but it must be admitted +that in Godwin's case a violent tongue and an impatient temper more than +supplied its place. The diary shows how pathetically the tutor exhorted +himself to avoid sternness, "which can only embitter the temper," and +not to impute dulness, stupidity or intentional error. Some letters show +how he failed. Cooper complains that Godwin had called him "a foolish +wretch," "a viper" and a "tiger." Godwin replies by complimenting him on +his "sensibility," and his "independence," asks for his "confidence" in +return, and assures him that he does not expect "gratitude" (a virtue +banned in the Godwinian ethics). This essay in education can have been +only relatively successful, for Cooper seems to have felt a quite +commonplace gratitude to Godwin, and for many a year afterwards sent him +vivacious letters, which testify to the real friendship which united +them. + +Imperious and hot-tempered though he was, Godwin made friends and kept +them. Thomas Holcroft came into Godwin's life in 1786. Thanks to +Hazlitt's spirited memoir, based as it was on ample autobiographical +notes, no personality of this group stands before us so clearly limned, +and there is none more attractive. Mrs. Shelley describes him as a "man +of stern and irascible character," but he was also lovable and +affectionate. There was in his mind and will some powerful initial +force of resolve and mental independence. He thought for himself, and +yet he could assimilate the ideas of other men. He was a reasoner and a +doctrinaire; and yet he must have had in himself those untamed volcanic +emotions which we associate with the heroes of the romantic novels of +the age. He believed in the almost unlimited powers of the human mind, +and his own career, which saw his rise from stable-boy and cobbler to +dramatist, was itself a monument to the human will. Looking in their +mirrors, the progressives of that generation were tempted to think that +perfection might have been within their reach had not their youth been +stunted by the influence of Calvin and the British Constitution. +Rectitude, courage and unflinching truth were Holcroft's ideal. He +firmly believed (an idea which lay in germ in Condorcet and was for a +time adopted by Godwin) that the will guided by reason might transform +not only the human mind but the human body. Like the Christian +Scientists of to-day he asserted, as Mrs. Shelley tells us, that "death +and disease existed only through the feebleness of man's mind, that pain +also had no reality." + +He was a man of fifty when he met Godwin at thirty, and he had packed +into his half century a more various experience of men and things than +the studious and sedentary Godwin could have acquired if he had lived +the life of the Wandering Jew. Theirs was a friendship of mutual +stimulation and intimate exchange which is commoner between a man and a +woman than between two men. They met almost daily, and in spite of some +violent lovers' quarrels, their affection lasted till Holcroft's death +in 1809. It is not hard to understand their quarrels. Neither of them +had natural tact, and Godwin's sensibility was morbid. Unflinching +truthfulness, even in literary criticism, must have tried their tempers, +and the single word "démêlé," best translated "row," occurs often in +Godwin's diary as his note on one of their meetings. It is not easy to +decide which influenced the other more. Godwin's was the trained, +systematic, academical mind, but Holcroft added to a rich and curious +experience of life and a vein of native originality, wide reading and +something more than a mere amateur's taste for music and art. It was +Holcroft who drove Godwin out of his compromising Unitarianism into a +view which for some years he boldly described as Atheism. His religious +opinions were afterwards modified (or so he supposed) by S. T. +Coleridge; but that influence is not conspicuous in his posthumous +essay on religion, and the best label for his attitude is perhaps +Huxley's word, "Agnostic." + +As the French Revolution approached, the two friends fell under the +prevailing excitement. Godwin attended the Revolution Society's dinners, +and Holcroft was, as we have seen, a leading member of the Corresponding +Society. There is no difficulty in accounting for most of the opinions +which the two friends held in common, and which Godwin was soon to +embody in _Political Justice_. Some were common to all the group; others +lie in germ at least in the writings of the Encyclopædists. Even +communism was anticipated by Mably, and was held in some tentative form +by many of the leading men of the Revolution. (See Kropotkin: _The Great +French Revolution_.) The puzzle is rather to account for the anarchist +tendency which seems to be wholly original in Godwin. It was a revolt +not merely against all coercive action by the State, but also against +collective action by the citizens. The root of it was probably the +extreme individualism which felt that a man surrendered too much of +himself, too much of truth and manhood in any political association. The +beginnings of this line of thought may be detected in a vivid +contemptuous account of the riotous Westminster election of 1788, in +which Holcroft had worked with the Foxites: "Scandal, pitiful, mean, +mutual scandal, never was more plentifully dispersed. Electioneering is +a trade so despicably degrading, so eternally incompatible with moral +and mental dignity that I can scarcely believe a truly great mind +capable of the dirty drudgery of such vice. I am at least certain no +mind is great while thus employed. It is the periodical reign of the +evil nature or demon." + +This, to be sure, is no more than a hint of a tendency, but it shows +that experience was already fermenting in the brain of one member at +least of the pair, and it took these alchemists no great while to distil +from it their theoretic spirit. The doings of the Corresponding Society +were destined to enlarge and confirm this experience. In the hopes, the +indignations, and the perils of the years of revolutionary excitement +Godwin had his intimate share. He was one of a small committee which +undertook the publication of Paine's _Rights of Man_, and when the +repression began, those who were struck down were his associates and in +some cases his intimates. Holcroft, as we have seen, was tried for high +treason, and Joseph Gerrald, who was sent to Botany Bay, was a friend +for whom he felt both admiration and affection. If the fate of these men +was a haunting pain to their friends, their high courage and idealistic +faith was a noble stimulus. "Human Perfectibility" had its martyrs, and +the words of Gerrald as he stood in the dock awaiting the sentence that +was to send him to his death among thieves and forgers, deserve a +respectful record: "Moral light is as irresistible by the mind as +physical by the eye. All attempts to impede its progress are vain. It +will roll rapidly along, and as well may tyrants imagine that by placing +their feet upon the earth they can stop its diurnal motion, as that they +shall be able by efforts the most virulent and pertinacious to +extinguish the light of reason and philosophy, which happily for mankind +is everywhere spreading around us." It was in this atmosphere of +enthusiasm and devotion that _Political Justice_ was written. + +The main work of Godwin's life was begun in July, 1791. He was fortunate +in securing a contract from the publisher Robinson, on generous terms +which ultimately brought him in one thousand guineas. _Political +Justice_ has been generally classed among the answers to Burke, but +Godwin's aim was in fact something more ambitious. A note in his diary +deserves to be quoted: "My original conception proceeded on a feeling of +the imperfections and errors of Montesquieu, and a desire of supplying a +less faulty work. In the just fervour of my enthusiasm I entertained the +vain imagination of "hewing a stone from the rock," which by its +inherent energy and weight, should overbear and annihilate all +opposition and place the principles of politics on an immoveable basis." + +When he came to answer his critics, he apologised for extravagances on +the plea of haste and excitement; but in fact the work was slowly and +deliberately written, and was not completed until January, 1793. Its +doctrines, since the book is not now readily accessible, will be +summarised fully and in Godwin's own phraseology in the next chapter, +but it seems proper to draw attention here to the cool yet unprovocative +courage of its writer. It is filled with "hanging matters." Pitt was, +perhaps, no more disposed to punish a man for expounding the fundamental +principles of philosophic anarchism than was the Russian autocracy in +our own day when it tolerated Tolstoy. It was not for writing _Utopia_ +that Sir Thomas More lost his head. But the book is quite unflinching in +its application of principle, and its attacks on monarchy are as +uncompromising as those for which Paine was outlawed. The preface calmly +discusses the possibility of prosecution, issues what is in effect a +quiet challenge, and concludes with the consolation that "it is the +property of truth to be fearless and to prove victorious over every +adversary." The fact was that Godwin watched the dangers of his friends +"almost with envy" (letter to Gerrald). But he held that a man who +deliberately provokes martyrdom acts immorally, since he confuses the +progress of reason by exciting destructive passions, and drives his +adversaries into evil courses. + +"For myself," he wrote, "I will never adopt any conduct for the express +purpose of being put upon my trial, but if I be ever so put, I will +consider that day as a day of triumph." Godwin escaped punishment for +his activity on behalf of Holcroft and the twelve reformers, because his +activity was successful. He escaped prosecution for _Political Justice_ +because it was a learned book, addressed to educated readers, and issued +at the astonishing price of three guineas. The propriety of prosecuting +him was considered by the Privy Council; and Pitt is said to have +dismissed the suggestion with the remark that "a three guinea book could +never do much harm among those who had not three shillings to spare." +That this three-guinea book was bought and read to the extent of no less +than four thousand copies is a tribute not merely to its vitality, but +to the eagerness of the middle-classes during the revolutionary ferment +to drink in the last words of the new philosophy. + +A new edition was soon called for, and was issued early in 1796. Much of +the book was recast and many chapters entirely rewritten, as the +consequence not so much of any material change in Godwin's views, as of +the profit he had derived from private controversies. Condorcet (though +he is never mentioned) is, if one may make a guess, the chief of the new +influences apparent in the second edition. It is more cautious, more +visibly the product of a varied experience than the first draft, but it +abandons none of his leading ideas. A third edition appeared in 1799, +toned down still further by a growing caution. These revisions +undoubtedly made the book less interesting, less vivid, less readable. +No modern edition has ever appeared, and its direct influence had become +negligible even before Godwin's death. It is harder to account for the +oblivion into which the book has fallen, than to explain its early +popularity. It is not a difficult book to read. "The young and the +fair," Godwin tells us, "did not feel deterred from consulting my +pages." His style is always clear and often eloquent. His vocabulary +seems to a modern taste overloaded with Latin words, but the +architecture of his sentences is skilful in the classical manner. He can +vary his elaborate periods with a terse, strong statement which comes +with the force of an unexpected blow. He has a knack of happy +illustration, and a way of enforcing his points by putting problems in +casuistry which have an alluring human interest. The book moved his own +generation profoundly, and even to-day his more enthusiastic passages +convey an irresistible impression of sincerity and conviction. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"POLITICAL JUSTICE" + + +The controversy which produced _Political Justice_ was a dialogue +between the future and the past. The task of speculation in England had +been, through a stagnant century, to define the conditions of political +stability, and to admire the elaborate checks and balances of the +British Constitution as though change were the only evil that threatened +mankind. For Burke, change itself was but an incident in the triumph of +continuity and conservation. For Godwin the whole life of mankind is a +race through innovation to perfection, and his main concern is to exhort +the athlete to fling aside the garments of prejudice, tradition, and +constraint, until one asks at the end how much of flesh and blood has +been torn away with the garments. If one were to attempt in a phrase to +sum up his work, the best title which one could invent for it would be +Prolegomena to all Future Progress. What in a word are the conditions of +progress? + +His attitude to mankind is by turns a pedagogue's disapprobation and a +patron's encouragement. The worst enemy of progress was the systematic +optimism of Leibnitz and Pope, which Voltaire had overthrown. There is +indeed enough of progress in the past to fire our courage and our hopes. +In moments of depression, he would admire the beautiful invention of +writing and the power of mind displayed in human speech. But the general +panorama of history exhorts us to fundamental change. In bold sweeping +rhetoric he assures us that history is little else than the record of +crime. War has diminished neither its horror nor its frequency, and man +is still the most formidable enemy to man. Despotism is still the fate +of the greatest part of mankind. Penal laws by the terror of punishment +hold a numerous class in abject penury. Robbery and fraud are none the +less continual, and the poor are tempted for ever to violence against +the more fortunate. One person in seven comes in England on the poor +rates. Can the poor conceive of society as a combination to protect +every man in his rights and secure him the means of existence? Is it not +rather for them a conspiracy to engross its advantages for the favoured +few? Luxury insults them; admiration is the exclusive property of the +rich, and contempt the constant lacquey of poverty. Nowhere is a man +valued for what he is. Legislation aggravates the natural inequality of +man. A house of landlords sets to work to deprive the poor of the little +commonage of nature which remained to them, and its bias stands revealed +when we recollect that in England (as Paine had pointed out) while taxes +on land produce half a million less than they did a century ago, taxes +on articles of general consumption produce thirteen millions more. +Robbery is a capital offence because the poor alone are tempted to it. +Among the poor alone is all combination forbidden. Godwin was often an +incautious rhetorician. He painted the present in colours of such +unrelieved gloom, that it is hard to see in it the possibility of a +brighter future. Mankind seems hopeless, and he has to prove it +perfectible. + +Are these evils then the necessary condition of society? Godwin answers +that question as the French school, and in particular Helvétius, had +done, by a preliminary assault on the assumptions of a reactionary +philosophy. He proposes to exhort the human will to embark with a +conscious and social resolve on the adventure of perfection. He must +first demonstrate that the will is sovereign. Man is the creature of +necessity, and the nexus of cause and effect governs the moral world +like the physical. We are the product of our conditions. But among +conditions some are within the power of the will to change and others +are not. Montesquieu had insisted that it is climate which ultimately +differentiates the races of mankind. Climate is clearly a despotism +which we can never hope to reform away. Another school has taught that +men come into the world with innate ideas and a predetermined character. +Others again would dispute that man is in his actions a reasonable +being, and would represent him as the toy of passion, a creature to whom +it is useless to present an argument drawn from his own advantage. The +first task of the progressive philosopher is to clear away these +preliminary obstacles. Man is the creature of conditions, but primarily +of those conditions which he may hope to modify--education, religion, +social prejudice and above all government. He is also in the last resort +a being whose conduct is governed by his opinions. Admit these premises +and the way is clear towards perfection. It is a problem which in some +form and in some dialect confronts every generation of reformers. We are +the creatures of our own environment, but in some degree we are +ourselves a force which can modify that environment. We inherit a past +which weighs upon us and obsesses us, but in some degree each generation +is born anew. Godwin used the new psychology against the old +superstition of innate ideas. A modern thinker in his place would +advance Weissmann's biological theory that the acquired modifications of +an organism are not inherited, as an answer to the pessimism which bases +itself upon heredity. + +Godwin starts boldly with the thesis that "the characters of men +originate in their external circumstances." He brushes aside innate +ideas or instincts or even ante-natal impressions. Accidents in the womb +may have a certain effect, and every man has a certain disposition at +birth. But the multiplicity of later experiences wears out these early +impressions. Godwin, in all this, reproduces the current fallacy of his +generation. Impressions and experiences were for them something +external, flung upon the surface of the mind. They were just beginning +to realise that the mind works when it perceives. Change a nobleman's +child at birth with a ploughman's, and each will grow up quite naturally +in his new circumstances. Exercise makes the muscles; education, +argument, and the exchange of opinion the mind. "It is impression that +makes the man, and compared with the empire of impression, the mere +differences of animal structure are inexpressibly unimportant and +powerless." Change continues through life; everything mental and +physical is in flux; why suppose that only in the propensities of the +new-born infant is there something permanent and inflexible? Helvétius +had been Godwin's chief precursor in this opinion. He had gone so far as +to declare that men are at birth equal, some raw human stuff which +"education," in the broad sense of the word, proceeds to modify in the +long schooling from the cradle to the grave. Men differ in genius, he +would assert, by education and experience, not by natural organisation. +The original acuteness of the senses has little to do with the +development of talent. The new psychology had swept "faculties" away. +Interest is the main factor in the development of perception and +attention. The scarcity of attention is the true cause of the scarcity +of genius, and the chief means of promoting it are emulation and the +love of glory. + +Godwin is too cautious to accept this ultra-revolutionary statement of +the potential equality of men without some reserves. But the idea +inspires him as it inspired all the vital thought of his day. It set +humane physicians at the height of the Terror to work on discovering a +method by which even defective and idiot children might be raised by +"education" to the normal stature of the human mind. It fired Godwin +himself with a zeal for education. "Folly," said Helvétius, "is +factitious." "Nature," said Godwin, "never made a dunce." The failures +of education are due primarily to the teacher's error in substituting +compulsion for persuasion and despotism for encouragement. The +excellences and defects of the human character are not due to occult +causes beyond the reach of ingenuity to modify or correct, nor are false +views the offspring of an irresistible destiny. Our conventional schools +are the slaughterhouses of mind; but of all the external influences +which build up character and opinion, the chief are political. It is +Godwin's favourite theme, and he carries it even further than Holbach +and Helvétius had done. From this influence there is no escape, for it +infects the teacher no less than the taught. Equality will make men +frank, ingenuous and intrepid, but a great disparity of ranks renders +men cold, irresolute, timid and cautious. However lofty the morality of +the teacher, the mind of the child is continually corrupted by seeing, +in the society around him, wealth honoured, poverty contemned, intrepid +virtue proscribed and servility encouraged. From the influence of social +and political institutions there is no escape: "They poison our minds +before we can resist or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the +barbarous directors of Eastern seraglios they deprive us of our +virility, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle. So +false is the opinion that has too generally prevailed that politics is +an affair with which ordinary men have little concern." + +Here Godwin is introducing into English thinking an idea originally +French. English writers from Locke to Paine had spoken of government as +something purely negative, so little important that only when a man saw +his property threatened or his shores invaded, was he forced to +recollect that he had a country. Godwin saw its influence everywhere, +insinuating itself into our personal dispositions and insensibly +communicating its spirit to our private transactions. The idea in his +hands made for hope. Reform, or better still, abolish governments, and +to what heights of virtue might not men aspire? We need not say with +Rousseau that men are naturally virtuous. The child, as Helvétius +delighted to point out, will do that for a coral or a doll which he will +do at a mature age for a title or a sceptre. Men are rather the +infinitely malleable, variable stuff on which education and persuasion +can play. + +The first essential dogma of perfectibility, the first presupposition of +progress is, then, that men's characters depend on external +circumstances. The second dogma, the second condition of hope is that +the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions. It is an +orthodox Socratic position, but Godwin was not a student of Plato. He +laid down this dogma as the necessary basis of any reform by persuasion. +There is much virtue in the word "voluntary." In so far as actions are +voluntary, the doctrine is self-evident. A voluntary action is +accompanied by foresight, and the idea of certain consequences is its +motive. A judgment "this is good" or "this is desirable," has preceded +the action, and it originates therefore in an opinion however fugitive. +In moments of passion my attention is so engrossed by a particular view +of the subject that I forget considerations by which I am commonly +guided. Even in battles between reason and sense, he holds, the +contending forces assume a rational form. It is opinion contending with +opinion and judgment with judgment. At this point the modern reader will +become sceptical. These internal struggles assume a rational form only +when self-consciousness reviews them--that is to say when they are over. +In point of fact, Godwin argues, sheer sensuality has a smaller empire +over us than we commonly suppose. Strip the feast of its social +pleasures, and the commerce of the sexes of all its intellectual and +emotional allurements, and who would be overcome? + +One need not follow Godwin minutely in his handling of what is after all +a commonplace of academic philosophy. He was concerned to insist that +men's voluntary actions originate in opinion, that he might secure a +fulcrum for the leverage of argument and persuasion. Vice is error, and +error can always be corrected. "Show me in the clearest and most +unambiguous manner that a certain mode of proceeding is most reasonable +in itself, or most conducive to my interest, and I shall infallibly +pursue that mode, so long as the views you suggested to me continue +present to my mind." The practical problem is therefore to make +ourselves and our fellows perfectly conscious of our motives, and always +prepared to render a reason for our actions. The perfection of human +character is to approach as nearly as possible to the absolutely +voluntary state, to act always, in other words, from a clear and +comprehensive survey of the consequences which we desire to produce. + +The incautious reader may be invited to pause at this point, for in this +premise lies already the whole of philosophic anarchism. You have +admitted that voluntary action is rational. You have conceded that all +action _ought_ to be voluntary. The silent assumption is that by +education and effort it _can_ be made so. One may doubt whether in the +sense required by Godwin's argument any human action ever is or can be +absolutely "voluntary," rational or self-conscious. To attain it, we +should have to reason naked in a desert with algebraic symbols. To use +words is to think in step, and to beg our question. But Godwin is well +aware that most men rarely reason. He is here framing an ideal, without +realising its remoteness. The mischief of his faith in logic as a force, +was that it led him to ignore the æsthetic and emotional influences, by +which the mass of men can best be led to a virtuous ideal. Shelley, who +was a thorough Platonist, supplements, as we shall see (p. 234), this +characteristic defect in his master's teaching. The main conclusions +follow rapidly. Sound reasoning and truth when adequately communicated +must always be victorious over error. Truth, then, is omnipotent, and +the vices and moral weaknesses of man are not invincible. Man, in short, +is perfectible, or in other words, susceptible of perpetual improvement. +These sentiments have to the modern ear a platitudinous ring. So far +from being platitudes, they are explosives capable of destroying the +whole fabric of government. For if truth is omnipotent, why trust to +laws? If men will obey argument, why use constraint? + +But let us move slowly towards this extreme conclusion. If reason +appears to-day to play but a feeble part in society, and exerts only a +limited empire over the actions of men, it is because unlettered +ignorance, social habits and the positive institutions of government +stand in the way. Where the masses of mankind are sunk in brutal +ignorance, one need not wonder that argument and persuasion have but a +small influence with them. Truth indeed is rarely recondite or difficult +to communicate. Godwin might have quoted Helvétius: "It is with genius +as with an astronomer; he sees a new star and forthwith all can see it." +Nor need we fear the objection that by introducing an intellectual +element into virtue, we have removed it beyond the reach of simple men. +A virtuous action, indeed, must be good both in intention and in +tendency. Godwin was like Helvétius and Priestley, a Utilitarian in +ethics, and defined duty as that mode of action on the part of the +individual which constitutes the best possible application of his +capacity to the general benefit, in every situation that presents +itself. One may be mistaken as to what will contribute to the general +benefit, as Sir Everard Digby was, for example, when he thought it his +duty to blow up King James and the Parliament. But the simple man need +be at no loss. An earnest desire will in some degree generate capacity. +There Godwin opened a profoundly interesting and stimulating line of +thought. The mind is formed not by its innate powers, but by its +governing desires. As love brings eloquence to the suitor, so if I do +but ardently desire to serve my kind, I shall find out a way, and while +I study a plan shall find that my faculties have been exercised and +increased. Moreover, in the struggle after virtue I am not alone. + +Burke made the first of the virtues prudence. Godwin would have given +sincerity that place. To him and his circle the chief business of +social converse was by argument and exhortation to strengthen the habit +of virtue. There was something to be said for the practice of auricular +confession; but how much better would it be if every man were to make +the world his confessional and the human species the keeper of his +conscience. The practice of sincerity would give to our conversation a +Roman boldness and fervour. The frank distribution of praise and blame +is the most potent incentive to virtue. Were we but bold and impartial +in our judgments, vice would be universally deserted and virtue +everywhere practised. Our cowardice in censure and correction is the +chief reason of the perpetuation of abuses. If every man would tell all +the truth he knew, it is impossible to predict how short would be the +reign of usurpation and folly. Let our motive be philanthropy, and we +need not fear ruggedness or brutality, disdain or superiority, since we +aim at the interest of him we correct, and not at the triumph of the +corrector. In an aside Godwin demands the abolition of social +conventions which offend sincerity. If I must deny myself to a visitor, +I should scorn the polite lie that I am "not at home." + +It is a consequence also of this doctrine, that there should be no +prosecutions for libel, even in private matters. Truth depends on the +free shock of opinions, and the unrestrained discussion of private +character is almost as important as freedom in speculative enquiry. "If +the truth were universally told of men's dispositions and actions, +gibbets and wheels might be dismissed from the face of the earth. The +knave unmasked would be obliged to turn honest in his own defence. Nay, +no man would have time to turn a knave. Truth would follow him in his +first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the +commencement of his career." It is shameful for a good man to retort on +a slander, "I will have recourse to the only means that are congenial to +guilt: I will compel you to be silent." Freedom in this matter, as in +all others, will engender activity and fortitude; positive institution +(Godwin's term for law and constraint) makes the mind torpid and +lethargic. It is hardly necessary to reproduce Godwin's vigorous +arguments for unfettered freedom in political and speculative +discussion, against censorships and prosecutions for religious and +political opinions. Even were we secure from the possibility of mistake, +mischief and not good would accrue from the attempt to impose our +infallible opinions upon our neighbours. Men deserve approbation only in +so far as they are independent in their opinions and free in their +actions. + +Equally clear is it that the establishment of religion and all systems +of tests must be abolished. They make for hypocrisy, check advance in +speculation, and teach us to estimate a disinterested sincerity at a +cheap rate. We need not fear disorder as a consequence of complete +liberty of speech. "Arguments alone will not have the power, unassisted +by the sense or the recollection of oppression or treachery to hurry the +people into excesses. Excesses are never the offspring of speculative +reason, are never the offspring of misrepresentation only, but of power +endeavouring to stifle reason, and to traverse the commonsense of +mankind." + +A more original deduction from Godwin's demand for the unlimited freedom +of opinion, was that he objected vehemently to any system of national +education. Condorcet had drawn up a marvellously complete project for +universal compulsory education, with full liberty indeed for the +teachers, whose technical competence alone the State would guarantee, +and with a scheme of free scholarships, an educational "ladder" more +generous than anything which has yet been realised in fact. Godwin +objects that State-regulated institutions will stereotype knowledge and +make for an undesirable permanence and uniformity in opinion. They +diffuse what is known and forget what remains to be known. They erect a +system of authority and separate a tenet from the evidence on which it +rests, so that beliefs cease to be perceptions and become prejudices. No +Government is to be trusted with the dangerous power to create and +regulate opinions through its schools. Such a power is, indeed, more +dangerous than that of an Established Church, and would be used to +strengthen tyranny and perpetuate faulty institutions. + +Godwin, needless to say, takes, as did Condorcet, the side of frankness +in the controversy which was a test of democratic faith in this +generation--whether "political imposture" is allowable, and whether a +statesman should encourage the diffusion of "salutary prejudices" among +the unlearned, the poor and women. This was indeed the main eighteenth +century defence for monarchy and aristocracy. Kings and governors are +not wiser than other men, but it is useful that they should be thought +so. Such imposture, Godwin argued, is as futile as the parallel use by +religion of the pains and penalties of the afterworld. It is the sober +who are demoralised by it, and not the lawless who are deterred. To +terrify men is a strange way of rendering them judicious, fearless and +happy. It is to leave men indolent and unbraced by truth. He objects +even to the trappings and ceremonies which are used to render +magistrates outwardly venerable and awe-inspiring, so that they may +impress the irrational imagination. These means may be used as easily to +support injustice as to render justice acceptable. They divide men into +two classes; those who may reason, and those who must take everything on +trust. This is to degrade them both. The masses are kept in perpetual +vibration between rebellious discontent and infatuated credulity. And +can we suppose that the practice of concealment and hypocrisy will make +no breaches in the character of the governing class? + +The general effect of any meddling of authority with opinion is that the +mind is robbed of its genuine employment. Such a system produces beings +wanting in independence, and in that intrepid perseverance and calm +self-approbation which grow from independence. Such beings are the mere +dwarfs and mockeries of men. + +Godwin was at issue here as much with Rousseau as with Burke, but his +trust in the people, it should be explained, was based rather on faith +in what they might become, than on admiration for what they were. + +That all government is an evil, though doubtless a necessary evil, was +the typical opinion of the individualistic eighteenth century. It would +not long have survived such proposals as Paine's scheme of old age +pensions and Condorcet's project of national education. When men have +perceived that an evil can be turned to good account, they are already +on the road which will lead them to discard their premises. But Godwin +was quite unaffected by this new Liberalism. No positive good was to be +hoped from government, and much positive evil would flow from it at the +best. In his absolute individualism he went further. The whole idea of +government was radically wrong. For him the individual was tightly +enclosed in his own skin, and any constraint was an infringement of his +personality. He would have poured scorn on the half-mystical conception +of a social organism. Nor did it occur to him that a man might +voluntarily subject himself to government, losing none of his own +autonomy in the act, from a persuasion that government is on the whole +a benefit, and that submission, even when his own views are thwarted, is +a free man's duty within certain limits, accepted gladly for the sake of +preserving an institution which commonly works well. He did not see the +institution working well; he did not believe in the benefits; he was +convinced that more than all the advantages of the best of governments +could be obtained from the free operation of opinion in an unorganised +community. + +His main point is lucidly simple. It was an application of the Whig and +Protestant doctrine of the right of private judgment. "If in any +instance I am made the mechanical instrument of absolute violence, in +that instance I fall under a pure state of external slavery." Nor is the +case much better, if instead of waiting for the actual application of +coercion, I act in obedience to authority from the hope and fear of the +State's rewards and punishments. For virtue has ceased, and I am acting +from self-interest. It is a triviality to distinguish, as Whig thinkers +do, between matters of conscience (in which the State should not meddle) +and my conduct in the civil concerns of daily life (which the State +should regulate). What sort of moralist can he be, who makes no +conscience of what he does in his daily intercourse with other men? "I +have deeply reflected upon the nature of virtue, and am convinced that a +certain proceeding is incumbent on me. But the hangman supported by an +Act of Parliament assures me that I am mistaken. If I yield my opinion +to his dictum, my action becomes modified, and my character also.... +Countries exposed to the perpetual interference of decrees instead of +arguments, exhibit within their boundaries the mere phantoms of men." + +The root of the whole matter is that brute force is an offence against +reason, and an unnecessary offence, if in fact men are guided by opinion +and will yield to argument. "The case of punishment is the case of you +and me differing in opinion, and your telling me that you must be right +since you have a more brawny arm." + +If I must obey, it is better and less demoralising to yield an external +submission so as to escape penalty or constraint, than to yield to +authority from a general confidence which enslaves the mind. Comply but +criticise. Obey but beware of reverence. If I surrender my conscience to +another man's keeping, I annihilate my individuality as a man, and +become the ready tool of him among my neighbours who shall excel in +imposture and artifice. I put an end moreover to the happy collision of +understandings upon which the hopes of human improvement depend. +Governments depend upon the unlimited confidence of their subjects, and +confidence rests upon ignorance. + +Government (has not Burke said so?) is the perpetual enemy of change, +and prompts us to seek the public welfare not in alteration and +improvement, but in a timid reverence for the decisions of our +ancestors, as if it were the nature of the human mind always to +degenerate and never to advance. Godwin thought with John Bright, "We +stand on the shoulders of our forefathers--and see further." + +In proportion as weakness and ignorance shall diminish, the basis of +government will also decay. That will be its true euthanasia. + +There is indeed nothing to be said for government save that for a time, +and within jealously drawn limits, it may be a fatal and indispensable +necessity. A just government cannot be founded on force: for force has +no affinity with justice. It cannot be based upon the will of God; we +have no revelation that recommends one form of government rather than +another. As little can it be based upon contract. Who were the parties +to the pretended social contract? For whom did they consent, for +themselves or for their descendants, and to how great a variety of +propositions? Have I assented or my ancestors for me, to the laws of +England in fifty volumes folio, and to all that shall hereafter be added +to them? In a few contemptuous pages Godwin buries the social contract. +Men when they digest the articles of a contract are not empowered to +create rights, but only to declare what was previously right. But the +doctrine of the natural rights of man fares no better at his hands. +There is no such thing as a positive right to do as we list. One way of +acting in every emergency is reasonable, and the other is not. One way +will benefit mankind, and the other will not. It is a pestilent doctrine +and a denial of all virtue, to say that we have a right to do what we +will with our own. Everything we possess has a destination prescribed to +it by the immutable voice of reason and justice. + +Duties and rights are correlative. As it cannot be the duty of men or +societies to do anything to the detriment of human happiness, so it +appears with equal evidence that they cannot have the right to do so. +There cannot be a more absurd proposition than that which affirms the +right of doing wrong. The voice of the people is not the voice of God, +nor does universal consent or a majority vote convert wrong into right. +It is absurd to say that any set of people has a right to set up any +form of government it chooses, or any sect to establish any superstition +however detestable. All this would have delighted Burke, but Godwin +stands firmly in his path by asserting what he calls the one negative +right of man. It is in a word, the right to exercise virtue, the right +to a region of choice, a sphere of discretion, which his neighbours must +not infringe save by censure and remonstrance. When I am constrained, I +cease to be a person, and become a thing. "I ought to exercise my +talents for the benefit of others, but the exercise must be the fruit of +my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service." + +Government is an evil, and the business of human advancement is to +dispense with it as rapidly as may be. In the period of transition +Godwin had but a secondary interest, and his sketch of it is slight. He +dismisses in turn despotism, aristocracy, the "mixed monarchy" of the +Whigs, and the president with kingly powers of some American thinkers. +His pages on these subjects are vigorous, well-reasoned, and pointed in +their satire. It required much courage to write them, but they do not +contain his original contribution to political theory. What is most +characteristic in his line of argument is his insistence on the moral +corruption that monarchy and aristocracy involve. The whole standard of +moral values is subverted. To achieve ostentation becomes the first +object of desire. Disinterested virtue is first suspected and then +viewed with incredulity. Luxury meanwhile distorts our whole attitude to +our fellows, and in every effort to excel and shine we wrong the +labouring millions. Aristocracy involves general degradation, and can +survive only amid general ignorance. "To make men serfs and villeins it +is indispensably necessary to make them brutes.... A servant who has +been taught to write and read, ceases to be any longer a passive +machine." + +From the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy Godwin, and indeed the +whole revolutionary school, expected the cessation of war. War and +conquest elevate the few at the expense of the rest, and cannot benefit +the whole community. Democracies have no business with war save to repel +an invasion of their territory. He thought of patriotism and love of +country much as did Dr. Price. They are (as Hervé has argued in our own +day) specious illusions invented to render the multitude the blind +instruments of crooked designs. We must not be lured into pursuing the +general wealth, prosperity or glory of the society to which we belong. +Society is an abstraction, an "ideal existence," and is not on its own +account entitled to the smallest regard. Let us not be led away into +rendering services to society for which no individual man is the better. +Godwin is scornful of wars to maintain the balance of power, or to +protect our fellow-countrymen abroad. Some proportion must be observed +between the evil of which we complain and the evil which the proposed +remedy inevitably includes. War may be defensible in support of the +liberty of an oppressed people, but let us wait (here he is clearly +censuring the practice of the French Republic) until the oppressed +people rises. Do not interfere to force it to be free, and do not forget +the resources of pacific persuasion. As to foreign possessions there is +little to be said. Do without them. Let colonies attend to their own +defence; no State would wish to have colonies if free trade were +universal. Liberty is equally good for every race of men, and democracy, +since it is founded on reason, a universal form of government. There +follow some naïve prescriptions for conducting democratic wars. +Sincerity forbids ambuscades and secresy. Never invade, nor assume the +offensive. A citizen militia must replace standing armies. Training and +discipline are of little value; the ardour of a free people will supply +their place. + +Godwin's leading idea when he comes to sketch a shadowy constitution is +an extreme dislike of overgrown national States. Political speculation +in his day idealised the city republic of antiquity. Helvétius, hoping +to get rid as far as possible of government, had advocated a system of +federated commonwealths, each so small that public opinion and the fear +of shame would act powerfully within it. He would have divided France +into thirty republics, each returning four deputies to a federal +council. The Girondins cherished the same idea, and lost their heads for +it. Tolstoy, going back to the village community as the only possible +scene of a natural and virtuous life, exhibits the same tendency. + +For Godwin the true unit of society is the parish. Neighbours best +understand each others' concerns, and in a limited area there is no room +for ambition to unfold itself. Great talents will have their sphere +outside this little circle in the work of moulding opinion. Within the +parish public opinion is supreme, and acts through juries, which may at +first be obliged to exert some degree of violence in dealing with +offenders:--"But this necessity does not arise out of the nature of man, +but out of the institutions by which he has already been corrupted. Man +is not originally vicious. He would not ... refuse to be convinced by +the expostulations that are addressed to him, had he not been accustomed +to regard them as hypocritical, and to conceive that while his +neighbour, his parent and his political governor pretended to be +actuated by a pure regard to his interest or pleasure, they were in +reality, at the expense of his, promoting their own.... Render the plain +dictates of justice level to every capacity ... and the whole species +will become reasonable and virtuous. It will then be sufficient for +juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, without +assuming the prerogative of dictating that adjustment. It will then be +sufficient for them to invite offenders to forsake their errors.... +Where the empire of reason was so universally acknowledged, the offender +would either readily yield to the expostulations of authority, or if he +resisted, though suffering no personal molestation, he would feel so +weary under the unequivocal disapprobation and the observant eye of +public judgment as willingly to remove to a society more congenial to +his errors." The picture is not so Utopian as it sounds. It is a very +fair sketch of the social structure of a Macedonian village community +under Turkish rule, with the massacres left out. + +For the rest Godwin was reluctantly prepared to admit the wisdom of +instituting a single chamber National Assembly, to manage the common +affairs of the parishes, to arrange their disputes and to provide for +national defence. But it should suffice for it to meet for one day +annually or thereabouts. Like the juries it would at first issue +commands, but would in time find it sufficient to publish invitations +backed by arguments. Godwin, who is quite prepared to idealise his +district juries, pours forth an unstinted contempt upon Parliaments and +their procedure. They make a show of unanimity where none exists. The +prospect of a vote destroys the intellectual value of debate; the will +of one man really dominates, and the existence of party frustrates +persuasion. The whole is based upon "that intolerable insult upon all +reason and justice, the deciding upon truth by the casting up of +numbers." He omits to tell us whether he would allow his juries to +vote. Fortunately legislation is unnecessary: "The inhabitants of a +small parish living with some degree of that simplicity which best +corresponds with the real nature and wants of a human being, would soon +be led to suspect that general laws were unnecessary and would adjudge +the causes that came before them not according to certain axioms +previously written, but according to the circumstances and demand of +each particular cause." + +Godwin had a clear mental picture of the gradual decay of authority +towards the close of the period of transition; his vision of the earlier +stages is less definite. He set his faith on the rapid working of +enquiry and persuasion, but he does not explain in detail how, for +example, we are to rid ourselves of kings. He once met the Prince +Regent, but it is not recorded that he talked to him of virtue and +equality, as the early Quakers talked to the man Charles Stuart. He is +chiefly concerned to warn his revolutionary friends against abrupt +changes. There must be a general desire for change, a conviction of the +understanding among the masses, before any change is wise. When a whole +nation, or even an unquestionable majority of a nation, is resolved on +change, no government, even with a standing army behind it, can stand +against it. Every reformer imagines that the country is with him. What +folly! Even when the majority seems resolved, what is the quality of +their resolution? They do, perhaps, sincerely dislike some specific tax. +But do they dislike the vice and meanness that grow out of tyranny, and +pant for the liberal and ingenuous virtue that would be fostered in +their own minds by better conditions? It is a disaster when the +unillumined masses are instigated to violent revolution. Revolutions are +always crude, bloody, uncertain and inimical to tolerance, independence, +and intellectual inquiry. They are a detestable persecution when a +minority promotes them. If they must occur, at least postpone them as +long as possible. External freedom is worthless without the magnanimity, +firmness and energy that should attend it. But if a man have these +things, there is little left for him to desire. He cannot be degraded, +nor become useless and unhappy. Let us not be in haste to overthrow the +usurped powers of the world. Make men wise, and by that very operation +you make them free. It is unfortunate that men are so eager to strike +and have so little constancy to reason. We should desire neither violent +change nor the stagnation that inflames and produces revolutions. Our +prayer to governments should be, "Do not give us too soon; do not give +us too much; but act under the incessant influence of a disposition to +give us something." + +These are the reflections of a man who wrote amid the Terror. He had +seen the Corresponding Society at work, and the experience made him more +than sceptical of any form of association in politics, and led him into +a curiously biassed argument, rhetorical in form, forensic in substance. +Temporary combinations may be necessary in a time of turmoil, or to +secure some single limited end, such as the redress of a wrong done to +an individual. Where their scope is general and their duration long +continued, they foster declamation, cabal, party spirit and tumult. They +are frequented by the artful, the intemperate, the acrimonious, and +avoided by the sober, the sceptical, the contemplative citizen. They +foster a fallacious uniformity of opinion and render the mind quiescent +and stationary. Truth disclaims the alliance of marshalled numbers. The +conditions most favourable to reasoned enquiry and calm persuasion are +to be found in small and friendly circles. The moral beauty of the +spectacle offered by these groups of friends united to pursue truth and +foster virtue, will render it contagious. So the craggy steep of science +will be levelled and knowledge rendered accessible to all. + +The conception of the State which Godwin sought to supplant was itself +limited and negative. Government was little else in his day than a means +for internal defence against criminals and for external defence against +aggression. For the rest, it helped landlords to enclose commons, kept +down wages by poor relief and in a muddle-headed way interfered with the +freedom of trade. But its central activity was the repression of crime, +and for Godwin's system the test question was his handling of the +problem of crime and punishment. He was no Platonist, but not for the +first time we discover him in a familiar Socratic position. "Do you +punish a man," asked Socrates, "to make him better or to make him +worse?" Godwin starts by rejecting the traditional conception of +punishment. The word means the infliction of evil upon a vicious being, +not merely because the public advantage demands it, but because there is +a certain fitness and propriety in making suffering the accompaniment of +vice, quite apart from any benefit that may be in the result. No +adherent of the doctrine of necessity in morals can justify that +attitude. The assassin could no more avoid the murder he committed than +could the dagger. Justice opposes any suffering, which is not attended +by benefit. Resentment against vice will not excuse useless torture. We +must banish the conception of desert. To punish for what is past and +irrecoverable must be ranked among the most baleful conceptions of +barbarism. Xerxes was not more unreasonable when he lashed the waves of +the sea, than that man would be who inflicted suffering on his fellow +from a view to the past and not from a view to the future. + +Excluding all idea of punishment in the proper sense of the word, it +remains only to consider such coercion as is used against persons +convicted of injurious action in the past, for the purpose of preventing +future mischief. Godwin now invites us to consider the futility of +coercion as a means of reforming, or as he would say, "enlightening the +understanding" of a man who has erred. Our aim is to bring him to the +acceptance of our conception of duty. Assuming that we possess more of +eternal justice than he, do we shrink from setting our wit against his? +Instead of acting as his preceptor we become his tyrant. Coercion first +annihilates the understanding of its victim, and then of him who adopts +it. Dressed in the supine prerogatives of a master, he is excused from +cultivating the faculties of a man. Coercion begins by producing pain, +by violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to +be impressed. It includes a tacit confession of imbecility. + +With some hesitation Godwin allows the use of force to restrain a man +found in actual violence. We may not have time to reason with him. But +even for self-defence there are other resources. "The powers of the mind +are yet unfathomed." He tells the story of Marius, who overawed the +soldier sent into his cell to execute him, with the words, "Wretch, have +you the temerity to kill Marius?" Were we all accustomed to place an +intrepid confidence in the unaided energy of the intellect, to despise +force in others and to refuse to employ it ourselves, who shall say how +far the species might be improved? But punitive coercion deals only with +a man whose violence is over. The only rational excuse for it is to +restrain a man from further violence which he will presumably commit. +Godwin condemns capital punishment as excessive, since restraint can be +attained without it, and corporal chastisement as an offence against the +dignity of the human mind. Let there be nothing in the state of +transition worse than simple imprisonment. Godwin, however, dissents +vehemently from Howard's invention of solitary confinement, designed to +shield the prisoner from the contamination of his fellow criminals. Man +is a social animal and virtue depends on social relations. As a +preliminary to acquiring it is he to be shut out from the society of his +fellows? How shall he exercise benevolence or justice in his cell? Will +his heart become softened or expand who breathes the atmosphere of a +dungeon? Solitary confinement is the bitterest torment that human +ingenuity can inflict. The least objectionable method of depriving a +criminal of the power to harm society is banishment or transportation. +Expose him to the stimulus of necessity in an unsettled country. New +conditions make new minds. But the whole attempt to apply law breaks +down. You must heap edict on edict, and to make your laws fit your +cases, must either for ever wrest them or make new ones. Law does not +end uncertainty, and it debilitates the mind. So long as men are +habituated to look to foreign guidance and external rules for +direction, so long the vigour of their minds will sleep. + +If Fénelon, saint and philosopher, with an incompleted masterpiece in +his pocket, and Fénelon's chambermaid, were both in danger of burning to +death in the archiepiscopal palace at Cambrai, and if I could save only +one of them, which ought I to save? It is a fascinating problem in +casuistry, and Godwin with his usual decision of mind, has no doubt +about the solution. He would save Fénelon as the more valuable life, and +above all Fénelon's manuscript, and the maid, he is quite sure, would +wish to give her life for his. Something (the modern reader will object) +might be urged on the other side. Just because he was a saint, it might +be argued that he was the fitter of the two to face the great adventure, +and one may be sure that he himself would have thought so. A philosopher +who gives his life for a kitten will have advanced the Kingdom of +Heaven. The chambermaid, moreover, may have in her a potentiality of +love and happiness which are worth many a masterpiece of French prose. +But Godwin has not yet exhausted his moral problem. How, if the maid +were my mother, wife or benefactress? Once more he gives his unflinching +answer. Justice still requires of me in the interests of mankind to +save the more valuable life. "What magic is there in the pronoun 'my' to +overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?" My mother may be a fool, a +liar, or a thief. Of what consequence then, is it that she is "mine"? +Gratitude ought not to blind me to my duty, though she have suckled me +and nursed me. The benevolence of a benefactor ought indeed to be +esteemed, but not because it benefited me. A benefactor ought to be +esteemed as much by another as by me, solely because he benefited a +human being. Gratitude, in short, has no place in justice or virtue, and +reason declines to recognise the private affections. + +Such, crudely stated, is Godwin's famous doctrine of "universal +benevolence." The virtuous man is like Swift's Houyhnhnms, noble +quadrupeds, wholly governed by reason, who cared for strangers as well +as for the nearest neighbour, and showed the same affection for their +neighbour's offspring as for their own. The centre of Godwin's moral +teaching was yet another Socratic thought. Politics are "the proper +vehicle of a liberal morality," and morals concern our relation to the +whole body of mankind. To realise justice is our prime concern as +rational beings, and society is nothing but embodied justice. Justice +deals with beings capable of pleasure and pain. Here we are partakers of +a common nature with like faculties for suffering or enjoyment. +"Justice," then, "is that impartial treatment of every man in matters +that relate to his happiness, which is measured solely by a +consideration of the properties of the receiver and the capacity of him +who gives." Every man with whom I am in contact is a sentient being, and +one should be as much to me as another, save indeed where equity +corrects equality, by suggesting to me that one individual may be of +more value than another, because of his greater power to benefit +mankind. Justice exacts from us the application of our talents, time, +and resources with the single object of producing the greatest sum of +benefit to sentient beings. There is no limit to what I am bound to do +for the general weal. I hold my person and property both in trust on +behalf of mankind. A man who needs £10 has an absolute claim on me, if I +have it, unless it can be shown that the money could be more +beneficially applied. Every shilling I possess is irrevocably assigned +by some claim of eternal justice. Every article of property, it follows, +should belong to him in whose hands it will be of most benefit, and the +instrument of the greatest happiness. + +It is the love of distinction which attends wealth in corrupt societies +that explains the desire for luxury. We desire not the direct pleasure +to be derived from excessive possessions, but the consideration which is +attached to it. Our very clothes are an appeal to the goodwill of our +neighbours, and a refuge from their contempt. Society would be +transformed if the distinction were reversed, if admiration were no +longer rendered to the luxurious and avaricious and were accorded only +to talent and virtue. Let not the necessity of rewarding virtue be +suggested as a justification for the inequalities of fortune. Shall we +say, to a virtuous man: "If you show yourself deserving, you shall have +the essence of a hundred times more food than you can eat, and a hundred +times more clothes than you can wear. You shall have a patent for taking +away from others the means of a happy and respectable existence, and for +consuming them in riotous and unmeaning extravagance." Is this the +reward that ought to be offered to virtue, or that virtue should stoop +to take? Godwin is at his best on this theme of luxury: "Every man may +calculate in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament he +annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to +slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual +hardships, deplorable ignorance and brutal insensibility, that he may be +supplied with these luxuries. It is a gross imposition that men are +accustomed to put upon themselves, when they talk of the property +bequeathed to them by their ancestors. The property is produced by the +daily labour of men who are now in existence. All that the ancestors +bequeathed to them was a mouldy patent which they show as a title to +extort from their neighbours what the labour of those neighbours has +produced." + +It is a flagrant immorality that one man should have the power to +dispose of the produce of another man's toil, yet to maintain this power +is the main concern of police and legislation. Morality recognises two +degrees of property, (1) things which will produce the greatest benefit, +if attributed to me, in brief the necessities of life, my food, clothes, +furniture and apartment; (2) the empire which every man may claim over +the produce of his own industry, even over that part of it which ought +not to be used and appropriated by himself. Every man is a steward. But +subject to censure and remonstrance, he must be free to dispose of his +property as his own understanding shall dictate. The ideal is equality, +and all society should be what Coleridge called a Pantisocracy. It is +wrong for any one to enjoy anything, unless something similar is +accessible to all, and wrong to produce luxuries until the elementary +wants of all are satisfied. But it would be futile and wrong to attempt +to equalise property by positive enactment. It would be useless until +men are virtuous, and unnecessary when they are so. The moment +accumulation and monopoly are regarded by any society as dishonourable +and mischievous, the revolution in opinion will ensure that comforts +shall tend to a level. + +Godwin objects to the plans put forward in France during the Revolution +for interfering with bequests and inheritance. He would, however, check +the incentives to accumulation by abolishing the feudal system, +primogeniture, titles and entail. Property is sacred--that good men may +be free to give it away. Reform public opinion, and a man engaged in +amassing wealth would soon hide his treasures as carefully as he now +displays them. The first step is to rob wealth of its distinction. +Wealth is acquired to-day in over-reaching our neighbours, and spent in +insulting them. Establish equality on a firm basis of rational opinion, +and you cut off for ever the great occasion of crime, remove the +constant spectacle of injustice with all its attendant demoralisation, +and liberate genius now immersed in sordid cares. + +"In a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where +all shared alike the bounties of nature, the sentiments of oppression, +servility and fraud would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of +selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little +store, or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each +would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. +No man would be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would have no +subject of contention, and of consequence philanthropy would resume the +empire which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her +perpetual anxiety about corporal support, and freed to expatiate in the +field of thought, which is congenial to her. Each would assist the +enquiries of all." + +Unnecessary tasks absorb most of our labour to-day. In the ideal +community, Godwin reckons that half an hour's toil from every man daily +will suffice to produce the necessities of life. He modified this +sanguine estimate in a later essay (_The Enquirer_) to two hours. He +dismisses all objections based on the sloth or selfishness of human +nature, by the simple answer that this happy state of things will not be +realised until human nature has been reformed. Need individuality +suffer? It need fear only the restraint imposed by candid public +opinion. That will not be irksome, because it will be frank. We shrink +from it to-day, only because it takes the form of clandestine scandal +and backbiting. Godwin contemplates no Spartan plan of common labour or +common meals. "Everything understood by the term co-operation is in some +sense an evil." To be sure, it may be indispensable in order to cut a +canal or navigate a ship. But mechanical invention will gradually make +it unnecessary. The Spartans used slaves. We shall make machines our +helots. Indeed, so odious is co-operation to a free mind, that Godwin +marvels that men can consent to play music in concert, or can demean +themselves to execute another man's compositions, while to act a part in +a play amounts almost to an offence against sincerity. Such +extravagances as this passage are amongst the most precious things in +_Political Justice_. Godwin was a fanatic of logic who warns us against +his individualist premises by pressing them to a fantastic conclusion. + +The sketch of the ideal community concludes with a demolition of the +family. Cohabitation, he argued, is in itself an evil. It melts opinions +to a common mould, and destroys the fortitude of the individual. The +wishes of two people who live together can never wholly coincide. Hence +follow thwartings of the will, bickering and misery. No man is always +cheerful and kind. We manage to correct a stranger with urbanity and +good humour. Only when the intercourse is too close and unremitted do we +degenerate into surliness and invective. In an earlier chapter Godwin +had formulated a general objection to all promises, which reminds us of +Tolstoy's sermons from the same individualistic standpoint on the text, +"Swear not at all." Every conceivable mode of action has its tendency to +benefit or injure mankind. I am bound in duty to one course of action in +every emergency--the course most conducive to the general welfare. Why, +then, should I bind myself by a promise? If my promise contradicts my +duty it is immoral, if it agrees with it, it teaches me to do that from +a precarious and temporary motive which ought to be done from its +intrinsic recommendations. By promising we bind ourselves to learn +nothing from time, to make no use of knowledge to be acquired. Promises +depose us from a full use of our understanding, and are to be tolerated +only in the trivial engagements of our day-to-day existence. It follows +that marriage is an evil, for it is at once the closest form of +cohabitation, and the rashest of all promises. Two thoughtless and +romantic people, met in youth under circumstances full of delusion, have +bound themselves, not by reason but by contract, to make the best, when +they discover their deception, of an irretrievable mistake. Its maxim +is, "If you have made a mistake, cherish it." So long as this +institution survives, "philanthropy will be crossed in a thousand ways, +and the still augmenting stream of abuse continue to flow." + +Godwin has little fear of lust or license. Men will, on the whole, +continue to prefer one partner, and friendship will refine the grossness +of sense. There are worse evils than open and avowed inconstancy--the +loathsome combination of deceitful intrigue with the selfish monopoly +of property. That a child should know its father is no great matter, for +I ought not in reason to prefer one human being to another because he is +"mine." The mother will care for the child with the spontaneous help of +her neighbours. As to the business of supplying children with food and +clothing, "these would easily find their true level and spontaneously +flow from the quarter in which they abounded to the quarter that was +deficient." There must be no barter or exchange, but only giving from +pure benevolence without the prospect of reciprocal advantage. + +The picture of this easy-going Utopia, in which something will always +turn up for nobody's child, concludes with two sections which exhibit in +nice juxtaposition the extravagance and the prudence of Godwin. We may +look forward to great physical changes. We shall acquire an empire over +our bodies, and may succeed in making even our reflex notions conscious. +We must get rid of sleep, one of the most conspicuous infirmities of the +human frame. Life can be prolonged by intellect. We are sick and we die +because in a certain sense we consent to suffer these accidents. When +the limit of population is reached, men will refuse to propagate +themselves further. Society will be a people of men, and not of +children, adult, veteran, experienced; and truth will no longer have to +recommence her career at the end of thirty years. Meanwhile let the +friends of justice avoid violence, eschew massacres, and remember that +prudent handling will win even rich men for the cause of human +perfection. + +So ends _Political Justice_, the strangest amalgam in our literature of +caution with enthusiasm, of visions with experience, of French logic +with English tactlessness, a book which only genius could have made so +foolish and so wise. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GODWIN AND THE REACTION + + +_Political Justice_ brought its author instant fame. Society was for a +moment intimidated by the boldness of the attack. The world was in a +generous mood, and men did not yet resent Godwin's flattering suggestion +that they were demigods who disguised their own greatness. He had +assailed all the accepted dogmas and venerable institutions of +contemporary civilisation, from monarchy to marriage, but it was only +after several years that society recovered its breath, and turned to +rend him. He became an oracle in an ever-widening circle of friends, and +was naïvely pleased to find, when he went into the country, that even in +remote villages his name was known. He was everywhere received as a +sage, and some years passed before he discovered how much of this +deference was a polite disguise for the vulgar curiosity that attends a +sudden celebrity. Prosperity was a wholesome stimulus. He was "exalted +in spirits," and became for a time (he tells us) "more of a talker than +I was before, or have been since." + +In this mood he wrote the one book which has lived as a popular +possession, and held its place among the classics which are frequently +reprinted. _Caleb Williams_ (published in 1794) is incomparably the best +of his novels, and the one great work of fiction in our language which +owes its existence to the fruitful union of the revolutionary and +romantic movements. It spoke to its own day as Hugo's _Les Misérables_ +and Tolstoy's _Resurrection_ spoke to later generations. It is as its +preface tells us, "a general review of the modes of domestic and +unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man." It +conveys in the form of an eventful personal history the essence of the +criticism against society, which had inspired _Political Justice_. +Godwin's imagination was haunted by a persistent nightmare, in which a +lonely individual finds arrayed against him all the prejudices of +society, all the forms of convention, all the forces of law. They hurl +themselves upon him in a pitiless pursuit, and wherever he flees, the +pervading corruptions, the ingrained cowardices of over-governed mankind +beset his feet like gins and pitfalls. It was a hereditary nightmare, +and with a less pedestrian imagination, his daughter, Mary Shelley, used +the same theme of a remorseless pursuit in _Frankenstein_. + +Caleb Williams, a promising lad of humble birth but good parts, is +broken at the outset of his career, in the tremendous clash between two +formidable characters, who represent, each in his own way, the +corruptions of aristocracy. Mr. Tyrrel is a brutal English squire, a +coarse and domineering bully, whom birth and wealth arm with the power +to crush his dependents. Mr. Falkland personifies the spirit of chivalry +at its best and its worst. All his native humanity and acquired polish +is in the end turned to cruelty by the influence of a worship of honour +and reputation which make him "the fool of fame." As the absorbing story +unfolds itself, we realise (if indeed we are not too much enthralled by +the plot to notice the moral) that all the institutions of society and +law are nicely adjusted to give the moral errors of the great their +utmost scope. Society is a vast sounding-board which echoes the first +whispers of their private folly, until it swells into a deafening chorus +of cruelty and wrong. There are vivid scenes in a prison which give life +to Godwin's reasoned criticisms of our penal methods. There is a band +of outlaws whose rude natural virtues remind us, by contrast with the +corruption of all the officers of the law, how much less demoralising it +is to revolt against a crazy system of coercion than to become its tool. +To describe the book in greater detail would be to destroy the pleasure +of the reader. It is a forensic novel. It sets out to frame an +indictment of society, and a novelist who imposes this task on himself +must in the end create an impression of improbability by the partiality +with which he selects his material. But there is fire enough in the +telling, and interest enough in the plot to silence our criticisms while +we read. _Caleb Williams_ is a capital story; it is also a living and +humane book, which conveys with rare power and reasoned emotion the +revolt of a generous mind against the oppressions of feudalism and the +stupidities of the criminal law. + +Three years later (1797) Godwin once more restated the main positions of +_Political Justice_. _The Enquirer_ is a volume of essays, which range +easily over a great variety of subjects from education to English style. +His opinions have neither advanced nor receded, and the mood is still +one of assurance, enthusiasm, and hope. The only noteworthy change is in +the style. _Political Justice_ belongs to the generation of Gibbon, +eloquent, elaborate and periodic at its best; heavy and slightly verbose +at its worst. With _The Enquirer_ we are just entering the generation of +Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. The language is simpler and more flexible, the +construction of the sentences more varied, the mood more vivacious, and +the tone more conversational. The best things in the book belong to that +social psychology, the observation of men in classes and professions, in +which this age excelled. There is an outspoken attack on the clergy, as +a class of men who have vowed themselves to study without enquiry, who +must reason for ever towards a conclusion fixed by authority, whose very +survival depends on the perennial stationariness of their understanding. +Another essay attempts a vivacious criticism of "common honesty," the +moral standard of the average decent citizen, a code of negative virtues +and moral mediocrity which is content to avoid the obvious unsocial sins +and concerns itself but little to enforce positive benevolence. The +reader who would meet Godwin at his best should turn to the essay _On +Servants_. Starting from the universal reluctance of the upper and +middle classes to allow their children to associate closely with +servants, he enlarges the confession of the systematic degradation of a +class which this separation involves, into a condemnation of our whole +social structure. + + * * * * * + +The year 1797 marks the culmination of Godwin's career, and it would +have been well for his fame if it had been its end. He had just passed +his fortieth year; he had made the most notable contribution to English +political thought since the appearance of the _Wealth of Nations_; he +had won the gratitude and respect of his friends by his intervention in +the trial of the Twelve Reformers. He was famous, prosperous, popular, +and his good fortune brought to his calm temperament the stimulus of +excitement and high spirits which it needed. There came to him in this +year the crown of a noble love. It was in the winter of 1791 that he +first met Mary Wollstonecraft, the one woman of genius who belonged to +the English revolutionary circle. He was not impressed, thought that she +talked too much, and in his diary spelled her name incorrectly. + +In the interval between 1791 and 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft was to write +one of the books which belong to the spiritual foundations of the next +century, to taste fame and detraction, to know the joys of love and +maternity, and to experience a misery and wrong which made life itself +an unendurable shame. A later chapter will attempt an estimate of the +ideas and personality of this brilliant and courageous woman. A few +sentences must suffice here to recall the bare facts of her life +history. Born in 1759, the child of a drunken and disreputable father, +she had struggled with indomitable energy, first as a teacher and then +as a translator and literary "hack," to keep herself and help her still +more unfortunate sisters. In 1792 she published _A Vindication of the +Rights of Woman_, a plea for the human dignity of her sex and for its +claim to education. At the end of this year she went to Paris as much to +see the Revolution as to perfect herself in French. She there met a +clever and interesting American, one Gilbert Imlay, a traveller of some +little note, a soldier in the War of Independence, and now a speculative +merchant. He lived with her, and in documents acknowledged her as his +wife, though neither felt the need of a binding ceremony. A baby, Fanny, +was born, but Imlay's business imposed long separations. He gradually +tired of the woman who had honoured him too highly, and entered on more +than one intrigue. Mary Wollstonecraft attempted in despair to drown +herself in the Thames, was saved and nursed back to life and courage by +devoted friends. She again took up her pen to gain a livelihood, and for +the sake of her child's future, gradually returned to the literary +circle which valued her, not merely for her genius and originality, but +also for her beauty, her vivacity, and her charm, for her daring and +independence, and her warm, impulsive, affectionate heart. + +Godwin met her again while she was bruised and lonely and +disillusionised with mankind. Her charming volume of travel sketches +(_Letters from Norway, 1796_) had made, as it well might, a deep +impression on his taste. He was, what Imlay was not, her intellectual +equal, and his character deserved her respect. He has left in the little +book which he published to vindicate her memory, a delicate sketch of +their mutual love: "The partiality we conceived for each other was in +that mode which I have always considered as the purest and most refined +style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would +have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was +before and who was after. One sex did not take the priority which +long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that +delicacy which is so severely imposed. I am not conscious that either +party can assume to have been the agent or the patient, the toil +spreader or the prey in the affair. When in the course of things, the +disclosure came, there was nothing in a manner for either party to +disclose to the other.... There was no period of throes and resolute +explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting into love." + +The two lovers, in strict obedience to the principles of _Political +Justice_, made their home, at first with no legal union, in a little +house in the Polygon, Somers Town, then the extreme limit of London, +separated from the suburban village of Camden Town by open fields and +green pastures. A few doors away Godwin had his study, where he spent +most of his industrious day, often breakfasted and sometimes slept. Both +partners of this daringly unconventional union had their own particular +friends and retained their separate places in society. Some quaint notes +have survived, which passed between them, borrowing books or making +appointments. "Did I not see you, friend Godwin," runs one of these, "at +the theatre last night? I thought I met a smile, but you went out +without looking round. We expect you at half-past four." It was the +coming of a child which induced them to waive their theories and face +for its sake a repugnant compliance with custom. They were married in +Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797, and the insignificant fact was +communicated only gradually, and with laboured apologies for the +inconsistency, to their friends. + +Southey, who met them in this month, has left a lively portrait: "Of all +the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay's countenance is the +best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression +somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display--an +expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary +Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and ... +they are the most meaning I ever saw.... As for Godwin himself he has +large noble eyes and a _nose_--oh, most abominable nose. Language is not +vituperatious enough to describe the effect of its downward elongation." +Godwin, if one may trust the portrait by Northcote, had impressive if +not exactly handsome features. The head is shapely, the brow ample, the +nose decidedly too long, the shaven lips and chin finely chiselled. The +whole suggestion is of a character self-absorbed and contemplative. He +was short and sturdy in build, and in his sober dress and grave +deportments, suggested rather the dissenting preacher than the prophet +of philosophic anarchism. He was not a ready debater or a fluent talker. +His genius was not spontaneous or intuitive. It was rather an elaborate +effort of the will, which deliberately used the fruits of his +accumulative study and incessant activity of mind. He resembled, says +Hazlitt, who admired and liked him, "an eight-day clock that must be +wound up long before it can strike. He is ready only on reflection: +dangerous only at the rebound. He gathers himself up, and strains every +nerve and faculty with deliberate aim to some heroic and dazzling +achievement of intellect; but he must make a career before he flings +himself armed upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed." + +No two minds could have presented a greater contrast. Had Mary +Wollstonecraft lived they must have moulded each other into something +finer than Nature had made of either. The year of married life was +ideally happy, and the strange experiment in reconciling individualism +with love apparently succeeded. Mrs. Godwin, for all her revolutionary +independence, leaned affectionately on her husband, and he, in spite of +his rather overgrown self-esteem, regarded her with reverence and pride. +She was quick in her affections and resentments, but looking back many +years later Godwin declares that they were "as happy as is permitted to +human beings." "It must be remembered, however, that I honoured her +intellectual powers and the nobleness and generosity of her +propensities; mere tenderness would not have been adequate to produce +the happiness we experienced." + +Godwin's novels suggest that, on the whole, he shared her views about +women, though in a later essay (on "Friendship," in _Thoughts on Man_), +there are some passages which suggest a less perfect understanding. But +he never used his pen to carry on her work, and the emancipation of +women had to await its philosopher in John Stuart Mill. The happy +marriage ended abruptly and tragically. On August 30, 1797, was born the +child Mary, who was to become Shelley's wife, and carry on in a second +generation her parents' tradition of fearless love and revolutionary +hope. Ten days after the birth, the mother died in spite of all that the +devotion of her husband and the skill of his medical friends could do +to save her. A few broken-hearted letters are left to record Godwin's +agony of mind. + + * * * * * + +With the death of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, ended all that was happy +and stimulating in Godwin's career. It was for him the year of private +disaster, and from it he dated also the triumph of the reaction in +England. The stimulus of the revolutionary period was withdrawn. He +lived no longer among ardent spirits who would brave everything and do +anything for human perfectibility. Some were in Botany Bay, and others, +like the indomitable Holcroft, were absorbed in the struggle to live, +with the handicap of political persecution against them. Godwin, indeed, +never fell into despair over the ruin of his political hopes. Like +Beethoven he revered Napoleon, at all events until he assumed the title +of Emperor, and would console himself with the conviction that this +"auspicious and beneficent genius" had "without violence to the +principles of the French Revolution ... suspended their morbid +activity," while preserving "all the great points" of its doctrine. But +while all England hung on the event of the titanic struggle against +this "beneficent genius," what was a philanthropist to do? The world was +rattling back into barbarism, and the generation which emerged from the +long nightmare of war, famine, and repression, was incomparably less +advanced in its thinking, narrower and timider in its whole habit of +mind than the men who were young in 1789. There was nothing to do, and a +philosopher whose only weapon was argument, kept silence when none would +listen. Of what use to talk of "peace and the powers of the human mind," +while all England was gloating over the brutal cartoons of Gillray, and +trying on the volunteer uniforms, in which it hoped to repel Napoleon's +invasion? We need not wonder that Godwin's output of philosophic writing +practically ceased with the eighteenth century. He was henceforth a man +without a purpose, who wrote for bread and renounced the exercise of his +greater powers. + +The end of Godwin's active apostolic life is clearly marked in a +pamphlet which he issued in 1801 ("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 +[Malthus] of the _Essay on Population_ and others"). It is a masterly +piece of writing. Coleridge scribbled in the copy that now lies on the +shelves of the British Museum this tribute to its author: "I remember +few passages in ancient or modern authors that contain more just +philosophy in appropriate, chaste or beautiful diction than the fine +following pages. They reflect equal honour on Godwin's head and heart. +Though I did it in the zenith of his reputation, yet I feel remorse even +to have only spoken unkindly of such a man.--S. T. C." + +Godwin tells how the reaction burst over him, and he dates it from 1797: +"After having for four years heard little else than the voice of +commendation, I was at length attacked from every side, and in a style +which defied all moderation and decency.... The cry spread like a +general infection, and I have been told that not even a petty novel for +boarding-school misses now ventures to aspire to favour unless it +contains some expression of dislike or abhorrence to the new +philosophy." Some of the attacks were scurrilous and all of them +proceeded on the common assumption of the defenders of authority in all +ages and nations, that the man who would innovate in morals is himself +immoral. + +He goes on to sketch the present case of the revolutionary party: "The +societies have perished, or where they have not, have shrunk to a +skeleton; the days of democratical declamation are no more; even the +starving labourer in the alehouse is become the champion of +aristocracy.... Jacobinism was destroyed; its party as a party was +extinguished; its tenets were involved in almost universal unpopularity +and odium; they were deserted by almost every man high or low in the +island of Great Britain." Even the young Pantisocrats had gone over to +the enemy, and Wordsworth, grave and disillusionised, tried to forget +that he had ever exhorted his fellow-students to burn their books and +"read Godwin on Necessity." The defection of Dr. Parr and Mackintosh was +symptomatic. Both had been Godwin's personal friends, and both of them +had hailed the new philosophy. No one remembers them to-day, but they +were in their time intellectual oracles. The scholar Parr was called by +flatterers the Whig Johnson, and Mackintosh enjoyed in Whig society a +reputation as a brilliant talker, and an encyclopædic mind which reminds +us of Macaulay's later fame. They had both to make their peace with the +world and to bury their compromised past; the easiest way was to fall +upon Godwin. + +Malthus was a more worthy antagonist, though Godwin did not yet perceive +how formidable his attack in reality was. To the picture of human +perfection he opposed the nightmare of an over-populated planet, and +combated universal benevolence by teaching that even charity is an +economic sin. English society cares little either for Utopias or for +science. But it welcomes science with rapture when it destroys Utopias. +If Godwin had pricked men's consciences, Malthus brought the balm. +Altruism was exposed at length for the thing it was, an error in the +last degree unscientific and uneconomic. The rickety arithmetic of +Malthusianism was used against the revolutionary hope, exactly as a +travestied version of Darwinianism was used in our own day against +Socialism. Godwin preserved his dignity in this controversy and made +concessions to his critics with a rare candour. But while he abandons +none of his fundamental doctrines, one feels that he will never fight +again. + +Only once in later years did Godwin the philosopher break his silence, +and then it was to attempt in 1820 an elaborate but far from impressive +answer to Malthus. The history of that controversy has been brilliantly +told by Hazlitt. It seems to-day too distant to be worth reviving. Our +modern pessimists write their jeremiads not about the future +over-population of the planet, but about the declining birth-rate. That +elaborate civilisations shows a decline in fertility is a fact now so +well recognised, that we feel no difficulty in conceding to Godwin that +the reasonable beings of his ideal community might be trusted to show +some degree of self-control. + +Godwin possessed two of the cardinal virtues of a thinker, courage and +candour. No fear of ridicule deterred him from pushing his premises to +their last conclusion; no false shame restrained him in a controversy +from recanting an error. He discarded the wilder developments of his +theory of "universal benevolence," and gave it in the end a form which +has ceased to be paradoxical. When he wrote _Political Justice_ he was a +celibate student who had escaped much of the formative experience of a +normal life. As a husband and a father he revised his creed, and devoted +no small part of his later literary activity to the work of preaching +the claims of those "private affections" which he had scouted as an +elderly youth of forty. The re-adjustment in his theory was so simple, +that only a great philosopher could have failed to make it sooner. +Justice requires me to use all my powers to contribute to the sum of +human benefit. But as regards opportunity, I am not equally situated +towards all my fellows. By devoting myself more particularly to wife or +child with an exclusive affection which is not in the abstract +altogether reasonable, I may do more for the general good than I could +achieve by a severely impartial benevolence. + +He developed this view first in his _Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft_, +then in the preface to _St. Leon_, and finally in the pamphlet which +answered Mackintosh and Dr. Parr. The man who would be "the best moral +economist of his time" will use much of it to seek "the advantage and +content of those with whom he has most frequent intercourse," and this +not merely from calculation, but from affection. "I ought not only in +ordinary cases to provide for my wife and children, my brothers and +relations before I provide for strangers, but it would be well that my +doing so should arise from the operation of those private and domestic +affections by which through all ages of the world the conduct of mankind +has been excited and directed." + +The recantation is sufficiently frank. The family, dissipated in +_Political Justice_ by the explosive charities of "universal +benevolence," is now happily re-united. Godwin maintains, however, that +his moral theory and his political superstructure stands intact, and the +claim is not unreasonable. He retains his criterion of justice and +utility, though he has seen better how to apply it. The duty of +universal benevolence is still paramount; the end of contributing to the +general good still sovereign, and a reasoned virtue is still to be +recommended in preference to instinctive goodness, even where their +results are commonly the same. "The crown of a virtuous character +consists in a very frequent and very energetic recollection of the +criterion by which all his actions are to be tried.... The person who +has been well instructed and accomplished in the great schools of human +experience has passions and affections like other men. But he is aware +that all these affections tend to excess, and must be taught each to +know its order and its sphere. He therefore continually holds in mind +the principles by which their boundaries are fixed." + +What Godwin means is something elementary, and for that reason of the +first importance. Let a man love his wife above other women, but +"universal benevolence" will forbid him to exploit other women in order +to surround her with luxury. Let him love his sons, but virtue will +forbid him to accumulate a fortune for them by the sweated labour of +poor men's children. Let him love his fellow-countrymen, but reason +forbids him to seek their good by enslaving other races and waging +aggressive wars. Godwin, in short, no longer denies the beauty and duty +(to use Burke's phrase) of loving "the little platoon to which I +belong," but he urges that these domestic affections are in little +danger of neglect. Men learned to love kith and kin, neighbours and +comrades, while still in the savage state. The characteristic of a +civilised morality, the necessary accompaniment of all the varied and +extended relationships which modern existence has brought with it, must +be a new and emphatic stress on my duty to the stranger, to the unknown +producer with whom I stand in an economic relationship, and to the +foreigner beyond my shores. "Let us endeavour to elevate philanthropy +into a passion, secure that occasions enough will arise to drag us down +from an enthusiastic eminence. A virtuous man will teach himself to +recollect the principle of universal benevolence as often as pious men +repeat their prayers." + +If the central tendencies of Godwin's teaching survive these later +modifications, it is none the less true that some of his theoretic +foundations have been shaken in the work of reconstruction. The isolated +individual shut up in his own animal skin and communicating with his +fellows through the antennæ of his logical processes, has vanished away. +Allow him to extend his personality through the private affections, and +he has ceased to be the abstract unit of individualism. Godwin should +have revised not only his doctrine of the family, but his hatred of +co-operation. There is still something to be learned from the view of +his school that the human mind, as it begins to absorb the collective +experience of the race, is an infinitely variable spiritual stuff, an +intellectual protoplasm. They stated the view with a rash emphasis, +until one is forced to ask whether a mind which is originally nothing at +all, can absorb, or as psychologists say, "apperceive" anything +whatever. Nothing comes out of nothing, and nothing can be added to +nothing. + +Godwin and his school set out to show that the human mind is not +necessarily fettered for all time by the prejudices and institutions in +which it has clothed itself. When he had done stripping us, it was a +nice question whether even our nakedness remained. He treated our +prejudices and our effete institutions as though they were something +external to us, which had come out of nowhere and could be flung into +the void from whence they came. When you have called opinion a +prejudice, or traced an institution to false reasoning, you have, after +all, only exhibited an interesting zoological fact about human beings. +We are exactly the sort of creature which evolves such prejudices. +Godwin in unwary moments would talk as though aristocracy and positive +law had come to us from without, by a sort of diabolic revelation. This, +however, is not a criticism which destroys the value of his thinking. +His positions required restatement in terms of the idea of development. +If he did not anticipate the notion of evolution, he was the apostle of +the idea of progress. We may still retain from his reasonings the +hopeful conclusion that the human mind is a raw material capable of +almost unlimited variation, and, therefore, of some advance towards +"perfection." We owe an inestimable debt to the school which proclaimed +this belief in enthusiastic paradoxes. + +Godwin's influence as a thinker permeated the older generation of +"philosophic radicals" in England. The oddest fact about it is that it +had apparently no part in founding the later philosophic anarchism of +the Continent. None of its leaders seem to have read him; and _Political +Justice_ was not translated into German until long after it had ceased +to be read in England. Its really astonishing blindness to the +importance of the economic factor in social changes must have hastened +its decline. Godwin writes as though he had never seen a factory nor +heard of capital. In all his writing about crime and punishment, full as +it is of insight, sympathy and good sense, it is odd that a mind so +fertile nowhere anticipated the modern doctrine of the connection +between moral and physical degeneracy. He saw in crime only error, where +we see anæmia: he would have cured it with syllogisms, where we should +administer proteids. His entire psychology, both social and individual, +is vitiated by a naïve and headstrong intellectualism. Life is rather a +battle between narrow interests and the social affections than a debate +between sound and fallacious reasoning. He saw among mankind only +sophists and philosophers, where we see predatory egoists and their +starved and stunted victims. But we have advanced far enough on our own +lines of thinking to derive a new stimulus from Godwin's one-sided +intellectualism. Our danger to-day is that we may succumb to an economic +and physiological determinism. We are obsessed by financiers and +bacilli; it is salutary that our attention should be directed from time +to time to the older bogeys of the revolution, to kings and priests, +authority and superstition, to prejudice and political subjection. "The +greatest part of the people of Europe," wrote Helvétius, "honour virtue +in speculation; this is an effect of their education. They despise it in +practice; that is an effect of the form of their governments." We think +that we have got beyond that epigram to-day. But have we quite exhausted +its meaning? + +Precisely because of its revolutionary _naïveté_, its unscientific +innocence, there is in Godwin's democratic anarchism a stimulus +peculiarly tonic to the modern mind. No man has developed more firmly +the ideal of universal enlightenment, which has escaped feudalism, only +to be threatened by the sociological expert. No writer is better fitted +to remind us that society and government are not the same thing, and +that the State must not be confounded with the social organism. No +moralist has written a more eloquent page on the evil of coercion and +the unreason of force. _Political Justice_ is often an imposing system. +It is sometimes an instructive fallacy. It is always an inspiring +sermon. Godwin hoped to "make it a work from the perusal of which no man +should rise without being strengthened in habits of sincerity, fortitude +and justice." There he succeeded. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GODWIN AND SHELLEY + + +In a letter written in 1811 Shelley records how he suddenly heard with +"inconceivable emotion" that Godwin was still alive. He "had enrolled +his name on the list of the honourable dead." Godwin, to quote Hazlitt's +rather cruel phrase, had "sunk below the horizon," in his later years, +and enjoyed "the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality." Serene +unfortunately it was not. With a lonely home and two little girls to +care for, Godwin thought once more of marriage. Twice his wooing was +unsuccessful, and the philosopher who believed that reason was +omnipotent, tried in vain in long, elaborate letters to argue two ladies +into love. His second wife came unsought. As he sat one day at his +window in the Polygon, a handsome widow spoke to him from the +neighbouring balcony, with these arresting words, "Is it possible that I +behold the immortal Godwin?" They were married before the close of the +year (1801). + +Mrs. Clairmont was a strange successor to Mary Wollstonecraft. She was a +vulgar and worldly woman, thoroughly feminine, and rather inclined to +boast of her total ignorance of philosophy. A kindly and loyal wife she +may have been, but she was jealous of Godwin's friends, and would tell +petty lies to keep them apart from him. She brought with her two +children of a former marriage--Charles (who was unhappy in this strange +home and went early abroad) and Jane. On this clever, pretty and +mercurial daughter all her partiality was lavished; and the unhappy +girl, pampered by a philistine mother in a revolutionary atmosphere, was +at the age of seventeen seduced by Byron, and became the mother of the +fairy child, Allegra. The second Mrs. Godwin was the stepmother of +convention, and treated both Fanny Imlay and Mary Godwin with consistent +unkindness. It was the fate of the gentle, melancholy and lovable Fanny +to take her own life at the age of twenty-two (1816). The destiny of +these children, all gifted with what the age called sensibility, has +served as the text of many a sermon against "the new philosophy." No +one, however, can read the documents which this strange household left +behind, without feeling that the parent of the disaster in their lives +was not their philosophic father, but this commonplace "womanly woman," +who flattered, intrigued, and lied. In 1803, there was born of this +second marriage, a son, William, who inherited something of his father's +ability. He became a journalist, and died at the early age of +twenty-nine, after publishing a novel of some promise, _Transfusion_, +steeped in the same romantic fancies which colour Mary Shelley's more +famous _Frankenstein_. + +With the cares of this family on his shoulders Godwin began to form the +habit of applying to his wealthy friends for aid. In judging this part +of his conduct, one must bear in mind both his own doctrine about +property, and the practice of the age. Godwin was a communist, and so, +in some degree, were most of his friends. When he applied to Wedgwood, +the philosophic potter of Etruria, or to Ritson, the vegetarian, or in +later years to Shelley for money, he was simply giving virtue its +occasion, and assisting property to find its level. He practised what he +preached, and he would himself give with a generosity which seemed +prodigal, to his own relatives, to promising young men, and even to +total strangers. He supported one disciple at Cambridge, as he had +educated Cooper in his younger days. It was the prevailing theory of +the age that men of genius have the right to call on society in the +persons of its wealthier members for support. Helvétius, himself a rich +man, had maintained this view. Southey and Coleridge acted on it. Dr. +Priestley, universally respected both for his character and his talents, +received large gifts from friends, admirers, members of his congregation +and aristocratic patrons. To Godwin, profoundly individualistic as he +was, a post in the civil service, or even a professorship, would have +seemed a more degrading form of charity than this private benevolence. + +Partly to mend his fortunes, partly to furnish himself with an +occupation when his mind refused original work, Godwin in 1805 turned +publisher. It was a disastrous inspiration, due apparently to his wife, +who believed herself to possess a talent for business. The firm was +established in Skinner Street, Holborn, and specialised in school books +and children's tales. They were well-printed, and well-illustrated, and +Godwin, writing under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin, to avoid the +odium which had now overtaken his own name, compiled a series of +histories with his usual industry and conscientious finish. Through +years darkened with misfortune and clouded by failing health, he worked +hard at the business of publishing. His capital was never adequate, +though his friends and admirers twice came to his aid with public +subscriptions. In 1822 he was evicted for arrears of rent, and in 1825 +the unlucky venture came to an end. + +These years were crowded with literary work, for neither "Baldwin" nor +Godwin allowed their common pen to idle. Two elaborate historical works +enjoyed and deserved a great reputation in their day, though subsequent +research has rendered them obsolete--a _Life of Geoffrey Chaucer_ (1803) +and a _History of the Commonwealth of England from its Commencement to +the Restoration of Charles II._ (1824-8). It is not easy for modern +taste to do justice to Godwin's novels; but on them his contemporary +fame chiefly rested, and publishers paid for them high though +diminishing prices. They all belong to the romantic movement; some have +a supernatural basis, and most of them discover a too obvious didactic +purpose. _St. Leon_ (1799), almost as popular in its day as _Caleb +Williams_, mingles a romance of the elixir of life and the philosopher's +stone with an ardent recommendation of those family affections which +_Political Justice_ had depreciated. _Fleetwood_ (1805) makes war on +debauchery with sincere and impressive dulness. _Mandeville_ (1817), +_Cloudesley_ (1830) and _Deloraine_ (1833) are dead beyond the reach of +curiosity, yet the Radical critics of his day, including Hazlitt, tried +hard to convince themselves that Godwin was a greater novelist than the +Tory, Scott. It remains to mention Godwin's two attempts to conquer the +theatre with _Antonio_ (1800) and _Faulkener_ (1807). Neither play +lived, and _Antonio_, written in a sort of journalese, cut up into blank +verse lines, was too frigid to survive the first night. Godwin's +disappointment would be comical if it were not painful. He regarded +these deplorable tragedies as the flower of his genius. + +Through these years of misfortune and eclipse, the friendships which +Godwin could still retain were his chief consolation. The published +letters of Coleridge and Lamb make a charming record of their intimacy. +Whimsical and affectionate in their tone, they are an unconscious +tribute as much to the man who received them as to the men who wrote +them. Conservative critics have talked of Godwin's "coldness" because he +could reason. But the abiding and generous regard of such a nature as +Charles Lamb's is answer enough to these summary valuations. But +Godwin's most characteristic relationship was with the young men who +sought him out as an inspiration. He would write them long letters of +advice, encouragement, and criticism, and despite his own poverty, would +often relieve their distresses. The most interesting of them was an +adventurous young Scot named Arnot who travelled on foot through the +greater part of Europe during the Napoleonic wars. The tragedy which +seemed always to pursue Godwin's intimates drove another of them, +Patrickson, to suicide while an undergraduate at Cambridge. Bulwer +Lytton, the last of these admiring young men, left a note on Godwin's +conversational powers in his extreme old age, which assures us that he +was "well worth hearing," even amid the brilliance of Lamb, Hunt, and +Hazlitt, and could display "a grim jocularity of sarcasm." + +One of these relationships has become historical, and has coloured the +whole modern judgment of Godwin. It would be no exaggeration to say that +Godwin formed Shelley's mind, and that _Prometheus Unbound_ and _Hellas_ +were the greatest of Godwin's works. That debt is too often forgotten, +while literary gossip loves to remind us that it was repaid in cheques +and _post-obits_. The intellectual relationship will be discussed in a +later chapter; the bare facts of the personal connection must be told +here. _Political Justice_ took Shelley's mind captive while he was still +at Eton, much as it had obsessed Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth. The +influence with him was permanent; and _Queen Mab_ is nothing but Godwin +in verse, with prose notes which quote or summarise him. A +correspondence began in 1811, and the pupil met the master late in 1812, +and again in 1813. They talked as usual of virtue and human +perfectibility; and as the intimacy grew, Shelley, whose chief +employment at this time was to discover and relieve genius in distress, +began to place his present resources and future prospects at Godwin's +disposal. It was not an unnatural relationship to arise between a +grateful disciple, heir to a great fortune, and a philosopher, aged, +neglected, and sinking under the burden of debt. + +Shelley's romantic runaway match with Harriet Westbrook had meanwhile +entered on the period of misery and disillusion. She had lost her early +love of books and ideas, had taken to hats and ostentation, and had +become so harsh to him that he welcomed absence. It is certain that he +believed her to be also in the vulgar sense of the word unfaithful. At +this crisis, when the separation seemed already morally complete, he met +Mary Godwin, who had been absent from home during most of his earlier +visits. She was a young girl of seventeen, eager for knowledge and +experience, and as her father described her, "singularly bold, somewhat +imperious and active of mind," and "very pretty." They rapidly fell in +love. Godwin's conduct was all that the most conventional morality could +have required of him. His theoretical views of marriage were still +unorthodox; he held at least that "the institution might with advantage +admit of certain modifications." But nine years before in the preface to +_Fleetwood_ he had protested that he was "the last man to recommend a +pitiful attempt by scattered examples to renovate the face of society." +He seems, indeed, to have forgotten his own happy experiment with Mary +Wollstonecraft, and protests with a vigour hardly to be expected from so +stout an individualist against the idea, that "each man for himself +should supersede and trample upon the institutions of the country in +which he lives. A thousand things might be found excellent and salutary +if brought into general practice, which would in some cases appear +ridiculous and in others attended with tragical consequences if +prematurely acted upon by a solitary individual." + +On this view he acted. He forbade Shelley his house, and tried to make a +reconciliation between him and Harriet. On July 28, 1814, Mary secretly +left her father's house, joined her lover, and began with him her life +of ideal intimacy and devotion. Godwin felt and expressed the utmost +disapproval, and for two years refused to meet Shelley, until at the +close of 1816, after the suicide of the unhappy Harriet, he stood at his +daughter's side as a witness to her marriage. His public conduct was +correct. In private he continued to accept money from the erring +disciple whom he refused to meet, and salved his elderly conscience by +insisting that the cheques should be drawn in another name. There Godwin +touched the lowest depths of his moral degeneration. Let us remember, +however, that even Shelley, who saw the worst of Godwin, would never +speak of him with total condemnation. "Added years," he wrote near the +end of his life, "only add to my admiration of his intellectual powers, +and even the moral resources of his character." In the poetical epistle +to Maria Gisborne, he wrote of + + "That which was Godwin--greater none than he + Though fallen, and fallen on evil times, to stand + Among the spirits of our age and land + Before the dread tribunal of To-come + The foremost, while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb." + + +The end came to the old man amid comparative peace and serenity. He +accepted a sinecure from the Whigs, and became a Yeoman Usher of the +Exchequer, with a small stipend and chambers in New Palace Yard. It was +a tribute as much to his harmlessness as to his merit. The work of his +last years shows little decay in his intellectual powers. _His Thoughts +on Man_ (1831) collects his fugitive essays. They are varied in subject, +suave, easy and conversational in manner, more polished in style than +those of the _Enquirer_, if a good deal thinner in matter. They avoid +political themes, but the idea of human perfectibility none the less +pervades the book with an unaggressive presence, a cold and wintry sun. +One curious trait of his more cautious and conservative later mind is +worth noting. When he wrote _Political Justice_, the horizons of science +were unlimited, the vistas of discovery endless. Now he questions even +the mathematical data of astronomy, talks of the limitations of our +faculties, and applauds a positive attitude that refrains from +conjecture. His last years were spent in writing a book in which he +ventured at length to state his views upon religion. Like Helvétius he +perceived the advantages which an unpopular philosopher may derive from +posthumous publication. Freed at last from the vulgar worries of debt +and the tragical burden of personal ties, the fighting ended which had +never brought him the joy of combat, the material struggle over which +had issued in defeat, he became again the thing that was himself, a +luminous intelligence, a humane thinker. + +With eighty years of life behind him, and doubting whether the curtain +of death concealed a secret, Godwin tranquilly faced extinction in +April, 1836. + + * * * * * + +"To do my part to free the human mind from slavery," that in his own +words was the main object of Godwin's life. The task was not fully +discharged with the writing of _Political Justice_. He could never +forget the terror and gloom of his own early years, and, like all the +thinkers of the revolution, he coupled superstition with despotism and +priests with kings as the arch-enemies of human liberty. The terrors of +eternal punishment, the firmly riveted chains of Calvinistic logic, had +fettered his own growing mind in youth; and to the end he thought of +traditional religion as the chief of those factitious things which +prevent mankind from reaching the full stature to which nature destined +it. Paine had attempted this work from a similar standpoint, but Godwin, +with his trained speculative mind, and his ideal of courtesy and +persuasiveness in argument, thought meanly (as a private letter shows) +of his friend's polemics. It was an unlucky timidity which caused Mrs. +Shelley to suppress her father's religious essays when the manuscript +was bequeathed to her for publication on his death. When, at length, +they appeared in 1873 (_Essays never before Published_), the work which +they sought to accomplish had been done by other pens. They possess none +the less an historical interest; some fine pages will always be worth +reading for their humane impulse and their manly eloquence; they help us +to understand the influence which Godwin's ideas, conveyed in personal +intercourse, exerted on the author of _Prometheus Unbound_. There is +little in them which a candid believer would resent to-day. Most of the +dogmas which Godwin assailed have long since crumbled away through the +sapping of a humaner morality and a more historical interpretation of +the Bible. + +The book opens with a protest against the theory and practice of +salutary delusions; and Godwin once more pours his scorn upon those who +would cherish their own private freedom, while preserving popular +superstitions, "that the lower ranks may be kept in order." The +foundation of all improvement is that "the whole community should run +the generous race for intellectual and moral superiority." Godwin would +preserve some portion of the religious sense, for we can reach sobriety +and humility only by realising "how frail and insignificant a part we +constitute of the great whole." But the fundamental tenets of dogmatic +Christianity are far, he argues, from being salutary delusions. At the +basis alike of Protestantism and Catholicism, he sees the doctrine of +eternal punishment; and with an iteration that was not superfluous in +his own day, he denounces its cruel and demoralising effects. It saps +the character where it is really believed, and renders the mind which +receives it servile and pusillanimous. The case is no better when it is +neither sincerely believed nor boldly rejected. Such an attitude, which +is, he thinks, that of most professing believers, makes for +insincerity, and for an indifference to all honest thought and +speculation. The man who dare neither believe nor disbelieve is debarred +from thinking at all. + +Worst of all, this doctrine of endless torment and arbitrary election +involves a blasphemous denial of the goodness of God. "To say all, then, +in a word, since it must finally be told, the God of the Christians is a +tyrant." He quotes the delightfully naïve reflection of Plutarch, who +held that it was better to deny God than to calumniate Him, "for I had +rather it should be said of me, that there was never such a man as +Plutarch, than that it should be said that Plutarch was ill-natured, +arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and inexorable." A survey of Church +History brings out what Godwin calls "the mixed character of +Christianity, its horrors and its graces." In much of what has come down +to us from the Old Testament he sees the inevitable effects of +anthropomorphism, when the religion of a barbarous age is reduced to +writing, and handed down as the effect of inspiration. He cannot +sufficiently admire the beauty of Christ's teaching of a perfect +disinterestedness and self-denial--a doctrine in his own terminology of +"universal benevolence." But the disciples lived in a preternatural +atmosphere, continually busied with the four Last Things, death, +judgment, heaven, and hell; and they distorted the beauty of the +Christian morality by introducing an other-worldliness, to which the +ancients had been strangers. From this came the despotism of the Church +based on the everlasting burnings and the keys, and something of the +spirit of St. Dominic and the Inquisition can be traced, he thinks, even +to the earliest period of Christianity. The Gospel sermons do not always +realise the Godwinian ideal of rational persuasion. + +Godwin's own view is in the main what we should call agnostic: "I do not +consider my faculties adequate to pronouncing upon the cause of all +things. I am contented to take the phenomena as I behold them, without +pretending to erect an hypothesis under the idea of making all things +easy. I do not rest my globe of earth upon an elephant [a reference to +the Indian myth], and the elephant upon a tortoise. I am content to take +my globe of earth simply, in other words to observe the objects which +present themselves to my senses, without undertaking to find out a cause +why they are what they are." + +With cautious steps, he will, however, go a little further than this. +He regards with reverence and awe "that principle, whatever it is, which +acts everywhere around me." But he will not slide into anthropomorphism, +nor give to this Supreme Thing, which recalls Shelley's Demogorgon, the +shape of a man. "The principle is not intellect; its ways are not our +ways." If there is no particular Providence, there is none the less a +tendency in nature which seconds our strivings, guarantees the work of +reason, and "in the vast sum of instances, works for good, and operates +beneficially for us." The position reminds us of Matthew Arnold's +definition of God as "the stream of tendency by which all things strive +to fulfil the law of their being." "We have here," writes Godwin, "a +secure alliance, a friend that so far as the system of things extends +will never desert us, unhearing, inaccessible to importunity, +uncapricious, without passions, without favour, affection, or +partiality, that maketh its sun to rise on the evil and the good, and +its rain to descend on the just and the unjust." + +Amid the dim but rosy mist of this vague faith the old man went out to +explore the unknown. A bolder and more rebellious thought was his real +legacy to his age. It is the central impulse of the whole revolutionary +school: "We know what we are: we know not what we might have been. But +surely we should have been greater than we are but for this disadvantage +[dogmatic religion, and particularly the doctrine of eternal +punishment]. It is as if we took some minute poison with everything that +was intended to nourish us. It is, we will suppose, of so mitigated a +quality as never to have had the power to kill. But it may nevertheless +stunt our growth, infuse a palsy into every one of our articulations, +and insensibly change us from giants of mind which we might have been +into a people of dwarfs." + +Let us write Godwin's epitaph in his own Roman language. He stood erect +and independent. He spoke what he deemed to be truth. He did his part to +purge the veins of men of the subtle poisons which dwarf them. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT + + +When women, standing at length beyond the last of the gates and walls +that have barred their road to freedom, measure their debt to history, +there will be little to claim their gratitude before the close of the +eighteenth century. The Protestant Reformation on the whole depressed +their status, and even among its more speculative sects the Quakers +stood alone in preaching the equality of the sexes. The English Whigs +ignored the existence of women. It was left for the French thinkers who +laid the foundations of the Revolution to formulate a view of society +and human nature which, as it were, insisted on its own application to +women. The idea of women's emancipation was alive among their +principles. One can name its parents, and one marvels not at all that it +seized this mind and the other, but that any mind among the professors +of the "new philosophy" contrived to escape it. The central thought, +which inspired the gospel of perfectibility has a meaning for men which +an enlightened mind can grasp, but it tells the plain obvious fact about +women. + +When Holcroft compares the influence of laws and institutions upon men +to the action of beggars who mutilate their children, when Godwin talks +of the subtle poisons of dogma and custom, which cause mankind to grow +up a race of dwarfs when they should be giants, they seem to be using +metaphors which describe nothing so well as the effect of an artificial +education and a tradition of subjection upon women. One by one the +thinkers of this generation were unconsciously laying down the premises +which the women's movement needed. At the end of all their arguments for +liberty and perfectibility, we seem to hear to-day a chorus of women's +voices which points the application to themselves. There was little hope +for women while the opinion prevailed that minds come into the world +with their qualities innate and their limitations fixed by nature. If +that were the case, then the undeniable fact that women were +intellectually and morally dependent and inferior must be accepted as +their inevitable destiny. Helvétius, all unconscious of what he did, was +the hope-bringer, when he insisted that mind is the creation of +education and experience. When he urged that the very inequality of +men's talents is itself factitious and the result of more or less good +fortune in the occasions which provoke a mind to activity, who could +fail to enquire whether the accepted inferiority of women were so +natural and so necessary as the whole world assumed? + +This school of thought revelled in social psychology. It studied in turn +the soldier, the priest and the courtier, and shewed how each of these +has a secondary character, a professional mind, a class morality +impressed and imposed upon him by his education and employment. Looking +down from the vantage ground of their philosophic salon upon their +contemporaries in French society who owed their fortunes and reputations +to the favour of an absolute court, Helvétius and his friends framed +their general theory of the demoralisation which despotism brings about +in the human character. They studied the natural history of the human +parasite who flourished under the Bourbons. They need not have travelled +to Versailles to find him. The domestic subjection of wives to husbands, +the education of girls in a specialised morality, the fetters of custom +and fashion, the experience of economic dependence, the denial of every +noble stimulus to thought and action--these causes, more potent and more +universal than any which work at Court, were making a sex condemned to +an artificial inferiority, an induced parasitism. Thinkers who had +discarded the notion that human minds come into the world with an innate +character and with their limitations already predestined, were ripe to +draw the conclusion. The Revolution believed that men by taking thought +might add many cubits to their mental stature. To think in these terms +was to prepare oneself to see that the "lovely follies" the "amiable +weaknesses" of the "fair sex" were in their turn nothing innate, but the +fostered characteristics of a class bred in subjection, the trading +habits of a profession which had bent all its faculties to the art of +pleasing. Reformers who sought to raise the peasant, the negro, and even +the courtier to his full stature as a man, were inevitably led to +consider the case of their own wives and daughters. They were not the +men to be arrested by the distinction which has been recently invented. +Democracy, we are told, is concerned with the removal not of natural, +but of artificial inequalities. Their bias was to regard all +inequalities as artificial. Looking forward to the goal of human +perfection, they were prompt to realise that every advance would be +insecure, and the final hope a delusion, if on their road they should +leave half mankind behind them. + +It requires a vigorous exercise of the historical imagination to realise +the conditions which society imposed upon women in the eighteenth +century. If Godwin and Paine had reflected closely on the position of +women, they might have been led to modify their exaggerated antithesis +between society and government. Government, indeed, imposed a barbarous +code of laws upon women. It was a trifle that they were excluded from +political power. The law treated a wife as the chattel of her husband, +denied her the disposal of her own property, even when it was the +produce of her own labour, sanctioned his use of violence to her person, +and refused (as indeed it still in part does) to recognise her rights as +a parent. But the state of the law reflected only too faithfully the +opinions of society, and these opinions in their turn formed the minds +of women. Civilised people amuse themselves to-day by detecting how much +of the old prejudices still lurk in a shamefaced half-consciousness in +the minds of modern men. There was no need in the eighteenth century for +any fine analysis to detect the naïve belief that women exist only as +auxiliary beings to contribute to the comfort and to flatter the +self-esteem of men. The belief was avowed and accepted as the +unquestioned basis of human society. Good men proclaimed it, and the +cleverest women dared not question it. + +For the crudest statement of it we need not go to men who defended +despotism and convention in other departments of life. The most +repulsive of all definitions of the principle of sex-subjection is to be +found in Rousseau:--"The education of women should always be relative to +that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem +them, to educate us when young, to take care of us when grown up, to +advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are +the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in +their infancy." When the men of the eighteenth century said this, they +meant it, and they accepted not only its plain meaning, but its remotest +logical consequences. It was a denial of the humanity and personality of +women. A slave is a human being, whom the law deprives of his right to +sell his labour. A woman had to learn that her subjection affected not +only her relations to men, but her attitude to nature and to God. The +subtle poison ran in her veins when she prayed and when she studied. +Subject in her body, she was enslaved in mind and soul as well. Milton +saw the husband as a priest intervening between a woman and her God:-- + + He for God only, she for God in him. + +Even on her knees a woman did not escape the consciousness of sex, and a +manual of morality written by a learned divine (Dr. Fordyce) assured her +that a "fine woman" never "strikes so deeply" as when a man sees her +bent in prayer. She was encouraged to pray that she might be seen of +men--men who scrutinised her with the eyes of desire. It is a woman, +herself something of a "blue-stocking," who has left us the most +pathetic statement of the intellectual fetters which her sex accepted. +Women, says Mrs. Barbauld, "must often be content to know that a thing +is so, without understanding the proof." They "cannot investigate; they +may remember." She warns the girls whom she is addressing that if they +will steal knowledge, they must learn, like the Spartan youths, to hide +their furtive gains. "The thefts of knowledge in our sex are only +connived at while carefully concealed, and if displayed punished with +disgrace." + +Religion was sullied; knowledge was closed; but above all the sentiment +of the day perverted morals. Here, too, everything was relative to men, +and men demanded a sensitive weakness, a shrinking timidity. Courage, +honour, truth, sincerity, independence--these were items in a male +ideal. They were to a woman as unnecessary, nay, as harmful in the +marriage market as a sturdy frame and well-knit muscles. Dean Swift, a +sharp satirist, but a good friend of women, comments on the prevailing +view. "There is one infirmity," he writes in his illuminating _Letter to +a very young lady on her marriage_, "which is generally allowed you, I +mean that of cowardice," and he goes on to express what was in his day +the wholly unorthodox view that "the same virtues equally become both +sexes." There he was singular. The business of a woman was to cultivate +those virtues most conducive to her prosperity in the one avocation open +to her. That avocation was marriage, and the virtues were those which +her prospective employer, the average over-sexed male, anxious at all +points to feel his superiority, would desire in a subject wife. +Submission was the first of them, and submission became the foundation +of female virtue. Lord Kames, a forgotten but once popular Scottish +philosopher, put the point quite fairly (the quotation, together with +that from Mrs. Barbauld, is to be found in Mr. Lyon Blease's valuable +book on _The Emancipation of Englishwomen_): "Women, destined by nature +to be obedient, ought to be disciplined early to bear wrongs without +murmuring.... This is essential to the female sex, for ever subjected to +the authority of a single person." + +The rest of morality was summed up in the precepts of the art of +pleasing. Chastity had, of course, its incidental place; it enhances the +pride of possession. The art of pleasing was in practice a kind of +furtive conquest by stratagems and wiles, by tears and blushes, in which +the woman, by an assumed passivity, learned to excite the passions of +the male. Rousseau owed much of his popularity to his artistic statement +of this position:--"If woman be formed to please and to be subjected to +man, it is her place, doubtless, to render herself agreeable to him.... +The violence of his desires depends on her charms; it is by means of +these that she should urge him to the exertion of those powers which +nature hath given him. The most successful method of exciting them is to +render such exertion necessary by resistance; as in that case self-love +is added to desire, and the one triumphs in the victory which the other +is obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various modes of attack and +defence between the sexes; the boldness of one sex and the timidity of +the other; and in a word, that bashfulness and modesty, with which +nature hath armed the weak in order to subdue the strong." + +The "soft," the "fair," the "gentle sex" learned its lesson with only +too much docility. It grew up stunted to meet the prevailing demand. It +acquired weakness, feigned ignorance, and emulated folly as sedulously +as men will labour to make at least a show of strength, good sense, and +knowledge. It adapted itself only too successfully to the economic +conditions in which it found itself. Men accepted its flatteries and +returned them with contempt. "Women," wrote that dictator of morals and +manners, Lord Chesterfield, "are only children of a larger growth.... A +man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and +flatters them, as he does a sprightly, forward child." The men of that +century valued women only as playthings. They forgot that he is the +child who wants the toy. + +The first protests against this morality of degradation came, as one +would expect, from men. Demoralising as it was for men, it did at least +leave them the free use of their minds. Enquiry, reflection, scepticism, +unsuitable if not immodest in a woman, were the rights of a manly +intellect. Defoe and Swift uttered an unheeded protest in England, but +neither of them carried the subject far. There are some good critical +remarks in Helvétius about women's education; but the first man in that +century who seemed to realise the importance and scope of what several +dimly felt, was Baron Holbach, whose materialism was so peculiarly +shocking to our forefathers. A chapter "On Women" in his _Système +Social_ (1774) opens thus: "In all the countries of the world the lot of +women is to submit to tyranny. The savage makes a slave of his mate, and +carries his contempt for her to the point of cruelty. For the jealous +and voluptuous Asiatic, women are but the sensual instruments of his +secret pleasures.... Does the European, in spite of the apparent +deference which he affects towards women, really treat them with more +respect? While we refuse them a sensible education, while we feed their +minds with tedium and trifles, while we allow them to busy themselves +only with playthings and fashions and adornments, while we seek to +inspire them only with the taste for frivolous accomplishments, do we +not show our real contempt, while we mask it with a show of deference +and respect?" + +Holbach was a rash and rather superficial metaphysician, but the +warm-hearted and honest pages which follow this opening inspire a deep +respect for the man. He talks of the absurdities of women's education; +draws a bitter picture of a woman's fate in a loveless marriage of +convenience; remarks that esteem is necessary for a happy marriage, but +asks sadly how one is to esteem a mind which has emerged from a +schooling in folly; assails the practice of gallantry, and the +fashionable conjugal infidelities of his day; writes with real +indignation of the dangers to which working-class girls are exposed; +proposes to punish seduction as a crime no less cruel than murder, and +concludes by confessing that he would like to adopt Plato's opinion that +women should share with men in the tasks of government, but dreads the +effects which would flow from the admission of the corrupt ladies of his +day to power. + +Twenty years later this promising beginning bore fruit in the mature and +reasoned pleading of Condorcet for the reform of women's education. +There was no subject on which this noble constructive mind insisted with +such continual emphasis. His feminism (to use an ugly modern word), was +an integral part of his thinking. He remembered women when he wrote of +public affairs as naturally as most men forget them. He deserves in the +gratitude of women a place at least as distinguished as John Stuart +Mill's. The best and fullest statement of his position is to be found in +the report and draft Bill on national education (Sur l'Instruction +Publique), which he prepared for the Revolutionary Convention in 1792 +(see also p. 109). He maintains boldly that the system of national +education should be the same for women as for men. He specially insists +that they should be admitted to the study of the natural sciences (these +were days when it was held that a woman would lose her modesty if she +studied botany), and thinks that they would render useful services to +science, even if they did not attain the first rank. They ought to be +educated for many reasons. They must be able to teach their children. If +they remain ignorant, the curse of inequality will be introduced into +the family, and mothers will be regarded by their sons with contempt. +Nor will men retain their intellectual interests, unless they can share +them with women. Lastly, women have the same natural right to knowledge +and enlightenment as men. The education should be given in common, and +this will powerfully further the interests of morality. The separation +of the sexes in youth really proceeds from the fear of unequal +marriages, in other words, from avarice and pride. It would be dangerous +for a democratic community to allow the spirit of social inequality to +survive among women, with the consequence that it could never be +extirpated among men. Condorcet was not a brilliant writer, but the +humanity and generosity of his thought finds a powerful and reasoned +expression in his sober and somewhat laboured sentences. + +So far a good and enlightened man might go. The substance of all that +need be said against the harem with the door ajar, in which the +eighteenth century had confined the mind if not the body, of women, is +to be found in Holbach and Condorcet. But they wrote from outside. They +were the wise spectators who saw the consequences of the degradation of +women, but did not intimately know its cause. Mary Wollstonecraft's +_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ (1792) is perhaps the most original +book of its century, not because its daring ideas were altogether new, +but because in its pages for the first time a woman was attempting to +use her own mind. Her ideas, as we have seen, were not absolutely new. +They were latent in all the thinking of the revolutionary period. They +had been foreshadowed by Holbach (whom she may have read), by Paine +(whom she had occasionally met), and by Condorcet (whose chief +contribution to the question, written in the same year as her +_Vindication_, she obviously had not read). What was absolutely new in +the world's history was that for the first time a woman dared to sit +down to write a book which was not an echo of men's thinking, nor an +attempt to do rather well what some man had done a little better, but a +first exploration of the problems of society and morals from a +standpoint which recognised humanity without ignoring sex. She showed +her genius not so much in writing the book, which is, indeed, a faulty +though an intensely vital performance, as in thinking out its position +for herself. + +She had her predecessors, but she owed to them little, if anything. +There was not enough in them to have formed her mind, if she had come to +their pages unemancipated. She freed herself from mental slavery, and +the utmost which she can have derived from the two or three men who +professed the same generous opinions, was the satisfaction of +encouragement or confirmation. She owed to others only the powerful +stimulus which the Revolution gave to all bold and progressive thought. +The vitality of her ideas sprang from her own experience. She had +received rather less than was customary of the slipshod superficial +education permitted to girls of the middle classes in her day. With this +nearly useless equipment, she had found herself compelled to struggle +with the world not merely to gain a living, but to rescue a luckless +family from a load of embarrassments and misfortunes. Her father was a +drunkard, idle, improvident, moody and brutal, and as a girl she had +often protected her mother from his violence. A sister had married a +profligate husband, and Mary rescued her from a miserable home, in which +she had been driven to temporary insanity. The sisters had attempted to +live by conducting a suburban school for girls; a brief experience as a +governess in a fashionable family had been even more formative. + +When at length she took to writing and translating educational books, +with the encouragement of a kindly publisher, she was practising under +the stimulus of necessity the doctrine of economic independence, which +became one of the foundations of her teaching. It is the pressure of +economic necessity which in this generation and the last has forced +women into a campaign for freedom and opportunity. What the growth of +the industrial system has done for women in the mass, a hard experience +did for Mary Wollstonecraft. In her own person or through her sisters +she had felt in an aggravated form most of the wrongs to which women +were peculiarly exposed. She had seen the reverse of the shield of +chivalry, and known the domestic tyrannies of a sheltered home. + +The miracle was that Mary Wollstonecraft's mind was never distorted by +bitterness, nor her faith in mankind destroyed by cynicism. Her +personality lives for us still in her own books and in the records of +her friends. Opie's vivid painting hangs in the National Portrait +Gallery to confirm what Godwin tells us of her beauty in his pathetic +_Memoir_ and to remind us of Southey's admiration for her eyes. Godwin +writes of "that smile of bewitching tenderness ... which won, both heart +and soul, the affection of almost every one that beheld it." She was, he +tells us, "in the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her +manners"; and indeed her letters and her books present her to us as a +woman who had courage and independence precisely because she was so +normal, so healthy in mind and body, so richly endowed with a generous +vitality. If she won the hearts of all who knew her, it was because her +own affections were warm and true. She was a good sister, a good +daughter, a passionate lover, an affectionate friend, a devoted and +tender mother. + +She was too real a human being to be misled by the impartialities of +universal benevolence. "Few," she wrote, "have had much affection for +mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, +and even the domestic brutes whom they first played with." That eloquent +trait, her love of animals and her hatred of cruelty, helps to define +her character. She was, says Godwin, "a worshipper of domestic life," +and, for all her proud independence, in love with love. In Godwin's prim +phraseology, she "set a great value on a mutual affection between +persons of an opposite sex, and regarded it as the principal solace of +human life." Indeed, in the _Letters to Imlay_, which appeared after her +death, it is not so much the strength and independence of her final +attitude which impresses us, as her readiness to forgive, her +reluctance to resent his neglect, her affection which could survive so +many proofs of the man's unworthiness. The strongest passion in her +generous nature was maternal tenderness. It won her the enduring love of +the children whom she taught as a governess. It caused her mind to be +busied with the problem of education as its chief preoccupation. It +informs her whole view of the rights and duties of women in her +_Vindication_. It inspired the charming fragment entitled _Lessons for +Little Fanny_, which is one of the most graceful expressions in English +prose of the physical tenderness of a mother's love. If she despised the +artificial sensibility which in her day was admired and cultivated by +women, it was because her own emotions were natural and strong. Her +intellect, which no regular discipline had formed, impressed the +laborious and studious Godwin by its quickness and its flashes of sudden +insight--its "intuitive perception of intellectual beauty." + +The _Vindication_ is certainly among the most remarkable books that have +come down to us from that opulent age. It has in abundance most of the +faults that a book can have. It was hastily written in six weeks. It is +ill-arranged, full of repetitions, full of digressions, and almost +without a regular plan. Its style is unformed, sometimes rhetorical, +sometimes familiar. But with all these faults, it teems with apt +phrases, telling passages, vigorous sentences which sum up in a few +convincing lines the substance of its message. It lacks the neatness, +the athletic movement of Paine's English. It has nothing of the +learning, the formidable argumentative compulsion of Godwin's writing. +But it is sold to-day in cheap editions, while Godwin survives only on +the dustier shelves of old libraries. Its passion and sincerity have +kept it alive. It is the cry of an experience too real, too authentic, +to allow of any meandering down the by-ways of fanciful speculation. It +said with its solitary voice the thing which the main army of thinking +women is saying to-day. There is scarcely a passage of its central +doctrine which the modern leaders of the women's movement would +repudiate or qualify; and there is little if anything which they would +wish to add to it. Writers like Olive Schreiner, Miss Cicely Hamilton, +and Mrs. Gilman have, indeed, a background of historical knowledge, an +evolutionary view of society, a sense of the working of economic causes +which Mary Wollstonecraft did not possess and could not in her age have +acquired, even if she had been what she was not, a woman of learning. +But she has anticipated all their main positions, and formulated the +ideal which the modern movement is struggling to complete. Her book is +dated in every chapter. It is as much a page torn from the journals of +the French Revolution as Paine's _Rights of Man_ or Condorcet's +_Sketch_. And yet it seems, as they do not, a modern book. + +The chief merit of the _Vindication_ is its clear perception that +everything in the future of women depends on the revision of the +attitude of men towards women and of women towards themselves. The rare +men who saw this, from Holbach and Condorcet to Mill, were philosophers. +Mary Wollstonecraft had no pretensions to philosophy. A brilliant +courage gave her in its stead her range and breadth of vision. It would +have been so much easier to write a treatise on education, a plea for +the reform of marriage, or even an argument for the admission of women +to political rights. To the last of these themes she alludes only in a +single sentence: "I may excite laughter, by dropping a hint, which I +mean to pursue, some future time, for I really think that women ought +to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without +having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of +government." She had the insight to perceive that the first task of the +pioneer was to raise the whole broad issue of the subjection of her sex. +She begins by linking her argument with a splendid imprudence to the +revolutionary movement. It had proclaimed the supremacy of reason, and +based freedom on natural right. Why was it that the new Constitution +ignored women? With a fresh simplicity, she appeals to the French +Convention in the name of its own abstract principles, as modern women +appeal (with more experience of the limitations of male logic) to +English Liberalism. But she knew very well what was the enormous +despotism of interest and prejudice that she was attacking. The +sensualist and the tyrant were for her interchangeable terms, and with +great skill she enlists on her side the new passion for liberty. "All +tyrants want to crush reason, from the weak king to the weak father." +She demands the enlightenment of women, as the reformers demanded that +of the masses: "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there +will be an end to blind obedience; but as blind obedience is ever +sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they +endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want +slaves, and the latter a plaything." + +With a shrewd if instinctive insight into social psychology, she traces +to the unenlightened self-interest of the dominant sex the code of +morals which has been imposed upon women. Rousseau supplies her with the +perfect and finished statement of all that she opposed. He and his like +had given a sex to virtue. She takes her stand on a broad human +morality. "Freedom must strengthen the reason of woman until she +comprehend her duty." Against the perverted sex-morality which treated +woman in religion, in ethics, in manners as a being relative only to +men, she directs the whole of her argument. It is "vain to expect virtue +from women, till they are in some degree independent of men." + +"Females have been insulated, as it were, and while they have been +stripped of the virtue that should clothe humanity, they have been +decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short-lived +tyranny.... Their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion instead +of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in +absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of character. Liberty is the +mother of virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, +and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they +must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in +nature.... Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they +are human duties.... If marriage be the cement of society, mankind +should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the +sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship, nor will women ever +fulfil the peculiar duties of their sex, till they become enlightened +citizens, till they become free by being enabled to earn their own +subsistence, independent of men; in the same manner, I mean, to prevent +misconstruction, as one man is independent of another. Nay, marriage +will never be held sacred till women, by being brought up with men, are +prepared to be their companions rather than their mistresses." + +It is a brave but singularly balanced view of human life and society. +There is in it no trace of the dogmatic individualism that distorts the +speculations of Godwin and clogs the more practical thinking of Paine. +It is, indeed, a protest against the exaggeration of sex, which +instilled in women "the desire of being always women." It flouts that +external morality of reputation, which would have a woman always "seem +to be this and that," because her whole status in the world depended on +the opinion which men held of her. It demands in words which anticipate +Ibsen's _Doll's House_, that a woman shall be herself and lead her own +life. But "her own life" was for Mary Wollstonecraft a social life. The +ideal is the perfect companionship of men and women, and the preparation +of men and women, by an equal practice of modesty and chastity, and an +equal advance in education, to be the parents of their children. She is +ready indeed to rest her whole case for the education of women upon the +duties of maternity. "Whatever tends to incapacitate the maternal +character takes woman out of her sphere." The education which she +demanded was the co-education of men and women in common schools. She +attacked the dual standard of sexual morality with a brave plainness of +speech. She demanded the opening of suitable trades and professions to +women. She exposed the whole system which compels women to "live by +their charm." But a less destructive reformer never set out to +overthrow conventions. For her the duty always underlies the right, and +the development of the self-reliant individual is a preparation for the +life of fellowship. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SHELLEY + + +If it were possible to blot out from our mind its memory of the Bible +and of Protestant theology, and with that mind of artificial vacancy to +read _Paradise Lost_ and _Samson Agonistes_, how strange and great and +mad would the genius of Milton appear. We should wonder at his creative +mythological imagination, but we should marvel past all comprehending at +his conceptions of the divine order, and the destiny of man. To attempt +to understand Shelley without the aid of Godwin is a task hardly more +promising than it would be to read Milton without the Bible. + +The parallel is so close that one is tempted to pursue it further, for +there is between these two poets a close sympathy amid glaring +contrasts. Each admitted in spite of his passion for an ideal world an +absorbing concern in human affairs, and a vehement interest in the +contemporary struggle for liberty. If the one was a Republican Puritan +and the other an anarchical atheist, the dress which their passion for +liberty assumed was the uniform of the day. Neither was an original +thinker. Each steeped himself in the classics. But more important even +than the classics in the influences which moulded their minds, were the +dogmatic systems to which they attached themselves. It is not the power +of novel and pioneer thought which distinguishes a philosophical from a +purely sensuous mind. Shelley no more innovated or created in +metaphysics or politics than did Milton. But each had, with his gift of +imagery, and his power of musical speech, an intellectual view of the +universe. The name of Milton suggests to us eloquent rhythms and images +which pose like Grecian sculpture. But Milton's world was the world as +the grave, gowned men saw it who composed the Westminster Confession. +The name of Shelley rings like the dying fall of a song, or floats +before our eyes amid the faery shapes of wind-tossed clouds. But +Shelley's world was the world of the utilitarian Godwin and the +mathematical Condorcet. The supremacy of an intellectual vision is not a +common characteristic among poets, but it raises Milton and Shelley to +the choir in which Dante and Goethe are leaders. For Keats beauty was +truth, and that was all he cared to know. Coleridge, indeed, was a +metaphysician of some pretensions, but the "honey dew" on which he fed +when he wrote _Christabel_ and _Kubla Khan_ was not the _Critique of +Pure Reason_. But to Shelley _Political Justice_ was the veritable "milk +of paradise." We must drink of it ourselves if we would share his +banquet. Godwin in short explains Shelley, and it is equally true that +Shelley is the indispensable commentary to Godwin. For all that was +living and human in the philosopher he finds imaginative expression. His +mind was a selective soil, in which only good seed could germinate. The +flowers wear the colour of life and emotion. In the clear light of his +verse, gleaming in their passionate hues, they display for us their +values. Some of them, the bees of a working hive will consent to +fertilise; from others they will turn decidedly away. Shelley is +Godwin's fertile garden. From another standpoint he is the desert which +Godwin laid waste. + +It is, indeed, the commonplace of criticism to insist on the reality +which the ideal world possessed for Shelley. Other poets have +illustrated thought by sensuous imagery. To Shelley, thought alone was +the essential thing. A good impulse, a dream, an idea, were for him +what a Centaur or a Pegasus were for common fancy. He sees in +_Prometheus Unbound_ a spirit who + + Speeded hither on the sigh + Of one who gave an enemy + His plank, then plunged aside to die. + +Another spirit rides on a sage's "dream with plumes of flame"; and a +third tells how a poet + + Will watch from dawn to gloom + The lake-reflected sun illume, + The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, + Nor heed, nor see, what things they be; + But from these create he can + Forms more real than living man, + Nurslings of immortality. + +How naturally from Shelley's imagination flowed the lines about Keats:-- + + All he had loved and moulded into thought + From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound + Lamented Adonais. + + +This was no rhetoric, no affectation of fancy. Shelley saw the immortal +shapes of "Desires and Adorations" lamenting over the bier of the mortal +Keats, because for him an idea or a passion was incomparably more real +and more comprehensible than the things of flesh and earth, of whose +existence the senses persuade us. To such a mind philosophy was not a +distant world to be entered with diffident and halting feet, ever ready +to retreat at the first alarm of commonsense. It was his daily +habitation. He lived in it, and guided himself by its intellectual +compass among the perils and wonders of life, as naturally as other men +feel their way by touch. This ardent, sensitive, emotional nature, with +all its gift of lyrical speech and passionate feeling, was in fact the +ideal man of the Godwinian conception, who lives by reason and obeys +principles. Three men in modern times have achieved a certain fame by +their rigid obedience to "rational" conceptions of conduct--Thomas Day, +who wrote _Sandford and Merton_, Bentham, and Herbert Spencer. But the +erratic, fanciful Shelley was as much the enthusiastic slave of reason, +as any of these three; and he seemed erratic only because to be +perfectly rational is in this world the wildest form of eccentricity. He +came upon _Political Justice_ while he was still a school-boy at Eton; +and his diaries show that there hardly passed a year of his life in +which he omitted to re-read it. Its phraseology colours his prose; his +mind was built upon it, as Milton's was upon the Bible. We hardly +require his own confession to assure us of the debt. "The name of +Godwin," he wrote in 1812, "has been used to excite in me feelings of +reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a +luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the +earliest period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently +desired to share on the footing of intimacy that intellect which I have +delighted to contemplate in its emanations. Considering then, these +feelings, you will not be surprised at the inconceivable emotions with +which I learnt your existence and your dwelling. I had enrolled your +name in the list of the honourable dead. I had felt regret that the +glory of your being had passed from this earth of ours. It is not so. +You still live, and I firmly believe are still planning the welfare of +human kind." + +The enthusiastic youth was to learn that his master's preoccupation was +with concerns more sordid and more pressing than the welfare of human +kind; but if close personal intercourse brought some disillusionment +regarding Godwin's private character, it only deepened his intellectual +influence, and confirmed Shelley's lifelong adhesion to his system. No +contemporary thinker ever contested Godwin's empire over Shelley's +mind; and if in later years Plato claimed an ever-growing share in his +thoughts, we must remember that in several of his fundamental tenets +Godwin was a Platonist without knowing it. It is only in his purely +personal utterances, in the lyrics which rendered a mood or an +impression, or in such fancies as the _Witch of Atlas_, that Shelley can +escape from the obsession of _Political Justice_. The voice of Godwin +does not disturb us in _The Skylark_, and it is silenced by the violent +passions of _The Cenci_. But in all the more formal and graver +utterances of Shelley's genius, from _Queen Mab_ to _Hellas_, it +supplies the theme and Shelley writes the variations. _Queen Mab_, +indeed, is nothing but a fervent lad's attempt to state in verse the +burden of Godwin's prose. Some passages in it (notably the lines about +commerce) are a mere paraphrase or summary of pages from _The Enquirer_ +or _Political Justice_. In the _Revolt of Islam_, and still more in +_Prometheus Unbound_, Shelley's imagination is becoming its own master. +The variations are more important, more subtle, more beautiful than the +theme; but still the theme is there, a precise and definite dogma for +fancy to embroider. It is only in _Hellas_ that Shelley's power of +narrative (in Hassan's story), his irrepressible lyrical gift, and his +passion which at length could speak in its own idiom, combine to make a +masterpiece which owes to Godwin only some general ideas. If the +transcript became less literal, it was not that the influence had waned. +It was rather that Shelley was gaining the full mastery of his own +native powers of expression. In these poems he assumes or preaches all +Godwin's characteristic doctrines, perfectibility, non-resistance, +anarchism, communism, the power of reason and the superiority of +persuasion over force, universal benevolence, and the ascription of +moral evil to the desolating influence of "positive institution." + +The general agreement is so obvious that one need hardly illustrate it. +What is more curious is the habit which Shelley acquired of reproducing +even the minor opinions or illustrations which had struck him in his +continual reading of Godwin. When Mammon advises Swellfoot the Tyrant to +refresh himself with + + A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook + Such as is served at the Great King's second table. + The price and pains which its ingredients cost + Might have maintained some dozen families + A winter or two--not more. + +he is simply making an ironical paraphrase from Godwin. The fine scene +in Canto XI. of the _Revolt of Islam_, in which Laon, confronting the +tyrant on his throne, quells by a look and a word a henchman who was +about to stab him, is a too brief rendering of Godwin's reflections on +the story of Marius and the Executioner (see p. 128). + + And one more daring, raised his steel anew + To pierce the stranger: "What hast thou to do + With me, poor wretch?"--calm, solemn and severe + That voice unstrung his sinews, and he threw + His dagger on the ground, and pale with fear, + Sate silently. + + +The pages of Shelley are littered with such reminiscences. + +Matthew Arnold said of Shelley that he was "a beautiful and ineffectual +angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." One is tempted to +retort that to be beautiful is in itself to escape futility, and to +people a void with angels is to be far from ineffectual. But the +metaphor is more striking as phrase-making than as criticism. The world +into which the angel fell, wide-eyed, indignant, and surprised, was not +a void. It was a nightmare composed of all the things which to common +mortals are usual, normal, inevitable--oppressions and wars, follies and +crimes, kings and priests, hangmen and inquisitors, poverty and luxury. +If he beat his wings in this cage of horrors, it was with the rage and +terror of a bird which belongs to the free air. Shelley, Matthew Arnold +held, was not quite sane. Sanity is a capacity for becoming accustomed +to the monstrous. Not time nor grey hairs could bring that kind of +sanity to Shelley's clear-sighted madness. If he must be compared to an +angel, Mr. Wells has drawn him for us. He was the angel whom a country +clergyman shot in mistake for a buzzard, in that graceful satire, _The +Wonderful Visit_. Brought to earth by this mischance, he saw our follies +and our crimes without the dulling influence of custom. Satirists have +loved to imagine such a being. Voltaire drew him with as much wit as +insight in _L'Ingénu_--the American savage who landed in France, and +made the amazing discovery of civilisation. Shelley had not dropped from +the clouds nor voyaged from the backwoods, but he seems always to be +discovering civilisation with a fresh wonder and an insatiable +indignation. + +One may doubt whether a saint has ever lived more selfless, more devoted +to the beauty of virtue; but one quality Shelley lacked which is +commonly counted a virtue. He had none of that imaginative sympathy +which can make its own the motives and desires of other men. +Self-interest, intolerance and greed he understood as little as common +men understand heroism and devotion. He had no mean powers of +observation. He saw the world as it was, and perhaps he rather +exaggerated than minimised its ugliness. But it never struck him that +its follies and crimes were human failings and the outcome of anything +that is natural in the species. The doctrines of perfectibility and +universal benevolence clothed themselves for him in the Godwinian +phraseology, but they were the instinctive beliefs of his temperament. +So sure was he of his own goodness, so natural was it with him to love +and to be brave, that he unhesitatingly ascribed all the evil of the +world to the working of some force which was unnatural, accidental, +anti-human. If he had grown up a mediæval Christian, he would have found +no difficulty in blaming the Devil. The belief was in his heart; the +formula was Godwin's. For the wonder, the miracle of all this unnatural, +incomprehensible evil in the world, he found a complete explanation in +the doctrine that "positive institutions" have poisoned and distorted +the natural good in man. After a gloomy picture in _Queen Mab_ of all +the oppressions which are done under the sun, he suddenly breaks away to +absolve nature: + + Nature!--No! + Kings, priests and statesmen blast the human flower + Even in its tender bud; their influence darts + Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins + Of desolate society.... + Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man + Inherits vice and misery, when force + And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe + Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good. + + +It is a stimulating doctrine, for if humanity had only to rid itself of +kings and priests, the journey to perfection would be at once brief and +eventful. As a sociological theory it is unluckily unsatisfying. There +is, after all, nothing more natural than a king. He is a zoological +fact, with his parallel in every herd of prairie dogs. Nor is there +anything much more human than the tendency to convention which gives to +institutions their rigidity. If force and imposture have had a share in +the making of kings and priests, it is equally true that they are the +creation of the servility and superstition of the mass of men. The +eighteenth century chose to forget that man is a gregarious animal. +Oppression and priestcraft are the transitory forms in which the flock +has sought to cement its union. But the modern world is steeped in the +lore of anthropology; there is little need to bring its heavy guns to +bear upon the slender fabric of Shelley's dream. _Queen Mab_ was a +boy's precocious effort, and in later verses Shelley put the case for +his view of evil in a more persuasive form. He is now less concerned to +declare that it is unnatural, than to insist that it flows from defects +in men which are not inherent or irremovable. The view is stated with +pessimistic malice by a Fury in _Prometheus Unbound_ after a vision of +slaughter. + + FURY. + + Blood thou can'st see, and fire; and can'st hear groans. + Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind. + + + PROMETHEUS. + + Worse? + + + FURY. + + In each human heart terror survives + The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear, + All that they would disdain to think were true: + Hypocrisy and custom make their minds + The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. + They dare not devise good for man's estate, + And yet they know not that they do not dare. + The good want power, but to weep barren tears. + The powerful goodness want--worse need for them. + The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom. + And all best things are thus confused to ill. + Many are strong and rich, and would be just, + But live among their suffering fellow-men + As if none felt; they know not what they do. + + +Shelley so separated the good and evil in the world, that he was +presently vexed as acutely as any theist with the problem of accounting +for evil. Paine felt no difficulty in his sharp, positive mind. He +traced all the wrongs of society to the egoism of priests and kings; +and, since he did not assume the fundamental goodness of human nature, +it troubled none of his theories to accept the crude primitive fact of +self-interest. What Shelley would really have said in answer to a +question about the origin of evil, if we had found him in a prosaic +mood, it is hard to guess, and the speculation does not interest us. +Shelley's prose opinions were of no importance. What we do trace in his +poetry is a tendency, half conscious, uttering itself only in figures +and parables, to read the riddle of the universe as a struggle between +two hostile principles. In the world of prose he called himself an +atheist. He rejoiced in the name, and used it primarily as a challenge +to intolerance. "It is a good word of abuse to stop discussion," he said +once to his friend Trelawny, "a painted devil to frighten the foolish, a +threat to intimidate the wise and good. I used it to express my +abhorrence of superstition. I took up the word as a knight takes up a +gauntlet in defiance of injustice." + +Shelley was an atheist because Christians used the name of God to +sanctify persecution. That was really his ultimate emotional reason. His +mythology, when he came to paint the world in myths, was Manichean. His +creed was an ardent dualism, in which a God and an anti-God contend and +make history. But in his mood of revolt it suited him to confuse the +names and the symbols. The snake is everywhere in his poems the +incarnation of good, and if we ask why, there is probably no other +reason than that the Hebrew mythology against which he revolted, had +taken it as the symbol of evil. The legitimate Gods in his Pantheon are +always in the wrong. He belongs to the cosmic party of opposition, and +the Jupiter of his _Prometheus_ is morally a temporarily omnipotent +devil. Like Godwin he felt that the God of orthodoxy was a "tyrant," and +he revolted against Him, because he condemned the world which He had +made. + +The whole point of view, as it concerns Christian theology, is stated +with a bitter clearness, in the speech of Ahasuerus in _Queen Mab_. The +first Canto of the _Revolt of Islam_ puts the position of dualism +without reserve: + + Know, then, that from the depths of ages old + Two Powers o'er mortal things dominion hold, + Ruling the world with a divided lot, + Immortal, all-pervading, manifold, + Twin Genii, equal Gods--when life and thought + Sprang forth, they burst the womb of inessential Nought. + +The good principle was the Morning Star (as though to remind us of +Lucifer) until his enemy changed him to the form of a snake. The +anti-God, whom men worship blindly as God, holds sway over our world. +Terror, madness, crime, and pain are his creation, and Asia in +_Prometheus_ cries aloud-- + + Utter his name: a world pining in pain + Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down. + + +In the sublime mythology of _Prometheus_ the war of God and anti-God is +seen visibly, making the horrors of history. As Jupiter's Furies rend +the heart of the merciful Titan chained to his rock on Caucasus, murders +and crucifixions are enacted in the world below. The mythical cruelties +in the clouds are the shadows of man's sufferings below; and they are +also the cause. A mystical parallelism links the drama in Heaven with +the tragedy on earth; we suffer from the malignity of the World's Ruler, +and triumph by the endurance of Man's Saviour. + +Nothing could be more absurd than to call Shelley a Pantheist. Pantheism +is the creed of conservatism and resignation. Shelley felt the world as +struggle and revolt, and like all the poets, he used Heaven as the vast +canvas on which to paint with a demonic brush an heroic idealisation of +what he saw below. It would be interesting to know whether any human +heart, however stout and rebellious, when once it saw the cosmic process +as struggle, has ever been able to think of the issue as uncertain. +Certainly for Shelley there was never a doubt about the final triumph of +good. Godwin qualified his agnosticism by supposing that there was a +tendency in things (he would not call it spiritual, or endow it with +mind) which somehow cooperates with us and assures the victory of life +(see p. 184). One seems to meet this vague principle, this reverend +Thing, in Shelley's Demogorgon, the shapeless, awful negation which +overthrows the maleficent Jupiter, and with his fall inaugurates the +golden age. The strange name of Demogorgon has probably its origin in +the clerical error of some mediæval copyist, fumbling with the scholia +of an anonymous grammarian. One can conceive that it appealed to +Shelley's wayward fancy because it suggested none of the traditional +theologies; and certainly it has a mysterious and venerable sound. +Shelley can describe It only as Godwin describes his principle by a +series of negatives. + + I see a mighty darkness + Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom + Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, + Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb, + Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is + A living spirit. + + +It is the eternal =X= which the human spirit always assumes when it is at +a loss to balance its equations. Demogorgon is, because if It were not, +our strivings would be a battle in the mist, with no clear trumpet-note +that promised triumph. Shelley, turning amid his singing to the +supremest of all creative work, the making of a mythology, invents his +God very much as those detested impostors, the primitive priests, had +done. He gives Humanity a friendly Power as they had endowed their tribe +with a god of battles. Humanity at grips with chaos is curiously like a +nigger clan in the bush. It needs a fetish of victory. But a poet's +mythology is to be judged by its fruits. A faith is worth the cathedral +it builds. A myth is worth the poem it inspires. + +If Shelley's ultimate view of reality is vague, a thing to be shadowed +in myths and hinted in symbols, there is nothing indefinite in his view +of the destinies of mankind. Here he marched behind Godwin, and Godwin +hated vagueness. His intellect had assimilated all the steps in the +argument for perfectibility. It emerges in places in its most dogmatic +form. Institutions make us what we are, and to free us from their +shackles is to liberate virtue and unleash genius. He pauses midway in +the preface to _Prometheus_ to assure us that, if England were divided +into forty republics, each would produce philosophers and poets as great +and numerous as those of Athens. The road to perfection, however, is not +through revolution, but by the gradual extirpation of error. When he +writes in prose, he expresses himself with all the rather affected +intellectualism of the Godwinian psychology. "Revenge and retaliation," +he remarks in the preface to _The Cenci_ "are pernicious _mistakes_." +But temperament counts for something even in a disciple so devout as +Shelley. He had an intellectual view of the world; but, when once the +rhythm of his musical verse had excited his mind to be itself, the force +and simplicity of his emotion transfuse and transform these +abstractions. Godwin's "universal benevolence" was with him an ardent +affectionate love for his kind. Godwin's cold precept that it was the +duty of an illuminated understanding to contribute towards the progress +of enquiry, by arguing about perfection and the powers of the mind in +select circles of friends who meet for debate, but never (virtue +forbids) for action, became for him a zealous missionary call. + +One smiles, with his irreverent yet admiring biographers, at the early +escapades of the married boy--the visit to Dublin at the height of the +agitation for Catholic emancipation, the printing of his Address to the +Irish Nation, and his trick of scattering it by flinging copies from his +balcony at passers-by, his quaint attempts to persuade grave Catholic +noblemen that what they ought really to desire was a total and rapid +transformation of the whole fabric of society, his efforts to found an +association for the moral regeneration of mankind, and his elfish +amusement of launching the truth upon the waters in the form of +pamphlets sealed up in bottles. Shelley at this age perpetrated "rags" +upon the universe, much as commonplace youths make hay of their fellows' +rooms. It is amusing to read the solemn letters in which Godwin, +complacently accepting the post of mentor, tells Shelley that he is +much too young to reform the world, urges him to acquire a vicarious +maturity by reading history, and refers him to _Political Justice +passim_ for the arguments which demonstrate the error of any attempt to +improve mankind by forming political associations. + +It is questionable how far the world has to thank Godwin for dissuading +ardent young men from any practical effort to realise their ideals. It +is just conceivable that, if the generation which hailed him as prophet +had been stimulated by him to do something more than fold its hands in +an almost superstitious veneration for the Slow Approach of Truth, there +might have arisen under educated leaders some movement less class-bound +than Whig Reform, less limited than the Corn Law agitation, and more +intelligent than Chartism. But, if politics lost by Godwin's quietism, +literature gained. It was Godwin's mission in life to save poets from +Botany Bay; he rescued Shelley, as he had rescued Southey and Coleridge. +It was by scattering his pity and his sympathy on every living creature +around him, and squandering his fortune and his expectations in charity, +while he dodged the duns and lived on bread and tea, that Shelley +followed in action the principles of universal benevolence. Godwin +omitted the beasts; but Shelley, practising vegetarianism and buying +crayfish in order to return them to the river, realised the "boast" of +the poet in _Alastor_:-- + + If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast + I consciously have injured, but still loved + And cherished these my kindred-- + + +We hear of his gifts of blankets to the poor lace-makers at Marlow, and +meet him stumbling home barefoot in mid-winter because he had given his +boots to a poor woman. + +Perhaps the most characteristic picture of this aspect of Shelley is +Leigh Hunt's anecdote of a scene on Hampstead Heath. Finding a poor +woman in a fit on the top of the Heath, Shelley carries her in his arms +to the lighted door of the nearest house, and begs for shelter. The +householder slams it in his face, with an "impostors swarm everywhere," +and a "Sir, your conduct is extraordinary." + +"Sir," cried Shelley, "I am sorry to say that _your_ conduct is not +extraordinary.... It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the +patience of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes in +this country (which is very probable), recollect what I tell you. You +will have your house, that you refuse to put this miserable woman into, +burnt over your head." + +It must have been about this very time that the law of England (quite +content to regard the owner of the closed door as a virtuous citizen) +decided that the Shelley who carried this poor stranger into shelter, +fetched a doctor, and out of his own poverty relieved her direr need, +was unfit to bring up his own children. + +If Shelley allowed himself to be persuaded by Godwin to abandon his +missionary adventures, he pursued the ideal in his poems. Whether by +Platonic influence, or by the instinct of his own temperament, he moves +half-consciously from the Godwinian notion that mankind are to be +reasoned into perfection. The contemplation of beauty is with him the +first stage in the progress towards reasoned virtue. "My purpose," he +writes in the preface to _Prometheus_, "has been ... to familiarise ... +poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware +that, until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and +endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the +highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, +although they would bear the harvest of his happiness." It was for want +of virtue, as Mary Wollstonecraft reflected, writing sadly after the +Terror, that the French Revolution had failed. The lesson of all the +horrors of oppression and reaction which Shelley described, the comfort +of all the listening spirits who watch from their mental eyries the slow +progress of mankind to perfection, the example of martyred +patriots--these tend always to the moral which Demogorgon sums up at the +end of the unflagging, unearthly beauties of the last triumphant act of +_Prometheus Unbound_: + + To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; + To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; + To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; + To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates + From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; + Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; + This like thy glory, Titan! is to be + Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; + This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. + + +To suffer, to forgive, to love, but above all, to defy--that was for +Shelley the whole duty of man. + +In two peculiarities, which he constantly emphasised, Shelley's view of +progress differed at once from Godwin's conception, and from the notion +of a slow evolutionary growth which the men of to-day consider +historical he traced the impulse which is to lead mankind to perfection, +to the magnetic leading of chosen and consecrated spirits. He saw the +process of change not as a slow evolution (as moderns do), nor yet as +the deliberate discarding of error at the bidding of rational argument +(as Godwin did), but rather as a sudden emotional conversion. The +missionary is always the light-bringer. "Some eminent in virtue shall +start up," he prophesies in _Queen Mab_. The _Revolt of Islam_, so +puzzling to the uninitiated reader by the wilful inversions of its +mythology, and its history which seems to belong to no conceivable race +of men, becomes, when one grasps its underlying ideas, a luminous epic +of revolutionary faith, precious if only because it is told in that +elaborately musical Spenserian stanza which no poet before or after +Shelley has handled with such easy mastery. Their mission to free their +countrymen comes to Laon and Cythna while they are still children, +brooding over the slavery of modern Greece amid the ruins of a free +past. They dream neither of teaching nor of fighting. They are the +winged children of Justice and Truth, whose mere words can scatter the +thrones of the oppressor, and trample the last altar in the dust. It is +enough to speak the name of Liberty in a ship at sea, and all the coasts +around it will thrill with the rumour of her name. In one moving, +eloquent harangue, Cythna converts the sailors of the ship, laden with +slaves and the gains of commerce, into the pioneers of her army. She +paints to them the misery of their own lot, and then appeals to the +central article of revolutionary faith: + + This need not be; ye might arise and will + That gold should lose its power and thrones their glory. + That love which none may bind be free to fill + The world like light; and evil faith, grown hoary + With crime, be quenched and die. + + +"Ye might arise and will"--it was the inevitable corollary of the facile +analysis which traced all the woes of mankind not to "nature," but to +kings, priests, and institutions. Shelley's missionaries of liberty +preach to a nation of slaves, as the apostles of the Salvation Army +preach in the slums to creatures reared in degradation, the same +mesmeric appeal. Conversion is a psychological possibility, and the +history of revolutions teaches its limitations and its power as +instructively as the history of religion. It breaks down not because men +are incapable of the sudden effort that can "arise and will," but +rather because to render its effects permanent, it must proceed to +regiment the converts in organised associations, which speedily develop +all the evils that have ruined the despotism it set out to overthrow. + +The interest of this revolutionary epic lies largely in the marriage of +Godwin's ideas with Mary Wollstonecraft's, which in the second +generation bears its full imaginative fruit. The most eloquent verses +are those which describe Cythna's leadership of the women in the +national revolt, and enforce the theme "Can man be free, if woman be a +slave?" Not less characteristic is the Godwinian abhorrence of violence, +and the Godwinian trust in the magic of courageous passivity. Laon finds +the revolutionary hosts about to slaughter their vanquished oppressors, +and persuades them to mercy and fraternity with the appeal. + + O wherefore should ill ever flow from ill + And pain still keener pain for ever breed. + + +He pardons and spares the tyrant himself; and Cythna shames the slaves +who are sent to bind her, until they weep in a sudden perception of the +beauty of virtue and courage. When the reaction breaks at length upon +the victorious liberators, they stand passive to be hewn down, as +Shelley, in the _Masque of Anarchy_, written after Peterloo, advised +the English reformers to do. + + With folded arms and steady eyes, + And little fear and less surprise, + Look upon them as they slay, + Till their rage has died away. + + Then they will return with shame + To the place from which they came, + And the blood thus shed will speak + In hot blushes on their cheek. + + +The simple stanzas might have been written by Blake. There is something +in the primitive Christianity of this aggressive Atheist which breathes +the childlike innocence of the Kingdom of Heaven. Shelley dreamed of "a +nation made free by love." With a strange mystical insight, he stepped +beyond the range of the Godwinian ethics, when he conceived of his +humane missionaries as victims who offer themselves a living sacrifice +for the redemption of mankind. Prometheus chained to his rock, because +he loved and defied, by some inscrutable magic of destiny, brings at +last by his calm endurance the consummation of the Golden Age. Laon +walks voluntarily on to the pile which the Spanish inquisitor had heaped +for him; and Cythna flings herself upon the flames in a last +affirmation of the power of self-sacrifice and the beauty of +comradeship. + +Thrice Shelley essayed to paint the state of perfection which mankind +might attain, when once it should "arise and will." The first of the +three pictures is the most literally Godwinian. It is the boyish sketch +of _Queen Mab_, with pantisocracy faithfully touched in, and Godwin's +speculations on the improvement of the human frame suggested in a few +pregnant lines. One does not feel that Shelley's mind is even yet its +own master in the firmer and maturer picture which concludes the third +act of _Prometheus Unbound_. He is still repeating a lesson, and it +calls forth less than the full powers of his imagination. The picture of +perfection itself is cold, negative, and mediocre. The real genius of +the poet breaks forth only when he allows himself in the fourth act to +sing the rapture of the happy spirits who "bear Time to his tomb in +eternity," while they circle in lyrical joy around the liberated earth. +There sings Shelley. The picture itself is a faithful illustration +etched with a skilful needle to adorn the last chapter of _Political +Justice_. Evil is once more and always something factitious and +unessential. The Spirit of the Earth sees the "ugly human shapes and +visages" which men had worn in the old bad days float away through the +air like chaff on the wind. They were no more than masks. Thrones are +kingless, and forthwith men walk in upright equality, neither fawning +nor trembling. Republican sincerity informs their speech: + + None talked that common false cold hollow talk + Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes. + +Women are "changed to all they dared not be," and "speak the wisdom once +they could not think." "Thrones, altars, judgment-seats and prisons," +and all the "tomes of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance" cumber the +ground like the unnoticed ruins of a barbaric past. + + The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains + Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man + Equal, unclassed, tribeless and nationless + Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king + Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man + Passionless. + + +The story ends there, and if we do not so much as wait for the assurance +that man passionless, tribeless, and nationless lived happily ever +afterwards, it is because we are unable to feel even this faint interest +in his destiny. There is something amiss with an ideal which is +constrained to express itself in negatives. What should be the climax of +a triumphant argument becomes its refutation. To reduce ourselves to +this abstract quintessential man might be euthanasia. It would not be +paradise. + +The third of Shelley's visions of perfection is the climax of _Hellas_. +One feels in attempting to make about _Hellas_ any statement in bald +prose, the same sense of baffled incompetence that a modest mind +experiences in attempting to describe music. One reads what the critics +have written about Beethoven's Heroic Symphony, to close the page +wondering that men with ears should have dared to write it. The +insistent rhythm beats in your blood, the absorbing melodies obsess your +brain, and you turn away realising that emotion, when it can find a +channel of sense, has a power which defies the analytic understanding. +_Hellas_, in a sense, is absolute poetry, as the "Eroica" is absolute +music. Ponder a few lines in one of the choruses which seem to convey a +definite idea, and against your will the elaborate rhythms and rhymes +will carry you along, until thought ceases and only the music and the +picture hold your imagination. + +And yet Shelley meant something as certainly as Beethoven did. Nowhere +is his genius so realistic, so closely in touch with contemporary fact, +yet nowhere does he soar so easily into his own ideal world. He +conceived it while Mavrocordato, about to start to fight for the +liberation of Greece, was paying daily visits to Shelley's circle at +Pisa. The events in Turkey, now awful, now hopeful, were before him as +crude facts in the newspaper. The historians of classical Greece were +his continual study. As he steeped himself in Plato, a world of ideal +forms opened before him in a timeless heaven as real as history, as +actual as the newspapers. _Hellas_ is the vision of a mind which touches +fact through sense, but makes of sense the gate and avenue into an +immortal world of thought. Past and present and future are fused in one +glowing symphony. The Sultan is no more real than Xerxes, and the golden +consummation glitters with a splendour as dazzling and as present as the +Age of Pericles. For Shelley, this denial of time had become a conscious +doctrine. Berkeley and Plato had become for him in his later years +influences as intimate as Godwin. Again and again in his later poems, he +turns from the cruelties and disappointments of the world, from death +and decay and failure, no longer with revolt and anger, but with a +serene contempt. Thought is the only reality; time with its appearance +of mortality is the dream and the illusion. Says Ahasuerus in _Hellas_: + + The future and the past are idle shadows + Of thought's eternal flight. + +The moral rings out at the end of "The Sensitive Plant" with an almost +conversational simplicity; + + Death itself must be, + Like all the rest, a mockery. + +Most eloquent of all are the familiar lines in _Adonais_: + + 'Tis we who lost in stormy visions keep + With phantoms an unprofitable strife, + +and again: + + The One remains, the many change and pass. + Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly; + Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, + Stains the white radiance of eternity. + + +In all the musical and visionary glory of _Hellas_ we seem to hear a +subtle dialogue. It never reaches a conclusion. It never issues in a +dogma. The oracle is dumb, and the end of it all is rather like a +prayer. At one moment Shelley toys with the dreary sublimity of the +Stoic notion of world-cycles. The world in the Stoic cosmogony followed +its destined course, until at last the elemental fire consumed it in the +secular blaze, which became for mediæval Christianity the _Dies irae_. +And then once more it rose from the conflagration to repeat its own +history again, and yet again, and for ever with an ineluctable fidelity. +That nightmare haunts Shelley in _Hellas_: + + Worlds on worlds are rolling ever + From creation to decay, + Like the bubbles on a river, + Sparkling, bursting, borne away. + +The thought returns to him in the final chorus like the "motto" of a +symphony; and he sings it in a triumphant major key: + + The world's great age begins anew, + The golden years return, + The earth doth like a snake renew + Her winter weeds outworn. + Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam + Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. + + +He is filled with the afflatus of prophecy, and there flow from his +lips, as if in improvisation, surely the most limpid, the most +spontaneous stanzas in our language: + + A brighter Hellas rears its mountains + From waves serener far. + +He sings happily and, as it were, incautiously of Tempe and Argo, of +Orpheus and Ulysses, and then the jarring note of fear is heard: + + O write no more the tale of Troy + If earth Death's scroll must be, + Nor mix with Laian rage the joy + Which dawns upon the free. + + +He has turned from the empty abstraction of the Godwinian vision of +perfection. He dissolves empires and faiths, it is true. But his +imagination calls for action and movement. The New Philosophy had driven +history out of the picture. This lyrical vision restores it, whole, +complete, and literal. The wealth of the concrete takes its revenge upon +the victim of abstraction. The men of his golden age are no longer +tribeless and nationless. They are Greeks. He has peopled his future; +but, as the picture hardens into detail, he seems to shrink from it. +That other earlier theme of his symphony recurs. His chorus had sung: + + Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind. + The foul cubs like their parents are, + Their den is in their guilty mind, + And conscience feeds them with despair. + +Some end there must be to the _perpetuum mobile_ of wrong and revenge. +And yet it seems to be in human affairs the very principle of motion. +He ends with a cry and a prayer, and a clouded vision. The infinity of +evil must be stayed, but what if its cessation means extinction? + + O cease! must hate and death return? + Cease! must men kill and die? + Cease! Drain not to its dregs the urn + Of bitter prophecy. + The world is weary of the past + O might it die, or rest at last. + + +Never were there simpler verses in a great song. But he were a bold man +who would pretend to know quite certainly what they mean. Shelley is not +sure whether his vision of perfection will be embodied in the earth. For +a moment he seems to hope that Greece will renew her glories. For one +fleeting instant--how ironical the vision seems to us--he conceives that +she may be re-incarnated in America. But there is a deeper doubt than +this in the prophet's mind. He is not sure that he wants to see the +Golden Age founded anew in the perilous world of fact. There is a +pattern of the perfect society laid up in Heaven, or if that phrase by +familiarity has lost its meaning, let us say rather that the Republic +exists firmly founded in the human mind itself: + + But Greece and her foundations are + Built below the tide of war, + Based on the crystalline sea + Of thought and its eternity. + +Again, and yet again, he tells us that the heavenly city, the New +Athens, "the kingless continents, sinless as Eden" shine in no common +day, beside no earthly sea: + + If Greece must be + A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, + And build themselves impregnably + In a diviner clime, + To Amphionic music on some cape sublime + Which frowns above the idle foam of Time. + +Is it only an eloquent phrase, which satisfies us, by its beautiful +words, we know not why, as the chords that make the "full close" in +music content us? Or shall we re-interpret it in our own prose? Where +any mind strives after justice, where any soul suffers and loves and +defies, there is the ideal Republic. + + * * * * * + +We have moved from Dr. Price's sermon to Shelley's chorus. The eloquent +old man, preaching in the first flush of hope that came with the new +time, conceived that his eyes had seen the great salvation. The day of +tyrants and priests was already over, and before the earth closed on his +grave, a free Europe would be linked in a confederacy that had abolished +war. A generation passed, and the winged victory is now a struggling +hope, her pinions singed with the heat of battle, her song mingled with +the rumour of massacre, speeding, a fugitive from fact, to the diviner +climes of an ideal world. The logic of the revolution has worked to its +predestined conclusion. It dreamed too eagerly of the end. It thought in +indictments. It packed the present on its tumbrils, and cleared away the +past with its dialectical guillotine. When the present was condemned and +the past buried, the future had somehow eluded it. It executed the +mother, and marvelled that the child should die. + +The human mind can never be satisfied with the mere assurance that +sooner or later the golden years will come. The mere lapse of time is in +itself intolerable. If our waking life and our years of action are to +regain a meaning, we must perceive that the process of evolution is +itself significant and interesting. We are to-day so penetrated with +that thought, that the notion of a state of perfection in the future +seems to us as inconceivable and as little interesting as Rousseau's +myth of a state of innocence in the past. We know very well that our +ideal, whether we see it in the colours of Plato or Godwin or William +Morris, does but measure the present development of our faculties. Long +before the dream is realised in fact, a new horizon will have been +unfolded before the imagination of mankind. + +What is of value in this endless process is precisely the unfolding of +ideals which record themselves, however imperfectly, in institutions, +and still more the developing sense of comradeship and sympathy which +links us in relations of justice and love with every creature that +feels. We are old enough to pass lightly over the enthusiastic paradoxes +that intoxicated the youth of the progressive idea. It is a truth that +outworn institutions fetter and dwarf the mind of man. It is also a +truth that institutions have moulded and formed that mind. To condemn +the past is in the same breath to blast the future. The true basis for +that piety towards our venerable inheritance which Burke preached, is +that it has made for us the possibility of advance. + +But our strivings would be languid, our march would be slow, were it not +for the revolutionary leaven which Godwin's generation set fermenting. +They taught how malleable and plastic is the human mind. They saw that +by a resolute effort to change the environment of institutions and +customs which educate us, we can change ourselves. They liberated us not +so much from "priests and kings" as from the deadlier tyranny of the +belief that human nature, with all its imperfections, is an innate +character which it were vain to hope to reform. Their teaching is a +tonic to the will, a reminder still eloquent, still bracing, that among +the forces which make history the chief is the persuasion of the +understanding, the conscious following of a rational ideal. From much +that is iconoclastic and destructive in their ideal we may turn away +unconvinced. There remain its ardent statement of the duty of humanity, +which shames our practice after a century of progress, and its faith in +the efficacy of unregimented opinion to supersede brute force. They +taught a lesson which posterity has but half learned. We shall be the +richer for returning to them, as much by what we reject as by what we +embrace. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +GENERAL + +LECKY. _History of England in the 18th Century._ + +LESLIE STEPHEN.--_History of English Thought in the 18th Century._ + +OLIVER ELTON..--_A Survey of English Literature._ + +EDWARD DOWDEN--_The French Revolution and English Literature._ + +The most vivid impression of the period from the standpoint of Godwin's +Circle is conveyed in the _Memoirs_ of Thomas Holcroft edited by +Hazlitt, and in Hazlitt's portraits of Godwin, Malthus and Mackintosh in +_The Spirit of the Age_ (Everyman's Library). + +Of the opposite way of thinking the one immortal record is Burke's +_Reflections on the French Revolution_. Lord Morley's _Burke_ (English +Men of Letters) should be read, and the eloquent exposition by Lord Hugh +Cecil (_Conservatism_) in this (H.U.L.) series. + +The main works of the French revolutionary thinkers have been issued in +Dent's series of French classics. For study and pleasure consult Lord +Morley's books on Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. + +The details given in the first chapter concerning the London +Corresponding Society are based on its pamphlets in the British Museum. + + +THOMAS PAINE + +Paine's writings are published in cheap editions by the Rationalist +Press, and may be had bound in one volume. The same press issues a cheap +edition of the admirable _Life_ by Dr. Moncure D. Conway. + + +WILLIAM GODWIN + +Godwin's works are now procurable only in old libraries, with the +exception of _Caleb Williams_. _Political Justice_ should be read in the +second edition (1796), which is maturer than the first and more lively +than the third. A modern summary of it by Mr. Salt, with the full text +of the last section "On Property," was published by Swan, Sonnenschein & +Co. This selection emphasises his communism, but hardly does full +justice to the novelty of his anarchist opinions. Full biographical data +are to be found in _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, by +Mr. Kegan Paul, which contains a readable collection of letters. There +is a painstaking and elaborate study in French by Raymond Gourg (Félix +Alcan, 1908) and a stimulating little essay in German from the anarchist +standpoint (_William Godwin, der Theoretiker des Kommunistischen +Anarchismus._ Von Pierre Ramus. Leipzig. Dietrich). + +For a modern statement of Anarchist Communism read Kropotkin's _The +Conquest of Bread_ (Chapman and Hall). + + +MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT + +_The Rights of Woman_ has been reissued in Everyman's Library. The +volume of _Selections_ in the Regent Library (Herbert and Daniel) was +well edited by Miss Jebb, and may be recommended, for Mary +Wollstonecraft rather gains than loses by compression. For her life Mr. +Kegan Paul's _William Godwin_ should be consulted. The edition of the +_Rights_, published by T. Fisher Unwin, contains an admirable critical +study of Mrs. Fawcett. There is no general history of the so-called +"feminist" movement, and in English books the French pioneers are +ignored. Mr. Lyon Blease has some good historical chapters in _The +Emancipation of English Women_. + + +SHELLEY + +Shelley literature is a library in itself. The standard edition is +Forman's; the standard biography is the tolerant, human, gossipy _Life_ +by Professor Dowden. The general reader can use no better edition than +Mrs. Shelley's. Of critical essays the most notable are Matthew Arnold's +oddly unsympathetic essay, and Sir Leslie Stephen's informing but +hostile study on _Godwin and Shelley_ ("Hours in a Library"). Professor +Santayana may be mentioned among the few critics who have realised that +Shelley thought before he sang (_Winds of Doctrine_). Incomparably the +best of all the critical essays is the little monograph by Francis +Thompson (Burns and Oates). + + + +_POSTSCRIPT_, 1942 + +Since this book was written two indispensable aids to the study of +Godwin and his Circle have been published. (1) An adequate modern life +of Godwin is now available: _The Life of William Godwin_ by Ford K. +Brown (J. M. Dent & Sons). The work could hardly have been better done. +(2) Mr. Elbridge Colby has given us in two volumes a modern edition of +_The Life of Thomas Holcroft_ (Constable & Co.) by himself with +Hazlitt's continuation. Mr. Colby's scholarly notes and introduction add +greatly to its value. + +A modern edition of Godwin's _Political Justice_ (Knopf, Political +Science Classics) is now available, but cannot be recommended. The +editor has abbreviated it by capricious omissions. + +_The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers_ by Carl L. +Becker (Oxford University Press, also Yale) is a most readable study of +the political thought of the period. See also Professor H. J. Laski's +_The Rise of European Liberalism_ (Allen & Unwin) and _Voltaire_ by H. +N. Brailsford in this series. + + + + +INDEX + + + _Age of Reason_, 75 + + Arnold, Matthew, 184, 220 + + Arnot, 174 + + + Baldwin, Edward, 172 + + Barbauld, Mrs., 192 + + Blake, Wm., 35, 66 + + Bright, John, 115 + + Burke, 15-26, 63 + + Burney, Fanny, 18 + + + _Caleb Williams_, 143 + + Calvinism, 79 + + Chesterfield, Lord, 195 + + Clairmont, Mrs. (afterwards Godwin), 169-70 + + Clairmont, Jane, 169 + + Coleridge, S. T., 51-55, 86, 156, 173 + + Condorcet, 22, 23, 27, 92, 109, 110, 197 + + Convention, English, 44 + ---- Scottish, 41-43 + + Cooper, Thomas, 83, 84 + + Corresponding Society (see London) + + + Dundas, 40, 44 + + + _Enquirer, The_, 145 + + _Essays_ (on Religion) by Wm. Godwin, 180 + + + Fénelon, 130 + + _Fleetwood_, 176 + + + Gatton, Borough of, 25 + + Gerrald, Joseph, 43, 88, 89 + + Gillray, 155 + + Godwin, William: as historian 22; + letter on trial of twelve Reformers, 46; + experience during Revolution, 49-51; + influence on Coleridge and Southey, 51-55; + relation to Paine, 64, 65, 71; + relation to Holcroft, 84-88; + early life, 78; + _Political Justice_, 89-141; + Marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft, 149; + _Caleb Williams_, 143; + controversies, 155; + estimate of his work, 163; + second marriage and later life, 163; + later works, 172; + relations with Shelley, 174; + death, 178; + religious views, 179; + intellectual influence on Shelley, 216 _seq._ + + Godwin, William (junior), 170 + + Godwin, Mrs. (_see_ Wollstonecraft and Clairmont) + + + Hardy, Thomas, 33, 37, 39, 41, 44 + + Hazlitt, 9, 78, 152, 159, 168, 173 + + Helvétius, 31, 39, 96, 99, 100, 102, 105, 120, 166, 171, 179, 187 + + Hervé, 119 + + Holbach, Baron d', 31, 196 + + Holcroft, Thomas, quoted, 31; + early life of, 35, 36; + trial of, 44, 45, 48; + association with Paine, 65; + Influence on Godwin, 84-88 + + + Imlay, Fanny, 148, 169 + + Imlay, Gilbert, 148 + + + Jones, Sir Wm., 37 + + + Kames, Lord, 193 + + Kant, 11 + + + Lafayette, 62, 64 + + Lamb, Charles, 173 + + Leibnitz, 11, 95 + + London Corresponding Society, 33-48, 66 + + Lovell, R., 53 + + Lytton, Bulwer, 174 + + + Mably, 87 + + Mackintosh, Sir James, 16, 157 + + Malthus, 29, 158 + + Margarot, 42 + + Marius, 128, 220 + + Milton, 192, 212 + + Montesquieu, 31, 90, 97 + + Muir, 42 + + + Napoleon, 154 + + + Paine, Thomas, 16, 34, 39, 56; + biographical sketch, 57-68; + political views 69-75; + religious views, 75-77 + + Palmer, 42 + + Pantisocracy, 51-55 + + Parr, Rev. Dr., 157 + + Patrickson, 174 + + Pitt, 40, 44, 66, 91 + + Plato, Platonism, 102, 104, 126, 131, 197, 218, 234, 243 + + Plutarch, 182 + + _Political Justice_, 89-141 + + Price, Rev. Dr., 10-15, 248 + + Priestley, 11, 39, 81, 171 + + + _Rights of Man_, Paine's, 63, 69 + + _Rights of Woman--a Vindication of the_, 148 _seq._ + + Ritson, 35, 170 + + Roosevelt, Theodore, 75 + + Rousseau, 21, 101, 191, 194 + + + Sandemanians, 79 + + _Sepulchres, Godwin's Essay on_, 22 + + Shelley, 9, 104, 168; + personal relations with Godwin, 174; + intellectual outlook, 212; + debt to Godwin, 216; + his mythology, 225; + his view of human perfectibility, 230 + + Shelley, Mary, née Godwin, 144, 153, 169, 176, 180 + + Sheridan, 82 + + Sinclair, 42 + + Skirving, 42 + + Socrates, Socratic (_see_ Plato) + + Southey, 51-55, 151 + + _St. Leon_, 160, 172 + + Stanhope, Earl, 12 + + Swift, 131, 193 + + + Tolstoy, 120, 138 + + Tooke, Horne, 34, 43, 44, 46 + + Turgot, 28 + + + _Vindication of the Rights of Women_ (_see Rights_) + + Voltaire, 95, 221 + + + Wedgwood, 170 + + Weissmann, 98 + + Wells, H. G., 221 + + Westbrook, Harriet, 175 + + Windham, 48 + + Wollstonecraft, Mary, 16; + early life, 147; + marriage and death, 149-154; + her personality, 202; + her originality, 199; + summary of "Rights," 204; + relation to French Revolution, 186-199; + reflection in Shelley, 238 + + Wordsworth, 8, 51, 157 + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + +Passages in bold font are indicated by =bold=. + +The following misprint has been corrected: + "magnaminity" corrected to "magnanimity" (page 124) + "subjecttion" corrected to "subjection" (page 187) + "Gilray" corrected to "Gillray" (page 255) + +All other spelling and punctuation is presented as in the original. + +Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate +both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as +presented in the original text. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle, by +H. N. 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N. Brailsford. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr { width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + ins.correction {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin solid gray;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle, by H. N. Brailsford + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle + +Author: H. N. Brailsford + +Release Date: September 13, 2009 [EBook #29978] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHELLEY, GODWIN AND THEIR CIRCLE *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h2>THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY<br /> +OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE</h2> +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>LXXVII<br /> +SHELLEY, GODWIN<br /> +AND THEIR CIRCLE</h2> + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> + +<h3><i>EDITORS OF</i><br /> +THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY<br /> +OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Professor Gilbert Murray</span>, O.M., LL.D., F.B.A.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Julian S. Huxley</span>, D.Sc., F.R.S.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Professor G. N. Clark</span>, LL.D., F.B.A.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> + +<h1>SHELLEY, GODWIN<br /> +AND THEIR CIRCLE</h1> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4><i>By</i></h4> +<h3>H. N. BRAILSFORD</h3> +<h4>M.A.</h4> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h4>OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS<br /> +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO</h4> + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>First published in</i> 1913, <i>and reprinted in</i> 1919, 1925, 1927, 1930, 1936 <i>and</i> 1942</p> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h5>PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</h5> +<p> </p><p> </p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td align="right"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The French Revolution in England</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Thomas Paine</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td><span class="smcap">William Godwin and the Revolution</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td>"<span class="smcap">Political Justice</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Godwin and the Reaction</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Godwin and Shelley</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Mary Wollstonecraft</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Shelley</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr></table> +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> +<h2>SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND<br /> THEIR CIRCLE</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND</h4> + +<p>The history of the French Revolution in England begins with a sermon and +ends with a poem. Between that famous discourse by Dr. Richard Price on +the love of our country, delivered in the first excitement that followed +the fall of the Bastille, and the publication of Shelley's <i>Hellas</i> +there stretched a period of thirty-two years. It covered the dawn, the +clouding and the unearthly sunset of a hope. It begins with the grave +but enthusiastic prose of a divine justly respected by earnest men, who +with a limited horizon fulfilled their daily duties in the city. It ends +in the rapt vision, the magical music of a singer, who seemed as he sang +to soar beyond the range of human ears. The hope passes from the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>confident expectation of instant change, through the sobrieties of +disillusionment and the recantations of despair, to the iridescent +dreams of a future which has taken wing and made its home in a fairy +world.</p> + +<p>In 1789 when Dr. Price preached to his ardent congregation of +Nonconformist Radicals in the meeting-house at the Old Jewry, the +prospect was definite and the place of the millennium was merely the +England over which George III. ruled. The hope was a robust but +pedestrian "mental traveller," and its limbs wore the precise garments +of political formulæ. It looked for honest Parliaments and manhood +suffrage, for the triumph of democracy and the abolition of war. Its +scene as Wordsworth put it, was</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Not in Utopia, subterraneous fields,</span><br /> +Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where,<br /> +But in the very world which is the world<br /> +Of all of us, the place where in the end<br /> +We find our happiness, or not at all.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>The impetus of its own aspiration carried it swiftly beyond the prosaic +demand for Parliamentary Reform. It evolved its programme for the +reconstruction of all human institutions, and projected the amendment of +human nature itself. America had made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> an end of kings and France was in +the full tide of revolution. Nothing was too mighty for this +new-begotten hope, and the path to human perfectibility stretched as +plain as the narrow road to Bunyan's Heavenly City.</p> + +<p>There followed the phase when persecution from alarmed defenders of +things as they are, disgust at the failures of the revolution in France, +and contempt for the futilities of the revolution at home, drove the new +movement into as many refuges as its votaries had temperaments. For some +there was cynicism, for others recantation. "The French Revolution" as +Hazlitt put it, "was the only match that ever took place between +philosophy and experience; and waking from the trance of theory we hear +the words Truth, Reason, Virtue, Liberty, with the same indifference or +contempt that a cynic who has married a jilt or a termagant listens to +the rhapsodies of lovers." Godwin found his own alluring by-way, and +turning away at once from political repression and political agitation, +became the pioneer of philosophic anarchism. To Shelley at the end of +this marvellous thirty years of ardour, speculation, and despair, the +hope became winged. She had her place no longer in "the very world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +which is the world of all of us." She had moved to</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kingless continents, sinless as Eden</span><br /> +Around mountains and islands inviolably<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prankt on the sapphire sea.</span></div> + +<p> </p> +<p>It requires no inordinate effort for us who live in an equable political +climate to realise the atmosphere of Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. The +lapse of a century indeed has made him a more intelligible figure than +he could have seemed to the generation which immediately followed him. +He was temperate in his rationalism and thrifty in his philanthropy. He +tended to Unitarianism in his theology, but was a sturdy defender of +Free Will. He had written a widely-read apology for the Colonial side in +the American Civil War. A stout individualist in his political theory, +inspired, as were nearly all the English progressive thinkers of his +day, by an extreme jealousy of State action, he yet guarded himself +carefully against anarchical conclusions, and followed Saint Paul in +teaching obedience to magistrates. He had written a treatise on ethics +which on some points anticipated Kant. But his most characteristic +pre-occupation was a study of finance in the interests of national +thrift and social benevolence. This cold moralist,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> who despised the +emotional aspects of human nature and found no place for the affections +in his scheme of the virtues, lapsed into passion when he attacked the +National Debt, and developed an arithmetical enthusiasm when he +explained his plan for providing through voluntary insurance for the old +age of the worthy poor. He was not quite the first of the philosophers +to dream of the abolition of war, and to plan an international tribunal +for the settlement of disputes between nations. In that he followed +Leibnitz, as he anticipated Kant.</p> + +<p>It was such an essentially cold and calculating intellect as this which +in that age of ferment could launch the new doctrine of the infinite +perfectibility of mankind. Modern readers know the Rev. Dr. Price only +from the fulminations of Burke, in whose pages he figures now as an +incendiary and again as a fool. He was in point of fact the soul of +sobriety and the mirror of all the respectabilities in his serious +dissenting world. It is worth while to note that he was also, with his +friend Priestley, perhaps the only English Nonconformist preacher who +has ever enjoyed a European reputation. No less a man than Condorcet +refers to him as one of the formative minds of the century.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>Dr. Price's sermon is worth a glance, not merely because it was the goad +which provoked Burke to eloquent fury, but still more because it is a +document which records for us the mood in which even the older and +graver progressives of his generation greeted the French Revolution. It +was an official discourse delivered before the Society for Commemorating +the Revolution in Great Britain. This typically English club claimed to +have met annually since 1688 for a dinner and a sermon. The centenary of +our own Revolution and the events in France gave it for a moment a +central place on the political stage. It was an eminently respectable +society, mainly composed of middle-class Nonconformists, with four +Doctors of Divinity on its Committee, an entrance fee of half-a-guinea, +and a radical peer, Earl Stanhope, for its Chairman. At its annual +meeting in November, 1789, Dr. Price "disdaining national partialities +and rejoicing in every triumph of liberty and justice over arbitrary +power," had moved an address congratulating the French National Assembly +on "the Revolution in that country and on the prospect it gives to the +two first kingdoms in the world of a common participation in the +blessings of civil and religious liberty." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> sermon was an eloquent +expansion of this address.</p> + +<p>It opens with a defence of the cosmopolitan attitude which could rejoice +at an improvement in the prospects of our hereditary rival. Christ +taught not patriotism, but universal benevolence, as the parable of the +Good Samaritan shows. "My neighbour" is he to whom I can do most good, +whether foreigner or fellow-citizen. We should love our country +"ardently but not exclusively," considering ourselves "citizens of the +world," and taking care "to maintain a just regard to the rights of +other countries." Patriotism had been in history a scourge of mankind. +It was among the Romans no better than "a principle holding together a +band of robbers in their attempts to crush all liberty but their own." +The aim of those who love their kind can be only to spread Truth, Virtue +and Liberty. To make mankind happy and free, it should suffice to +instruct them. "Ignorance is the parent of bigotry, intolerance, +persecution and slavery. Inform and instruct mankind and these evils +will be excluded." There follow some rambling remarks on the need for a +revisal of the Liturgy and the Articles, a complaint of the servility +shown in a recent address to King George,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> who ought to consider himself +rather the servant than the sovereign of his people, and a prediction +that France and England, each delivered from despotism by a happy +revolution, will now "not merely refrain from engaging in wars with one +another, but unite in preventing wars everywhere." As for our own +Revolution of 1688, it was a great but not a perfect work. It had left +religious toleration incomplete and the Parliamentary franchise unequal. +We must continue to enforce its principles, especially in the matter of +removing the disabilities that still weigh upon dissenters. Those +principles are briefly (1) Liberty of Conscience, (2) The right to +resist power when it is abused, and (3) The right to choose our own +governors, to cashier them for misconduct and to frame a government for +ourselves. There follows a curious little moral exhortation which shows +how far the good Dr. Price was from forgetting his duties as a preacher. +He had been distressed by the lax morals of some of his colleagues in +the agitation for Reform, and he pauses to deplore that "not all who are +zealous in this cause are as conspicuous for purity of morals as for +ability." He cannot reconcile himself to the idea of an immoral patriot, +and begs that they will at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> hide their vices. The old man finds +his peroration in Simeon's prayer. He had seen the great salvation. "I +have lived to see thirty millions of people indignant and resolute, +spurning at slavery and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice, +their king led in triumph and an arbitrary monarch surrendering himself +to his subjects. And now methinks I see the ardour for liberty catching +and spreading, a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the +dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of +priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience."</p> + +<p>The world remembers the scholar Salmasius only because he provoked +Milton to a learned outbreak of bad manners. There is something immortal +even in the ill-temper of great men, and Dr. Price lives in modern +memory chiefly because he moved Burke to declamatory rage. His +<i>Reflections on the French Revolution</i> was an answer to the Old Jewry +sermon, which, eloquent itself, was to beget much eloquence in others. +For four years the mighty debate went on, and it became as the +disputants conversed across the echoes of the Terror, rather a dialogue +between the past and the future, than a discussion between human voices. +Burke answered Dr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> Price, and to Burke in turn replied Tom Paine with +the brilliant, confident, hard-hitting logic of a pamphlet (<i>The Rights +of Man</i>) which for all the efforts of Pitt to suppress it, is still read +and circulated to-day. Two notable answers were ephemeral, one from Mary +Wollstonecraft, and another (<i>Vindiciae Gallicae</i>) from Mackintosh, who +afterwards recanted his own opinions and lived to be known as Sir James.</p> + +<p>To lift the discussion to the height of a philosophical argument was +reserved for William Godwin, a mind steeped in the French and English +speculation of his century, gifted with rare powers of analysis, and +inspired with a faith in human reason in general and his own logical +capacity in particular, which no English mind before him or after him +has approached. In spite of a lucid style and a certain cold eloquence +which illumines if it does not warm, Godwin's <i>Political Justice</i> was +dead before its author, while Burke lives and was never more widely read +than to-day.</p> + +<p>The ghosts of great men have an erratic habit in walking. It is passion +rather than any mere intellectual momentum which drives them from the +tomb. There is, moreover, in Burke a variety and a humanity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> which +appeals in some one of its phases and moods to all of us in turn. The +great store-house of his emotions and his phrases has the catholicity of +the Bible. Each man can find in it what he seeks. He is like the +luminous phantom which walked in <i>Faust</i> through the witcheries of the +Brocken. Each man saw in her his own first love. He has been hero and +prophet to Whigs and Tories, and in our own generation we have seen him +bequeath an equal inspiration to a Cecil and a Morley. It is no part of +our task to attempt even the briefest exposition of his philosophy; we +are concerned with him here chiefly as an influence which helped by its +vehemence and its superb rhetorical exaggerations to drive the +revolutionary thinkers who answered him to parallel exaggerations and +opposite extremes. Inspired himself with a distrust of generalisation, +and a hatred of philosophers, he none the less evolved a philosophy as +he talked. Against his will he was forced into the upper air in his +furious pursuit of the "political aeronauts." His was a volcanic +intellect which flung up principles in its moments of eruption, and +poured them forth pell-mell with the vituperations and the exaltations.</p> + +<p>No logical dissection can reach the inner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> truth of Burke. Every +statement of a principle in an orator or a pamphleteer is coloured by +the occasion, the emotion, and the mood of an audience to whom it is +addressed. Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the +subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French +Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of +his philosophical <i>obiter dicta</i> were uttered. The real nerve of the +thinking of a mind so vehement, so passionate, so essentially dramatic +is to be sought not in some principle which was the major premise of his +syllogisms, but in some pervading emotion. Fanny Burney said of him that +when he spoke of the Revolution his face immediately assumed "the +expression of a man who is going to defend himself against murderers." +That is exactly the tone of all his later utterances. His mission was to +spread panic because he felt it. By no other reading can one explain or +excuse the rage of his denunciation of the excellent Dr. Price.</p> + +<p>If his was philosophy it was philosophy seeing red. He predicted the +Terror before it occurred, and by his work in stirring Europe to the +coalition against France, he did much to realise his own forebodings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +But, to do Burke justice, his was a disinterested fear, and it would be +fairer to call it a hatred of cruelty. Burke was not a man to take fire +because he thought a principle false. His was rather the practical logic +which found a principle false because it led to evil; and the evil which +caused his mind to blaze was nearly always cruelty. He hated the French +philosophers because in the groves of their Academy "at the end of every +vista you see nothing but the gallows." He pursued Rousseau and Dr. +Price because their teaching, on his reading of cause and effect, had +set the tumbrils rolling and weighted the guillotine for Marie +Antoinette. It was precisely the same impulse which had caused him to +pursue Warren Hastings for his cruelties towards the Begums of Oude. The +spring of all this speculation was a nerve which twitched with a +maddening sensitiveness at the sight of suffering.</p> + +<p>To rouse Burke's genius to its noblest utterance, there must needs be a +suffering which he could personify and dramatise. He saw nothing of the +dull peasant misery which in truth explained the Revolution. He ignored +those catalogues of injustice and wrong that composed the mandates (the +<i>cahiers</i>) which the Deputies carried with them to the National<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +Assembly. He forgot the famines, the exactions, the oppressive +privileges which made revolt, and saw only the pathos of the Queen's +helplessness before it. In Paine's immortal epigram, he "pitied the +plumage and forgot the dying bird." But it is paradoxically true that +while he pursued the friends of humanity, his real impulse was the +hatred of cruelty which modern men call humanitarian. To that hatred he +was always true. No abstract principle, but always this dominating +passion, covers his inconsistencies, and bridges the gulf between his +earlier Whiggery and his later Toryism. In the French Revolution he saw +only cruelty, and he opposed it as he had opposed Indian Imperialism, +negro slavery, the savage criminal justice of his day, and the penal +laws against the Irish Catholics. Of Burke one must ask not so much What +did he believe? as Whom did he pity?</p> + +<p>It was the contrast of temperament and attitude which made the cleavage +between Burke and the friends of the French Revolution deep and +irreconcilable. In the fundamentals of political theory he often seems +to agree with some of them, and they differ as often among themselves. +Burke seems often to retain the typical eighteenth century fiction that +the State is based on some original<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> pact or social contract. That was +Rousseau's starting point, and it was Godwin's work (after Hume) to +shatter this heritage which French and English speculation had been +content to accept from Locke. There are passages in which Burke appears +to accept the notion, unintelligible to modern minds, of the natural, or +as he put it, "primitive," rights of man. He reserved his contempt for +those who sought to tabulate or codify these rights, and he would always +brush aside any argument based upon them, by asking the prior question, +what in the given emergency was best for the good of society, or the +happiness of men. Paine, when he was in his more <i>a priori</i> moods, was +capable of deducing his whole practical system from the abstract rights +of man; Godwin was a modern in virtually dismissing the whole notion. +While Burke was belabouring Dr. Price, he whittled away the whole +theoretic significance of the English Revolution of 1688, but he +remained its partisan. He tried to deny Dr. Price's claim to "choose our +governors," but he could not relapse into the seventeenth-century Tory +doctrine of non-resistance, and would always allow in extreme cases the +right of rebellion. Here again there was no final opposition, for there +are passages in Godwin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> against rash rebellion and the anarchy of +revolution more impressive, if less emotional, than anything in Burke.</p> + +<p>Modern criticism is disposed to base the greatness of Burke on his +inspired anticipation of the historical view of politics. Quotation has +made classical those noble passages which glorify the continuous life of +mankind, link the present by a chain of pieties to the past, conjure up +a glowing vision of the social organism, and celebrate the wisdom of our +ancestors and the infallibility of the race. There was, indeed, a real +opposition of temperament here; but Burke had no monopoly of the +historical vision. It is a travesty to suggest that the revolutionary +school despised history. Paine, indeed, was a self-taught man, who knew +nothing of history and cared less. But Godwin wrote history with success +and even penned a remarkable essay (<i>On Sepulchres</i>) in which he +anticipated the Comtist veneration for the great dead, and proposed a +national scheme for covering the country with monuments to their memory. +Condorcet, perhaps the greatest intellect and certainly the noblest +character among them, wrote the first attempt at a systematic +evolutionary interpretation of history.</p> + +<p>But it makes some difference whether a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> man sees history from above or +from below. Burke saw it from the comfortable altitude of the Whig +aristocracy to which he had allied himself. The revolutionary school saw +its inverse, from the standpoint of the "swinish multitude" (an angry +indiscretion of Burke's) for whom it had worked to less advantage. Paine +was a man of the people, and Godwin belonged by birth to the dissenting +community for whom history had been chiefly a record of persecution, +illuminated by rebellion. For Burke the product of history was the +sacred constitution in which he saw an "entailed heritage," the social +fabric "well cramped and bolted together in all its parts." For Godwin +it was mainly a chronicle of criminal wars, savage oppressions, and +social misery. Burke, in a moment of paradoxical exaltation, was capable +of singing the praises of "prejudice," which "renders a man's virtue his +habit." For Condorcet, on the other hand, history was the orderly +procession of the human mind, advancing through a series of well-marked +epochs (he enumerated nine) from the pastoral state to the French +Revolution, each epoch marked primarily by the shedding of some moral, +social, or theological "prejudice," which had hampered its advance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>It is easy to criticise the naïve intellectualism of such a view as +this, which ignores or thrusts into the background the economic causes +of advance and retrogression. But it is certainly not an unhistorical +view. Burke dreaded fundamental discussions which "turn men's duties +into doubts." The revolutionary school believed that all progress +depended on the daring and thoroughness of these discussions. History +for them was a continuous Socratic dialogue, in which the philosophers +of innovation were always arrayed against the sophists of authority. +They hoped everything from the leadership of the illuminated few who +gradually permeate the mass and raise it with them. Burke held that "the +individual is foolish, but the species is wise," and the "natural +aristocracy" in whom he trusted was to keep the inert mass in a +condition of stable equilibrium.</p> + +<p>We retain from Burke to-day the sonorous generalisations, the +epigrammatic maxims, which each of us applies in his own way. But to +Burke's contemporaries they meant only one thing—a defence of the +unreformed franchise. All his reverence for the pre-ordained order of +providence, the "divine tactic" which had made society what it was, +meant for them in bald prose that Old Sarum should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> have two members. +Burke had not "a doubt that the House of Commons represents perfectly +the whole commons of Great Britain." They, with no mystical view of +history to guide them, pointed out that its electors were a mere handful +of 12,000 in the whole population, and that Birmingham, Manchester, +Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford had not a Member among them. While Burke +perorated about the ways of providence, they pointed to that auctioneer +who put up for sale to the highest bidder the fee simple of the Borough +of Gatton with the power of nominating two members for ever. That +auctioneer is worth quoting: "Need I tell you, gentlemen, that this +elegant contingency is the only infallible source of fortune, titles, +and honours in this happy country? That it leads to the highest +situations in the State? And that, meandering through the tempting +sinuosities of ambition, the purchaser will find the margin strewed with +roses, and his head quickly crowned with those precious garlands that +flourish in full vigour round the fountain of honour? On this halcyon +sea, if any gentleman who has made his fortune in either of the Indies +chooses once more to embark, he may repose in perfect quiet. No +hurricanes to dread; no tormenting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> claims of insolent electors to +evade; no tinkers' wives to kiss.... With this elegant contingency in +his pocket, the honours of the State await his plucking, and with its +emoluments his purse will overflow."</p> + +<p>A reference to the elegant contingency of Gatton sufficed to deflate a +good deal of eloquence.</p> + +<p>Burke, indeed, believed in the pre-ordained order of the world, but he +somehow omitted the rebels. When in his sublimest periods, he appealed +to "the known march of the ordinary providence of God," and saw in +revolution and change an assault on the divine order, one sees, rigid +and forbidding, the limitations of his thinking. The man who sees in +history a divine tactic must salute the regiment in its headlong charge +no less than the regiment which stands with fixed bayonets around the +ark of the covenant. Said the Hindoo saint, who saw all things in God +and God in all things, to the soldier who was slaying him, "And Thou +also art He." The march of providence embraced 1789 as well as 1688. +Paine and Godwin, Danton and Robespierre might have answered Burke with +a reminder that they also were His children.</p> + +<p>The key to any understanding of the dialogue between Burke and the +Revolutionists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> is that each side was moved by a passion which meant +nothing to the other. Burke was hoarse with anger and fear at the +excesses in France. They were afire with an almost religious faith in +human perfectibility. Burke's is a great record of detailed reforms +achieved or advocated, but for organic change there was no place in his +system, and he indulged in no vision of human progress. "The only moral +trust with any certainty in our hands," he wrote, "is the care of our +own time." It was of to-morrow that the Revolution thought, and even of +the day after to-morrow. Nothing could shake its faith. Proscribed amid +the Terror for his moderation and independence, learning daily in the +garret where he hid of the violent deaths of friends and comrades, +witnessing, as it must have seemed to him, the ruin of his work and the +frustration of his brightest hopes, Condorcet, solitary and disguised, +sat down to write that sketch of human destinies which is, perhaps, the +most confident statement of a reasoned optimism in European literature. +He finished his <i>Sketch for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the +Human Mind</i>, left his garret, and went out to meet his death. A year +later, as if to show that the great prodigal hope could survive the +brain that conceived it, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> representatives of the French people had +it circulated as a national document.</p> + +<p>Its thesis is that no limit can be set to the perfection of human +faculties, that the progress and perfectibility of man are independent +of any power which can arrest them, and have no term unless it be the +duration of the globe itself. The progress might be swift or slow, but +the ultimate end was sure. Twenty years before, Turgot projecting a +system of universal education in France, had promised to transform the +nation in ten years. Condorcet was less sanguine, but his perspective +was short. The indefinite advance of mankind presupposed, he argued, the +elimination of inequality (1) among peoples, and (2) among classes, and +lastly the perfection of the individual. For all this he believed that +the Revolution had already laid the foundation. Negro slavery, for +example, would end; Africa would enter on a phase of culture dependent +on settled agriculture, and the East adopt free institutions. The time +was at hand when the sun would rise only on free men, and tyrants, +slaves, and priests would live only in history. The Revolution had +proclaimed the equality of men, and the future would proceed to realise +it. Monopolies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> abolished, fortunes would tend to a level of equality, +and a system of insurance (Dr. Price's specific) would mitigate or +abolish poverty. Universal education would reduce the natural inequality +of talents, and break down the barriers of class, so that men, retaining +still the desire to be instructed by others, would no longer need to be +controlled by their superiors. Science had made a dizzy progress in the +past generation, but its advance must be still more rapid when general +education enables it to be cultivated by still greater numbers, and by +women as well as men. To the fear which Malthus afterwards used as the +most formidable argument against revolutionary optimism, that a denser +population would leave the means of subsistence inadequate, he opposed +intensive cultivation, synthetic chemistry, and the progress of mankind +in self-control and virtue. Human character itself will change with the +amendment of human institutions. Passion can be dominated by reflection, +and by the deliberate encouragement of gentle and altruistic sentiments. +The business of politics is to destroy the opposition between +self-interest and altruism, and to make a world in which when a man +seeks his own good, he need no longer infringe the good of others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> A +great share in this moral elevation would come from the destruction of +the inequality of the sexes, which Condorcet preached in France while +Mary Wollstonecraft was its pioneer in England. That inequality has been +ruinous even to the sex which it favoured, and rests in nothing but an +abuse of force. To remove it is not merely to raise the status of women +but to increase family happiness, and to reform morals. Wars too will +end, and with them a constant menace to liberty. The ultimate dream is a +perpetual confederation of mankind.</p> + +<p>It would be a fascinating but too protracted study to follow this faith +in the perfectibility of mankind to its final enthusiasms of prophecy, +and to trace it to its origins in the speculations of Helvétius and +Holbach, of Priestley and Price. It was a creative impulse which made +for itself a psychology and a sociology; it rather led the thinking of +men than followed from their reasonings. They seem at every turn to +choose of two alternative views the one which would favour this +sovereign hope. Is it reason and opinion, or some innate character which +governs the actions of men? The philosophers of hope answer "opinion," +for opinion can be indefinitely changed and led from prejudice to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +science. Is it climate (as Montesquieu had urged) or political +institutions which differentiate the races of men? Clearly it is +institutions, for if it were climate there would be nothing to hope from +reform. Burke opposed to all their schemes of construction and +destruction, to their generalisations and philosophisings, the +unchangeable fact of human nature. They answered (diving into Helvétius) +that human nature is itself the product of "education" or, as we should +call it, "environment." Circumstances and above all political +institutions have made man what he is. Princes, as Holbach puts it, are +gardeners who can by varying systems of cultivation alter the character +of men as they would alter the form of trees. Change the institutions +and you will change human nature itself. There seemed no limit to the +improvement which would follow if we could but discard the fetters of +prejudice and despotism.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth's "shades of the prison-house" which close upon the growing +boy, were an echo of this thought. Godwin's friend, Holcroft, embodied +it in a striking metaphor: "Men do not become what by nature they are +meant to be, but what society makes them. The generous feelings and +higher propensities of the soul are, as it were shrunk up, scared,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +violently wrenched, and amputated, to fit us for our intercourse in the +world, something in the manner that beggars maim and mutilate their +children to make them fit for their future situation in life."</p> + +<p>The men of the Revolution phrased that idea each in his own way, +according as they had been influenced, primarily, by Rousseau, +Helvétius, or Condorcet. It gave to their controversy with Burke the +appearance, not so much of a dispute between rival schools, as of a +dialogue between men who spoke to each other in unknown tongues.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Burke condescended to reason with Dr. Price. But the main answer of +authority to the friends of the French Revolution, was the answer which +Burke prescribed for "infidels"—"a refutation by criminal justice." A +curious parallel movement towards extremes went on simultaneously in the +two camps. While Burke separated himself from Fox, split the Whig party, +and devoted his genius to the task of fanning the general English +dislike of the Revolution into a panic rage of anger and fear, the +progressive camp in its turn was gradually captured by the +"intellectuals," and passed from a humdrum demand for political reform +into a ferment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> moral and social speculation. Societies grew up in +all the chief centres of population, always with the same programme. "An +honest Parliament. An annual Parliament. A Parliament wherein each +individual will have his representative." Of these the most active, the +most extreme, and the best organised was undoubtedly the London +Corresponding Society.</p> + +<p>It was founded by a Scottish boot-maker named Thomas Hardy. The sober, +limited character of the man is plain to read in his records and +pamphlets. The son of a sea-captain, who had had his education in a +village school in Perthshire where the scholars paid a penny a week, he +was a leading member of the Scots' Kirk in Covent Garden, and had drawn +his political education not at all from godless French philosophers, but +from the Protestant fanatic, Lord George Gordon, and from Dr. Price's +book on the American War. He gathered his own friends together to found +his society, and nine of them met for the first time in the "Bell" +tavern in Exeter Street in January, 1792. "They had finished their daily +labour and met there by appointment. After having their bread and cheese +and porter for supper, as usual, and their pipes afterwards, with some +conversation, on the hardness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> of the times and the dearness of all the +necessaries of life, which they in common with their fellow-citizens +felt to their sorrow, the business for which they had met was brought +forward—Parliamentary Reform."</p> + +<p>The Corresponding Society drew the bulk of its members from tradesmen, +mechanics and shopkeepers, who contributed their penny a week, and +organised itself under Hardy's methodical guidance into numerous +branches each with twenty members. It is said to have counted in the end +some 30,000 members in London alone. It was a focus of discontent and +hope which soon attracted men of more conspicuous talents and wider +experience. Horne Tooke, man about town, ex-clergyman, and philologist, +who had been at first the friend and lieutenant and then the rival and +enemy of Wilkes, was there to bridge the years between the last great +popular agitation and the new hopes of reform. He was a man cautious and +even timid in action, but there was a vanity in him which led him to say +"hanging matters" when he had an inflammable audience in front of him +within the four walls of a room. There was Tom Paine, the man who had +first dared to propose the independence of the United States, a veteran +of revolution who had served on Washington's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> staff, penned those +brilliant exhortations which led the American rebels to victory, and +acted as Foreign Secretary to the insurgent Congress. On the fringes of +the little inner circle of intellectuals one catches a glimpse of +William Blake the poet, and Ritson, the first teacher and theorist of +vegetarianism. Not the least interesting member of the group was Thomas +Holcroft, the inseparable friend and ally of William Godwin. Holcroft's +vivid and masterful personality stands out indeed as the most attractive +among the abler members of the circle. The son of a boot-maker, he had +earned his bread as cobbler, ostler, village schoolmaster, strolling +player and reporter. His insatiable passion for knowledge had given him +a mastery of French and German. He went in 1783 to Paris as +correspondent of the <i>Morning Herald</i>, on the modest salary of a +guinea-and-a-half a week. It was there that he acquired his familiarity +with the writings of the French political philosophers, and performed +the quaint achievement of pirating <i>Figaro</i> for the English stage. No +printed copy was obtainable, and Holcroft contrived to commit the whole +play to memory by attending ten performances, much as Mozart had pirated +the ancient exclusive music of St. Peter's in Rome. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> was at this +period a thriving literary craftsman, and the author of a series of +popular plays in which the critics of the time had just begun to note +and resent an obtrusive democratic tendency.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of these eager speculative spirits, the +Corresponding Society must have travelled far from its original business +of Parliamentary Reform. Here is an extract from evidence given before +the Privy Council, which relates the proceedings at one of its later +meetings:</p> + +<p>"The most gentlemanlike person took the chair and talked about an equal +representation of the people, and of putting an end to war. Holcroft +talked about the Powers of the Human Mind.... Mr. Holcroft talked a +great deal about Peace, of his being against any violent or coercive +means, that were usually resorted to against our fellow-creatures, urged +the more powerful operation of Philosophy and Reason to convince man of +his errors; that he would disarm his greatest enemy by these means and +oppose his Fury. He spoke also about Truth being powerful, and gave +advice to the above effect to the delegates present who all seemed to +agree, as no person opposed his arguments."</p> + +<p>One may doubt, however, whether the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> society was composed of +"natural Quakers," who, like Holcroft and Godwin, preached +non-resistance before Tolstoy. The dour commonsense of Hardy maintained +the theory—he vowed that it was only theory—that every citizen should +possess arms and know their use. As the Revolution went forward in +France, the agitation in England became increasingly reckless. When the +society held its anniversary dinner after the Terror, in May, 1794, at +the "Crown and Anchor" Tavern, the band played "Ça ira," the +"Carmagnole" and the "Marseillaise." The chief toasts were "the Rights +of Man," and "the Armies contending for Liberty," which was a +sufficiently clear phrase for describing the Republican armies that were +at war with England. There followed an ode composed by Sir William +Jones, a translation of the Athenian song which celebrated the deeds of +the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton;</p> + +<div class="poem"> +Verdant myrtle's branchy pride<br /> +Shall my thirsty blade entwine.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>One may doubt whether Sir William Jones ever felt the smallest +inclination to satisfy the thirst of his blade, but there was provision +enough for more commonplace appetites. Two years before, Hardy's worthy +mechanics<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> had supped on porter and cheese and talked of the hardness of +the times. Their movement had been captured by a group of eager, +sophisticated, literary persons, who went much farther than +Parliamentary Reform, and with the aid of claret and the subtler French +intoxicants, "turned indignant" as another Ode puts it:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +From Kings who seek in Gothic night<br /> +To hide the blaze of moral light.<br /> +Fill high the animating glass<br /> +And let the electric ruby pass.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>It was a cheerful indignation, a festive rage.</p> + +<p>That dinner must have marked the height of the revolutionary tide in +England. The reaction was already rampant and vindictive, and before the +year 1794 was out it had crushed the progressive movement and postponed +for thirty-eight years the triumph of Parliamentary Reform. It requires +a strenuous exercise of the imagination to conceive the panic which +swept over England as the news of the French Terror circulated. It +fastened impartially on every class of the community, and destroyed the +emotional balance no less of Pitt and his colleagues than of the working +men who formed the Church and King mobs. Proclamations were issued to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +quell insurrections which never had been planned, and the militia called +out when not a hand had been raised against the King throughout Great +Britain. So great was the fear, so deep the moral indignation that "even +respectable and honest men," (the phrase is Holcroft's) "turned spies +and informers on their friends from a sense of public duty." A mob +burned Dr. Priestley's house near Birmingham for no better reason than +because he was supposed to have attended a Reform dinner, which in fact, +he did not attend. Hardy's bookshop in Piccadilly was rushed by a mob, +and his wife, about to be confined, was injured in her efforts to +escape, and died a few hours afterwards. A hunt went on all over the +kingdom for booksellers and printers to prosecute, and when Thomas Paine +was prosecuted in his absence for publishing <i>The Rights of Man</i>, the +jury was so determined to find him guilty that they would not trouble to +hear the case for the Crown.</p> + +<p>Twenty years before, the French philosopher Helvétius, after an +experience of Jesuit persecution and Court disfavour in France, made a +quaint proposal for re-organising the whole discussion of moral and +political questions. The first step, he thought, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> to compile a +dictionary in which all the terms required in such debates would receive +an authoritative definition. But this dictionary, he urged, must be +composed in the English language, and published first in England, for +only there was discussion free, and the press unfettered. In the +reaction over which Pitt and Dundas presided, that envied liberty was +totally eclipsed. The <i>Habeas Corpus</i> Act was suspended; the Privy +Council sat as a sort of Star Chamber to question political suspects, +and there was even talk of importing Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries +to check an insurrection which nowhere showed its head. The frailest of +all human endowments is the sense of humour. The sense of proportion had +been eclipsed in the panic, and most of the cases which may be studied +to-day in the State trials impress the modern reader as tasteless and +cruel farces. Men were tried and sentenced never for deeds, but always +for words. For a sermon closely resembling Dr. Price's, a dissenting +minister named Winterbotham was tried at Exeter, and sentenced to four +years' imprisonment and a fine of £200. The attorney, John Frost, +returning from France, admitted in a chance conversation in a +coffee-house that he thought society could manage very well without +kings; he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> imprisoned, set in the pillory and struck off the rolls. +One favourite expedient was to produce a spy who would swear that he had +heard some suspect Radical declare in a coach or a coffee-house, that he +would "as soon have the King's head off as he would tear a bit of paper" +(evidence against a group of Manchester prisoners), or that he "would +cut off the King's head as easily as he would shave himself" (case +against Thomas Hardy). The climax of really entertaining absurdity was +reached when two debtors imprisoned in the Fleet were tried and +sentenced for nailing a seditious libel to its doors. The libel was a +notice that "This house is to let," that "infamous bastilles are no +longer necessary in Europe," and that "peaceable possession" would be +secured "on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the +commencement of the first year of liberty in Great Britain."</p> + +<p>The farce of this panic became a tragedy when the reformers of Scotland +ventured to summon a Convention at Edinburgh to voice the demand for +shorter Parliaments and universal male suffrage. It met in October, +1793, and was attended by delegates from the London Corresponding +Society as well as from Scottish branches. Nothing was intended beyond +the holding of what we should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> call to-day a conference or congress. But +the word "Convention" with its reminiscence of the French revolutionary +assembly seems to have caused the Government some particular alarm. The +Convention, after some days of orderly debate, was invaded by the +magistrates and broken up. Margarot and Sinclair (the English +delegates), Skirving, Palmer and Thomas Muir, were tried before that +notorious hanging judge, whom Stevenson portrayed as Weir of Hermiston, +and sentenced to fourteen years' deportation at Botany Bay.</p> + +<p>Of these five, all of them young men of brilliant promise and high +courage, only one, Margarot, lived to return to England. Muir, daring, +romantic and headstrong, contributed to the history of the movement a +page of adventure which might invite the attention of a novelist. He +escaped from Botany Bay on a whaler, was wrecked on the coast of South +America, contrived to wander to the West Indies, there shipped on a +Spanish vessel for Europe, fell in with an English frigate, was wounded +in the fight that followed, and had the good fortune to find among the +officers who took him prisoner an old friend, who recognised him, and +assisted him to conceal his identity. He was landed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> Spain, invited +to Paris and pensioned by the Convention, but died shortly after his +arrival. Less romantic but even finer is Sinclair's story. He obtained +bail while his comrades were tried and sentenced. He might have broken +his bail, and his friends urged him to do so, but with the certainty +that Botany Bay lay before him he none the less returned to Edinburgh, +as Horne Tooke puts it "in discharge of his faith as a private man +towards his bail, and in discharge of his duty towards an oppressed and +insulted public; he has returned not to take a fair trial, but, as he is +well persuaded, to a settled conviction and sentence." Joseph Gerrald, +another member of the same group gave the same fine example of courage, +surrendered to his bail, and was sent for fifteen years to Botany Bay.</p> + +<p>The ferment was more than an intellectual stirring. It brought with it a +moral elevation and a great courage that did not shrink from venturing +life and fortune for a disinterested end. The modern reader is apt to +indulge a smile when he reads in the ardent declamation of this time +professions of a love of Virtue and praises of Universal Benevolence. We +are impatient of abstractions and shy of capital letters. But it was no +abstraction which carried a man with honour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> to the fevers and +privations of Botany Bay, when he might have sought safety and fame in +Paris. The English reformers were resolved to brave the worst that Pitt +could do to them, and challenged the fate of their Scottish comrades. +They prepared in their turn to hold a "Convention" for Parliamentary +Reform, and showed a doubtful prudence in keeping its details secret +while the intention was boldly avowed. The counter-stroke came promptly. +Twelve of the leading members of the Corresponding Society, including +Hardy, Horne Tooke and Holcroft were arrested and sent, for the most +part to the Tower, on a charge of high treason. The records of their +preliminary examination before the Privy Council go to show that Pitt +and Dundas had allowed themselves to be persuaded by their spies that +every species of treason and folly was in preparation, from an armed +insurrection down to a plan to murder the King by blowing a poisoned +arrow from an air-gun. The Government had said that there was a +treasonable conspiracy; it had to produce the traitors.</p> + +<p>There was some delay in arresting Holcroft. His conduct is worth +recording because it is so typical of the naïve courage, the doctrinaire +hardihood of the group. These men whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> the reaction accused of +subverting morality, were in fact dervishes of principle, who rushed on +the bayonets in the name of manhood and truth and sincerity. Godwin when +he came in his systematic treatise to describe how a free people would +conduct a defensive war, declared that it would scorn to resort to a +stratagem or an ambuscade. In the same spirit Holcroft hearing that a +warrant was out against him for high treason, walked boldly into the +Chief Justice's court, and announced that he came to be put upon his +trial "that if I am a guilty man, the whole extent of my guilt may +become notorious, and if innocent that the rectitude of my principles +and conduct may be no less public." When a messenger did, in fact, go to +Holcroft's house about the same hour to arrest him, his daughters, +obedient to the same ideal of sincerity, actually invited him to take +their father's papers.</p> + +<p>One may doubt whether English liberties have ever run a graver danger in +modern times than at the trial of the twelve reformers. The Government +sought to overwhelm them with a mass of evidence which they lacked the +means to sift and confute. But no definite act was charged against them, +and the whole case turned on a monstrous attempt to give a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> wide +constructive interpretation to the law of high treason. High treason in +English law has the perfectly definite meaning of an attempt on the +King's life, or the levying of war against him. Chief Justice Eyre, in +his charge to the Grand Jury, sought to stretch it until it assumed a +Russian latitude, and would include any effort by agitation to alter the +form of government or the constitution of Parliament. The issue, before +a jury which probably had not escaped the general panic, seemed very +doubtful, and it was the general opinion that the decisive blow for +liberty was struck by William Godwin. Long years afterwards Horne Tooke, +in a dramatic scene, called Godwin to him in public, and kissed the hand +which had saved his life.</p> + +<p>Godwin contributed to the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> a long letter, or more +properly, a pamphlet, in which he analysed the Chief Justice's charge +and brought to the light what really was latent in it, a claim to treat +as high treason any effort, however peaceful and orderly, to bring about +a fundamental change in our institutions. The letter shows none of +Godwin's speculative daring, and his gift of cold and dignified +eloquence is severely repressed. He wrote to attain his immediate end, +and from that standpoint his pleading was a masterpiece.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> A certain +deadly courtesy, a tone of quiet reasonableness made it possible for the +most prejudiced reader to follow it with assent. The argument was +irresistible, and the single touch of emotion at the end was worthy of a +great orator. A few lines depicted these men who, moved by public +spirit, had acted in good faith within the law, as it had been +universally understood in England, overwhelmed by a sudden extension of +its most terrible articles, applied to them without precedent or +warning. Should the awful sentence be read over these men, that they +should be hanged (but not until they were dead), and then, still living, +suffer the loss of their members and see their bowels torn out? The +ghastly barbarity of the whole procedure could not have been more +effectively exposed. Looking back upon this trial there is no reason to +think that the reformers exaggerated its importance. Had the Government +won its case, it must have succeeded in destroying the very possibility +of opposition or agitation in England. It was believed that no less than +three hundred signed warrants lay ready for issue on the day that Hardy +and his friends were convicted. But the stroke was too daring, the +threat too impudent. When the trial began, the prosecution lightened +its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> own task by dropping the charge against Holcroft and three of his +comrades. But for nine days the charge was pressed against Thomas Hardy, +and when he was acquitted a further six days was spent in the effort to +convict Horne Tooke, and four in a last vain attempt to succeed against +Thelwall.</p> + +<p>The popular victory checked the excesses of the reaction. As Holcroft +wrote: "The whole power of Government was directed against Thomas Hardy: +in his fate seemed involved the fate of the nation, and the verdict of +Not Guilty appeared to burst its bonds, and to have released it from +inconceivable miseries and ages of impending slavery." The reaction, +indeed, was restrained; but so also was the movement of reform. The +subsequent history of its leaders is one of unheroic failure, and of an +unpopularity which was harder to endure than danger. Windham referred to +the twelve in debate as "acquitted felons," and Holcroft was constrained +first to produce his plays under a borrowed name, and then to seek a +refuge in voluntary exile on the continent. The passions roused by the +Terror arrested the progress of the revolutionary movement in England. +The alarms and glories of the struggle with Napoleon buried it in +oblivion.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>It is this complex experience which lies behind Godwin's political +writings. The French Revolution produced its simple effects in Burke and +Tom Paine—revolt and disgust in the one, enthusiasm and hope in the +other. In Godwin the reaction is more complicated. He retained to the +last his ardent faith in progress, and the perfectibility of mankind. No +events could shake that, but it was the work of experience to reinforce +all the native individualism of his confident and self-reliant temper, +to harden into an extreme dogma that general belief in <i>laissez faire</i> +which was the common property of most of the English progressives of his +day, and to beget in him not merely a doubt in the efficacy of violent +revolutions, but a dislike of all concerted political effort and the +whole collective work of political associations. He had felt the lash of +repression, saved one friend from the hangman, and seen others depart +for Botany Bay: he remained to the end, the uncompromising foe of every +species of governmental coercion. He had listened to Horne Tooke +perorating "hanging matters" at the Corresponding Society; he had seen +the "electric ruby" circulating at its dinners; he had witnessed the +collapse of Thomas Hardy's painstaking and methodical organisation. The +fruit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> all these experiences was the first statement in European +literature of philosophic anarchism—a statement which hardly yields to +Tolstoy's in its trenchant and unflinching logic.</p> + +<p>"Logic" is more often a habit of consecutive and reasoned writing than +the source of a thinker's opinion. The logical writer is the man who can +succeed in displaying plausible reasons for what he believes by +instinct, or knows by experience. There is history and temperament +behind the coldest logic. The history which set Godwin against all State +action, whether undertaken in defence of order or privilege, or on +behalf of reform, is to be read in the excesses of Pitt and the +futilities of the Corresponding Society. The question of temperament +involves a subtler psychological judgment. If you feel in yourself +something less than the heroic temper which will make a militant +agitation or a violent revolution against the monstrous ascendency of +privilege and ordered force, you are lucky if you can convince yourself +that agitation is commonly mischievous, and association but a means of +combating one evil by creating another. Godwin was certainly no coward. +But he was fortunate in evolving a theory which excused him from +attempting the more dangerous exploits of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> civic courage. His ideal was +the Stoic virtue, the isolated strength, which can stand firm in passive +protest against oppression and wrong. He stood firm, and Pitt was +content to leave him standing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We have seen the first bold statement of the hope which the French +Revolution kindled in Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. We have watched the +brave incautious effort to realise it in the plans of the Corresponding +Society. In these crowded years that began with the fall of the Bastille +and closed with the Terror, it was to enter on yet another phase, and in +this last incarnation the hope was very near despair. To men in the +early prime of life, aware of their powers and their gift of influence, +the Revolution came as a call to action. To a group of still younger +men, poets and thinkers, forming their first eager views of life in the +leisure of the Universities, it was above all a stimulus to fancy. +Godwin was their prophet, but they built upon his speculations the +superstructure of a dream that was all their own. For some years, +Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth were caught and held in the close web +of logic which Godwin gave to the world in 1793 in the first edition of +<i>Political Justice</i>. Wordsworth read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> and studied and continually +discussed it. Southey confessed that he "read and studied and all but +worshipped Godwin." Coleridge wrote a sonnet which he afterwards +suppressed in which he blesses his "holy guidance" and hymns Godwin +"with an ardent lay."</p> + +<div class="poem"> +For that thy voice in passion's stormy day<br /> +When wild I roamed the bleak heath of distress<br /> +Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way,<br /> +And told me that her name was Happiness.</div> + +<p>To us who read Godwin with many a later Utopia in our memories, his most +valuable chapters are those which give his penetrating criticisms of +existing society. To these young men the excitement was in his picture +of a free community from which laws and coercion had been eliminated, +and in which property was in a continual flux actuated by the stream of +universal benevolence. They resolved to found a community based on +Godwinian principles, and to free themselves from the cramping and +dwarfing influences of a society ruined by laws and superstitions, they +lit on the simple expedient of removing themselves beyond its reach. +They lacked the manhood and the simplicity which had turned more prosaic +natures into agitators and reformers. It is a tale which every student +of literature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> has delighted to read, how Coleridge and Southey, bent on +founding their Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehana, came to +Bristol to charter a ship, and while they waited, dimly aware that they +lacked funds for the adventure, anchored themselves in English homes by +marrying the Fricker sisters.</p> + +<p>As one of the comrades, Robert Lovell, quaintly puts it in a letter to +Holcroft, "Principle, not plan, is our object." Lovell had visited +Holcroft in gaol, and one can well understand how that near view of the +fate which awaited the reformer under Pitt, confirmed them in their idea +of crossing the Atlantic. "From the writings of William Godwin and +yourself," Lovell went on, "our minds have been illuminated; we wish our +actions to be guided by the same superior abilities." Holcroft, older +and more combative than his poet-disciples, advised the founding of a +model colony in this country. But the lure of a distant scene was too +attractive. Cottle, the friend and publisher of the Pantisocrats, has +left his account of their aims. Theirs was to be "a social colony in +which there was to be a community of property and where all that was +selfish was to be proscribed." It would realise "a state of society free +from the evils and turmoils<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> that then agitated the world, and present +an example of the eminence to which men might arrive under the +unrestrained influence of sound principles." It would "regenerate the +whole complexion of society, and that not by establishing formal laws, +but by excluding all the little deteriorating passions, injustice, +wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking, and thereby setting an example +of human perfectibility."</p> + +<p>What is left of the dream to-day? Some verses in Coleridge's earlier +poems, the address to Chatterton for instance</p> + +<div class="poem"> +O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive,<br /> +Sure thou wouldst spread the canvas to the gale;<br /> +And love with us the tinkling team to drive<br /> +O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale.</div> + +<p>and those lines, half comical, half pathetic, in which the "sweet +harper" is assured as some requital for a hard life and a cruel death, +that the Pantisocrats will raise a "solemn cenotaph" to his memory +"Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream." Long afterwards, Coleridge +described Pantisocracy in <i>The Friend</i> as "a plan as harmless as it was +extravagant," which had served a purpose by saving him from more +dangerous courses. "It was serviceable in securing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> myself and perhaps +some others from the paths of sedition. We were kept free from the +stains and impurities which might have remained upon us had we been +travelling with the crowd of less imaginative malcontents through the +dark lanes and foul by-roads of ordinary fanaticism."</p> + +<p>Pantisocracy was indeed a happy episode for English literature. One may +doubt whether the "Ancient Mariner" would have been written, had +Coleridge travelled with Gerrald and Sinclair along the "dark lane" that +led to Botany Bay. Nature can work strange miracles with the instinct of +self-preservation, and even for poets she has a care. The prudence which +teaches one man to be a Whig, will make of another a Utopian.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>THOMAS PAINE</h4> + +<p>"Where Liberty is, there is my country." The sentiment has a Latin ring; +one can imagine an early Stoic as its author. It was spoken by Benjamin +Franklin, and no saying better expresses the spirit of eighteenth +century humanity. "Where is not Liberty, there is mine." The answer is +Thomas Paine's. It is the watchword of the knight errant, the marching +music that sent Lafayette to America, and Byron to Greece, the motto of +every man who prizes striving above enjoyment, honours comradeship above +patriotism, and follows an idea that no frontier can arrest. Paine was +indeed of no century, and no formula of classification can confine him. +His writing is of the age of enlightenment; his actions belong to +romance. His clear, manly style, his sturdy commonsense, the rapier play +of his epigrams, the formal, logical architecture of his thoughts, his +complacent limitations, his horror of mystery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> and Gothic half-lights, +his harsh contempt for all the sacred muddle of priestly traditions and +aristocratic politics, his assurance, his intellectual courage, his +humanity—all that, in its best and its worst, belongs to the century of +Voltaire and the Revolution. In his spirit of adventure, in his passion +for movement and combat, there Paine is romantic. Paine thought in prose +and acted epics. He drew horizons on paper and pursued the infinite in deeds.</p> + +<p>Tom Paine was born, the son of a Quaker stay-maker, in 1737, at +Thetford, in the county of Norfolk. His parents were poor, but he owed +much, he tells us, to a good moral education and picked up "a tolerable +stock of useful learning," though he knew no language but his own. A +"Friend" he was to the end in his independence, his rationalism, and his +humanity, though he laughed when he thought of what a sad-coloured world +the Quakers would have made of the creation, if they had been consulted. +The boy craved adventure, and was prevented at seventeen from enlisting +in the crew of the privateer <i>Terrible</i>, Captain Death, only to sail +somewhat later in the <i>King of Prussia</i>, Captain Mendez. One cruise +under a licensed pirate was enough for him, and he soon settled in +London,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> making stays for a living and spending his leisure in the study +of astronomy. He qualified as an exciseman, acquiring in this employment +a grasp of finance and an interest in budgets of which he afterwards +made good use in his writings. Cashiered for negligence, he turned +schoolmaster, and even aspired to ordination in the Church of England. +Reinstated as a "gauger," he was eventually dismissed for writing a +pamphlet in defence of the excisemen's agitation for higher wages. He +was twice married, but his first wife died within a year of marriage, +and the second, with whom he had started a "tobacco-mill," agreed on its +failure, apparently for no definite fault on either side, to a mutual +separation. At thirty-seven, penniless, lonely, and stamped with +failure, yet conscious of powers which had found no scope in the Old +World, he emigrated in 1774 to America with a letter from Benjamin +Franklin as his passport to fortune.</p> + +<p>Opportunity came promptly, and Paine was presently settled in +Philadelphia as the editor of the <i>Pennsylvania Magazine</i>. From the +pages of this periodical, his admirable biographer, Mr. Moncure D. +Conway, has unearthed a series of articles which show that Paine had +somehow brought with him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> from England a mental equipment which ranked +him already among the moral pioneers of his generation. He advocates +international arbitration; he attacks duelling; he suggests more +rational ideas of marriage and divorce; he pleads for mercy to animals; +he demands justice for women. Above all, he assails negro slavery, and +with such mastery and fervour, that five weeks after the appearance of +his article, the first American Anti-Slavery Society was founded at +Philadelphia. The abolition of slavery was a cause for which he never +ceased to struggle, and when in later life he became the target of +religious persecutors, it was in their dual capacity of Christians and +slave-owners that men stoned him. The American colonies were now at the +parting of the ways in the struggle with the Mother Country. The revolt +had begun with a limited object, and few if any of its leaders realised +whither they were tending. Paine it was, who after the slaughter at +Lexington, abandoned all thoughts of reconciliation and was the first to +preach independence and republicanism.</p> + +<p>His pamphlet, <i>Common-Sense</i> (1776), achieved a circulation which was an +event in the history of printing, and fixed in men's minds as firm +resolves what were, before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> he wrote, no more than fluid ideas. It spoke +to rebels and made a nation. Poor though Paine was, he poured the whole +of the immense profits which he received from the sale of his little +book into the colonial war-chest, shouldered a musket, joined +Washington's army as a private, and was soon promoted to be aide-de-camp +to General Greene. Paine's most valuable weapon, however, was still his +pen. Writing at night, after endless marches, by the light of camp fires +at a moment of general depression, when even Washington thought that the +game was "pretty well up," Paine began to write the series of pamphlets +afterwards collected under the title of <i>The American Crisis</i>. They did +for the American volunteers what Rouget de Lisle's immortal song did for +the French levies in the revolutionary wars, what Körner's martial +ballads did for the German patriots in the Napoleonic wars. These superb +pages of exhortation were read in every camp to the disheartened men; +their courage commanded victory. Burke himself wrote nothing finer than +the opening sentences of the first "crisis," a trumpet call indeed, but +phrased by an artist who knew the science of compelling music from +brass:—</p> + +<p>"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the +sunshine patriot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his +country; but he that stands it now, deserves the thanks of man and +woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this +consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the +triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly; it is dearness +only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper +price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an +article as freedom should not be highly rated."</p> + +<p>"Common-sense" Paine was now the chief of the moral forces behind the +fighting Republic, and his power of thinking boldly and stating clearly +drove it forward to its destiny under the leadership of men whom Nature +had gifted with less trenchant minds. He was in succession Foreign +Secretary to Congress and clerk to the Pennsylvania Assembly, and we +find him converting despair into triumph by the magic of self-sacrifice. +He it was who in 1780 saved the finances of the war in a moment of +despair, by starting the patriotic subscription with the gift of his own +salary, and in 1781 proved his diplomatic gift in a journey to Paris by +obtaining money-aid from the French Court.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>Paine might have settled down to enjoy his fame, after the war, on the +little property which the State of New York gave him. He loathed +inaction and escaped middle age. In 1787 he returned to England, partly +to carry his pen where the work of liberation called for it, partly to +forward his mechanical inventions. Paine, self-educated though he was, +was a capable mathematician, and he followed the progress of the applied +sciences with passion. His inventions include a long list of things +partly useful, partly whimsical, a planing machine, a crane, a smokeless +candle and a gunpowder motor. But his fame as an inventor rests on his +construction of the first iron bridge, made after his models and plans +at Wearmouth. He was received as a leader and teacher in the ardent +circle of reformers grouped round the Revolution Society and the +Corresponding Society. Others were the dreamers and theorists of +liberty. He had been at the making of a Republic, and his American +experience gave the stimulus to English Radicalism which events in +France were presently to repeat. His fame was already European, and at +the fall of the Bastille, it was to Paine that Lafayette confided its +key, when a free France sent that symbol of defeated despotism as a +present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> to a free America. He seemed the natural link between three +revolutions, the one which had succeeded in the New World, the other +which was transforming France, and the third which was yet to come in England.</p> + +<p>Burke's <i>Reflections</i> rang in his ears like a challenge, and he sat +promptly down in his inn to write his reply. <i>The Rights of Man</i> is an +answer to Burke, but it is much more. The vivid pages of history in +which he explains and defends the French Revolution which Burke had +attacked and misunderstood, are only an illustration to his main +argument. He expounds the right of revolution, and blows away the cobweb +argument of legality by which his antagonist had sought to confine +posterity within the settlement of 1688. Every age and generation must +be free to act for itself. Man has no property in man, and the claim of +one generation to govern beyond the grave is of all tyrannies the most +insolent. Burke had contended for the right of the dead to govern the +living, but that which a whole nation chooses to do, it has a right to +do. The men of 1688, who surrendered their own rights and bound +themselves to obey King William and his heirs, might indeed choose to be +slaves; but that could not lessen the right of their children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> to be +free. Wrongs cannot have a legal descent. Here was a bold and triumphant +answer to a sophistical argument; but it served Paine only as a preface +to his exposition of the American constitution, which was "to Liberty +what a grammar is to language," and to his plea for the adoption in +England of the French charter of the Rights of Man.</p> + +<p>Paine felt that he had made one Republic with a pamphlet, why not +another? He had the unlimited faith of his generation in the efficacy of +argument, and experience had proved his power. As Carlyle, in his +whimsical dramatic fashion, said of him, "He can and will free all this +world; perhaps even the other." Godwin, as became the philosopher of the +movement, set his hopes on the slower working of education: to make men +wise was to make them free. Paine was the pamphleteer of the human camp. +He saw mankind as an embattled legion and believed, true man of action +that he was, that freedom could be won like victory by the impetus of a +resolute charge. He quotes the epigram of his fellow-soldier, Lafayette, +"For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and +to be free it is sufficient that she wills it." Godwin would have sent +men to school to liberty; Paine called them to her unfurled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> standard. +It is easy to understand the success of Paine's book, which appeared in +March, 1791. It was theory and practice in one; it was the armed logic +which had driven King George's regiments from America, the edged +argument which had razed the Bastille. It was bold reasoning, and it was +also inspired writing. Holcroft and Godwin helped to bring out <i>The +Rights of Man</i>, threatened with suppression or mutilation by the +publishers, and a panting incoherent shout of joy in a note from +Holcroft to Godwin is typical of the excitement which it caused:—</p> + +<p>"I have got it—if this do not cure my cough it is a damned perverse +mule of a cough. The pamphlet—from the row—But mum—we don't sell +it—oh, no—ears and eggs—verbatim, except the addition of a short +preface, which as you have not seen, I send you my copy.—Not a single +castration (Laud be unto God and J. S. Jordan!) can I discover—Hey, for +the new Jerusalem! The Millennium! And peace and eternal beatitude be +unto the soul of Thomas Paine."</p> + +<p>The usual prosecutions of booksellers followed; but everywhere the new +societies of reform were circulating the book, and if it helped to send +some good men to Botany Bay,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> copies enough were sold to earn a sum of a +thousand pounds for the author, which, with his usual disinterestedness, +he promptly gave to the Corresponding Society. A second part appeared in +1792; and at length Pitt adopted Burke's opinion that criminal justice +was the proper argument with which to refute Tom Paine. Acting on a hint +from William Blake, who, in a vision more prosaic and veridical than was +usual with him, had seen the constables searching for his friend, Paine +escaped to France, and was convicted in his absence of high treason.</p> + +<p>Paine landed at Calais an outlaw, to find himself already elected its +deputy to the Convention. As in America, so in France, his was the first +voice to urge the uncompromising solution. He advocated the abolition of +the monarchy; but his was a courage that always served humanity. The +work which he did as a member, with Sieyès, Danton, Condorcet, and five +others, of the little committee named to draft the constitution, was +ephemeral. His brave pleading for the King's life was a deed that +deserves to live. He loved to think of himself as a woodman swinging an +axe against rotten institutions and dying beliefs; but he weighted no +guillotines. Paine argued against the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> command that we should "love our +enemies," but he would not persecute them. This knight-errant would +fling his shield over the very spies who tracked his steps. In Paris he +saved the life of one of Pitt's agents who had vilified him, and +procured the liberation of a bullying English officer who had struck him +in public. The Terror made mercy a traitor, and Paine found himself +overwhelmed in the vengeance which overtook all that was noblest in the +Revolution. He spent ten months in prison, racked with fever, and an +anecdote which seems to be authentic, tells how he escaped death by the +negligence of a jailor. This overworked official hastily chalked the +sign which meant that a prisoner was marked for next batch of the +guillotine's victims, on the inside instead of the outside of Paine's cell-door.</p> + +<p>Condorcet, in hiding and awaiting death, wrote in these months his +<i>Sketch</i> of human progress. Paine, meditating on the end that seemed +near, composed the first part of his <i>Age of Reason</i>. Paine was, like +Franklin, Jefferson and Washington, a deist; and he differed from them +only in the courage which prompted him to declare his belief. He came +from gaol a broken man, hardly able to stand, while the Convention, +returned to its sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> senses, welcomed him back to his place of honour +on its benches. The record of his last years in America, whither he +returned in 1802, belongs rather to the history of persecution than to +the biography of a soldier of liberty. His work was done; and, though +his pen was still active and influential, slave-owners, ex-royalists, +and the fanatics of orthodoxy combined to embitter the end of the man +who had dared to deny the inspiration of the Bible. His book was burned +in England by the hangman. Bishops in their answers mingled grudging +concessions with personal abuse. An agent of Pitt's was hired to write a +scurrilous biography of the Government's most dreaded foe. In America, +the grandsons of the Puritan colonists who had flogged Quaker women as +witches, denied him a place on the stage-coach, lest an offended God +should strike it with lightning.</p> + +<p>Paine died, a lonely old man, in 1809. His personal character stands +written in his career; and it is unnecessary to-day even to mention the +libels which his biographer has finally refuted. In a generation of +brave men he was the boldest. He could rouse the passions of men, and he +could brave them. If the Royalist Burke was eloquent for a Queen, +Republican Paine risked his life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> for a King. No wrong found him +indifferent; and he used his pen not only for the democracy which might +reward him, but for animals, slaves and women. Poverty never left him, +yet he made fortunes with his pen, and gave them to the cause he served. +A naïve vanity was his only fault as a man. It was his fate to escape +the gallows in England and the guillotine in France. He deserved them +both; in that age there was no higher praise. A better democrat never +wore the armour of the knight-errant; a better Christian never assailed Orthodoxy.</p> + +<p>Neither by training nor by temperament was Paine a speculative thinker; +but his political writing has none the less an immense significance. +Godwin was a writer removed by his profoundly individual genius from the +average thought of his day. Paine agreed more nearly with the advanced +minds of his generation, and he taught the rest to agree with him. No +one since him or before him has stated the plain democratic case against +monarchy and aristocracy with half his spirit and force. Earlier writers +on these themes were timid; the moderns are bored. Paine is writing of +what he understands, and feels to be of the first importance. He cares +as much about abolishing titles as a modern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> reformer may feel about +nationalising land. His main theory in politics has a lucid simplicity. +Men are born as God created them, free and equal; that is the assumption +alike of natural and revealed religion. Burke, who "fears God," looks +with "awe to kings," with "duty to magistrates," and with "respect to +nobility," is but erecting a wilderness of turnpike gates between man +and his Maker. Natural rights inhere in man by reason of his existence; +civil rights are founded in natural rights and are designed to secure +and guarantee them. He gives an individual twist to the doctrine of the +social compact. Some governments arise out of the people, others over +the people. The latter are based on conquest or priestcraft, and the +former on reason. Government will be firmly based on the social compact +only when nations deliberately sit down as the Americans have done, and +the French are doing, to frame a constitution on the basis of the Rights of Man.</p> + +<p>As for the English Government, it clearly arose in conquest; and to +speak of a British Constitution is playing with words. Parliament, +imperfectly and capriciously elected, is supposed to hold the common +purse in trust; but the men who vote the supplies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> are also those who +receive them. The national purse is the common hack on which each party +mounts in turn, in the countryman's fashion of "ride and tie." They +order these things better in France. As for our system of conducting +wars, it is all done over the heads of the people. War is with us the +art of conquering at home. Taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but +wars raised to carry on taxes. The shrewd hard-hitting blows range over +the whole surface of existing institutions. Godwin from his intellectual +eminence saw in all the follies and crimes of mankind nothing worse than +the effects of "prejudice" and the consequences of fallacious reasoning. +Paine saw more self-interest in the world than prejudice. When he came +to preach the abolition of war, first through an alliance of Britain, +America and France, and then through "a confederation of nations" and a +European Congress, he saw the obstacle in the egoism of courts and +courtiers which appear to quarrel but agree to plunder. Another seven +years, he wrote in 1792, would see the end of monarchy and aristocracy +in Europe. While they continue, with war as their trade, peace has not the security of a day.</p> + +<p>Paine's writing gains rather than loses in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> theoretic interest, because +the warmth of his sympathies melts, as he proceeds, the icy logic of his +eighteenth century individualism. He starts where all his school +started, with a sharp antithesis between society and government.</p> + +<p>"Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the +former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections; the +latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages +intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the +last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing; but government +even in its best state is a necessary evil.... Government, like dress, +is the badge of our lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on +the ruins of the bowers of paradise."</p> + +<p>That was the familiar pessimism which led in practical politics to +<i>laissez faire</i>, and in speculation to Godwin's philosophic anarchism. +Paine himself seems for a moment to take that road. He enjoys telling us +how well the American colonies managed in the early stages of the war +without any regular form of government. He assures us that "the more +perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government." But +he had served an apprenticeship to life; looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> around him at the +streets filled with beggars and the jails crowded with poor men, he +suddenly forgets that the whole purpose of government is to secure the +individual against the invasion of his rights, and straightway bursts +into a new definition:—"Civil government does not consist in +executions; but in making such provision for the instruction of youth +and the support of age as to exclude as much as possible profligacy from +the one and despair from the other. Instead of this the resources of a +country are lavished upon kings ... and the poor themselves are +compelled to support the fraud that oppresses them."</p> + +<p>It is amazing how much good Paine can extract from a necessary evil. He +has suddenly conceived of government as the instrument of the social +conscience. He means to use it as a means of securing a better +organisation of society. Paine was a man of action, and no mere logic +could hold him. He proceeds in a breathless chapter to evolve a +programme of social reform which, after the slumbers of a century, his +Radical successors have just begun to realise. Some hints came to him +from Condorcet, but most of these daringly novel ideas sprang from +Paine's own inventive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> brain, and all of them are presented by the +whilom exciseman, with a wealth of financial detail, as if he were a +Chancellor of the Exchequer addressing the first Republican Parliament +in the year One of Liberty. He would break up the poor laws, "these +instruments of civil torture." He has saved the major part of the cost +of defence by a naval alliance with the other Sea Powers, and the +abolition of capture at sea. Instead of poor relief he would give a +subsidy to the children of the very poor, and pensions to the aged. Four +pounds a year for every child under fourteen in every necessitous family +will ensure the health and instruction of the next generation. It will +cost two millions and a half, but it will banish ignorance. He would pay +the costs of compulsory education. Pensions are to be granted not of +grace but of right, as an aid to the infirm after fifty years, and a +subsidy to the aged after sixty. Maternity benefit is anticipated in a +donation of twenty shillings to every poor mother at the birth of a +child. Casual labour is to be cared for in some sort of +workhouse-factories in London. These reforms are to be financed partly +by economies and partly by a graduated income-tax, for which Paine +presents an elaborate schedule. When the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> poor are happy and the jails +empty, then at last may a nation boast of its constitution. In this +pregnant chapter Paine not only sketched the work of the future; he +exploded his own premises.</p> + +<p>The odium that still clings to Paine's theological writings comes mainly +from those who have not read them. When Mr. Roosevelt the other day +called him "a dirty little Atheist," he exposed nothing but his own +ignorance. Paine was a deist, and he wrote <i>The Age of Reason</i> on the +threshold of a French prison, primarily to counteract the atheism which +he thought he saw at work among the Jacobins—an odd diagnosis, for +Robespierre was at least as ardent in his deism as Paine himself. He +believed in a God, Whose bounty he saw in nature; he taught the doctrine +of conditional immortality, and his quarrel with revealed religion was +chiefly that it set up for worship a God of cruelty and injustice. From +the stories of the Jewish massacres ordained by divine command, down to +the orthodox doctrine of the scheme of redemption, he saw nothing but a +history derogatory to the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty. To +believe the Old Testament we must unbelieve our faith in the moral +justice of God. It might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> "hurt the stubbornness of a priest" to destroy +this fiction, but it would tranquilise the consciences of millions. From +this starting-point he proceeds in the later second and third parts to a +detailed criticism designed to show that the books of the Bible were not +written by their reputed authors, that the miracles are incredible, that +the passages claimed as prophecy have been wrested from their contexts, +and that many inconsistencies are to be found in the narrative portions of the Gospels.</p> + +<p>Acute and fearless though it is, this detailed argument has only an +historical interest to-day. When the violence of his persecutors had +goaded Paine into anger, he lost all sense of tact in controversy, and +lapsed occasionally into harsh vulgarities. But the anger was just, and +the zeal for mental honesty has had its reward. Paine had no sense for +the mystery and poetry of traditional religion. But what he attacked was +not presented to him as poetry. He was assailing a dogmatic orthodoxy +which had itself converted poetry into literal fact. As literal fact it +was incredible; and Paine, taking it all at the valuation of its own +professors, assailed it with a disbelief as prosaic as their belief, but +intellectually more honest. His interpretation of the Bible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> is +unscientific, if you will, but it is nearer to the truth of history than +the conventional belief of his day. If his polemics seem rough and +superfluous to us, it is only because his direct frontal attacks forced +on the work of Biblical criticism, and long ago compelled the +abandonment of most of the positions which he assailed. In spite of its +grave faults of taste and temper and manner, <i>The Age of Reason</i> +performed an indispensable service to honesty and morals. It was the +bravest thing he did, for it threatened his name with an immortality of +libel. His place in history is secure at last. The neglected pioneer of +one revolution, the honoured victim of another, brave to the point of +folly, and as humane as he was brave, no man in his generation preached +republican virtue in better English, nor lived it with a finer disregard +of self.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>WILLIAM GODWIN AND THE REVOLUTION</h4> + +<p>Tom Paine is still reviled and still admired. The name of Mary +Wollstonecraft is honoured by the growing army of free women. Both may +be read in cheap editions. William Godwin, a more powerful intellect, +and in his day a greater influence than either, is now forgotten, or +remembered only because he was the father of Shelley's wife. Yet he +blazed in the last decade of the eighteenth century, as Hazlitt has told +us, "as a sun in the firmament of reputation." "No one was more talked +of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, +justice was the theme, his name was not far off.... No work in our time +gave such a blow to the philosophical mind of the country as the +celebrated <i>Enquiry Concerning Political Justice</i>. Tom Paine was +considered for the time as a Tom Fool to him; Paley an old woman; Edmund +Burke a flashy sophist."</p> + +<p>William Godwin came into the world in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> 1756, at Wisbech, in the Fen +country, with the moral atmosphere of a dissenting home for inheritance. +His father and grandfather were Independent ministers, who taught the +metaphysical dissent of the extreme Calvinistic tradition. The quaint +ill-spelled letters of his mother reveal a strong character, a meagre +education and rigid beliefs. William was unwholesomely precocious as a +boy, pious, studious and greedy for distinction and praise. He was +brought up on the <i>Account of the Pious Deaths of Many Godly Children</i>, +and would move his school-fellows to tears by his early sermons on the +Last Judgment. At seventeen we find him, destined for the hereditary +profession, a student in the Theological College at Hoxton. His mental +development was by no means headlong, but he was a laborious reader and +an eager disputant, endowed with all the virtues save modesty.</p> + +<p>He emerged from College as he had entered it, a Tory in politics and a +Sandemanian in religion. The Sandemanians were super-Calvinists, and +their tenets may be summarily defined. A Calvinist held that of ten +souls nine will be damned. A Sandemanian hoped that of ten Calvinists +one may with difficulty be saved. In the Calvinist mould Godwin's mind +was formed, and if the doctrine was soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> discarded, the habit of +thought characteristic of Calvinism remained with him to the end. It is +a French and not a British creed, Latin in its systematic completeness, +Latin in the logical courage with which it pursues its assumptions to +their last conclusion, Latin in its faith in deductive reasoning and its +disdain alike of experience and of sentiment. Had Godwin been bred a +Methodist or a Churchman, he could not have written <i>Political Justice</i>. +To him in these early years religion presented itself as a supernatural +despotism based on terror and coercion. Its central doctrine was eternal +punishment, and when in mature life, Godwin became a free-thinker, his +revolt was not so much the readjustment of a speculative thinker who has +reconsidered untenable dogmas, as the rebellion of a humane and liberal +mind against a system of terrorism. To some agnostics God is an +unnecessary hypothesis. To Godwin He was rather a tyrant to be deposed. +It was a view which Shelley with less provocation adopted with even greater heat.</p> + +<p>Godwin's firm dogmatic creed began to crumble away during his early +experiences as a dissenting minister in country towns. He published a +forgotten volume of sermons, and his development both in politics and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +theology was evidently slow. At twenty-seven, as a young pastor at +Beaconsfield, we find him a Whig and a Unitarian, who looked up to Dr. +Priestley as his master. He had now begun to study the French +philosophers, whom Hoxton had doubtless refuted, but did not read. He +was not a successful pastor, and it was as much his relative failure in +the pulpit as his slowly broadening beliefs which caused him to take to +letters for a livelihood. His long literary career begins in 1783 with +some years of prentice work in Grub Street. He wrote a successful +pamphlet in defence of the Coalition, which brought him to the notice of +the Whig chiefs, worked with enthusiasm at a <i>Life of Chatham</i> which has +the merit of a rather heavy eloquence, contributed for seven years to +the <i>Annual Register</i> and wrote three novels which evidently enjoyed an +ephemeral success. He lived the usual nomadic life of the young man of +letters, and differed from most of his kind chiefly by his industry, his +abstinence, and his methodical habits of study, which he never relaxed +even when he was writing busily for bread.</p> + +<p>We find him rising early, and reading some portion of a Greek or Latin +classic before breakfast. He acquired by this practice a literary +knowledge of the classics and used it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> in his later essays with an ease +and intimacy which many a scholar would envy. He wrote for three or four +hours in the morning, composing slowly and frequently recasting his +drafts. The afternoon and evening were devoted to eager converse and hot +debate with friends, and to the reading of modern books in English, +French and Italian, with not infrequent visits to the theatre. A brief +diary carefully kept with a system of signs and abbreviations in a queer +mixed jargon of English, French and Latin records his anxious use of his +time, and shows to the end of his eighty years few wasted days. If +industry was his most conspicuous virtue, he gave proof at the outset of +his life of an independence rare among poor men who have their career to +make. Sheridan, who acted as the literary agent of the Whigs, wished to +engage him as a professional pamphleteer and offered him a regular +salary. He refused to tie himself to a party, though his views at this +time were those of an orthodox and enthusiastic admirer of Fox.</p> + +<p>Godwin was to become the apostle of Universal Benevolence. It was a +virtue for which in later life he gave many an opportunity to his richer +friends, but if he stimulated it in others he never refused to practise +it himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> While he was still a struggling and underpaid journeyman +author, wandering from one cheap lodging to another, he burdened himself +with the care and maintenance of a distant relative, an orphaned +second-cousin, named Thomas Cooper. Cooper came to him at the age of +twelve and remained with him till he became an actor at seventeen. +Godwin had read Rousseau's <i>Emile</i>, not seldom with dissent, and all +through his life was deeply interested in the problems of education. +They furnished him with the themes of some of the best essays in his +<i>Enquirer</i> and his <i>Thoughts on Man</i>, and young Cooper was evidently the +subject on whom he experimented. He was a difficult, proud, +high-spirited lad, and the process of tuition was clearly not as smooth +as it was conscientious. Godwin's leading thought was that the utmost +reverence is due to boys. He cared little how much he imparted of +scholastic knowledge. He aimed at arousing the intellectual curiosity of +his charge and fostering independence and self-respect. Sincerity and +plain-speaking were to govern the relation of tutor and pupil. Corporal +punishment was of course a prohibited barbarity, but it must be admitted +that in Godwin's case a violent tongue and an impatient temper more than +supplied its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> place. The diary shows how pathetically the tutor exhorted +himself to avoid sternness, "which can only embitter the temper," and +not to impute dulness, stupidity or intentional error. Some letters show +how he failed. Cooper complains that Godwin had called him "a foolish +wretch," "a viper" and a "tiger." Godwin replies by complimenting him on +his "sensibility," and his "independence," asks for his "confidence" in +return, and assures him that he does not expect "gratitude" (a virtue +banned in the Godwinian ethics). This essay in education can have been +only relatively successful, for Cooper seems to have felt a quite +commonplace gratitude to Godwin, and for many a year afterwards sent him +vivacious letters, which testify to the real friendship which united +them.</p> + +<p>Imperious and hot-tempered though he was, Godwin made friends and kept +them. Thomas Holcroft came into Godwin's life in 1786. Thanks to +Hazlitt's spirited memoir, based as it was on ample autobiographical +notes, no personality of this group stands before us so clearly limned, +and there is none more attractive. Mrs. Shelley describes him as a "man +of stern and irascible character," but he was also lovable and +affectionate. There was in his mind and will some powerful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> initial +force of resolve and mental independence. He thought for himself, and +yet he could assimilate the ideas of other men. He was a reasoner and a +doctrinaire; and yet he must have had in himself those untamed volcanic +emotions which we associate with the heroes of the romantic novels of +the age. He believed in the almost unlimited powers of the human mind, +and his own career, which saw his rise from stable-boy and cobbler to +dramatist, was itself a monument to the human will. Looking in their +mirrors, the progressives of that generation were tempted to think that +perfection might have been within their reach had not their youth been +stunted by the influence of Calvin and the British Constitution. +Rectitude, courage and unflinching truth were Holcroft's ideal. He +firmly believed (an idea which lay in germ in Condorcet and was for a +time adopted by Godwin) that the will guided by reason might transform +not only the human mind but the human body. Like the Christian +Scientists of to-day he asserted, as Mrs. Shelley tells us, that "death +and disease existed only through the feebleness of man's mind, that pain also had no reality."</p> + +<p>He was a man of fifty when he met Godwin at thirty, and he had packed +into his half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> century a more various experience of men and things than +the studious and sedentary Godwin could have acquired if he had lived +the life of the Wandering Jew. Theirs was a friendship of mutual +stimulation and intimate exchange which is commoner between a man and a +woman than between two men. They met almost daily, and in spite of some +violent lovers' quarrels, their affection lasted till Holcroft's death +in 1809. It is not hard to understand their quarrels. Neither of them +had natural tact, and Godwin's sensibility was morbid. Unflinching +truthfulness, even in literary criticism, must have tried their tempers, +and the single word "démêlé," best translated "row," occurs often in +Godwin's diary as his note on one of their meetings. It is not easy to +decide which influenced the other more. Godwin's was the trained, +systematic, academical mind, but Holcroft added to a rich and curious +experience of life and a vein of native originality, wide reading and +something more than a mere amateur's taste for music and art. It was +Holcroft who drove Godwin out of his compromising Unitarianism into a +view which for some years he boldly described as Atheism. His religious +opinions were afterwards modified (or so he supposed) by S. T. +Coleridge; but that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> influence is not conspicuous in his posthumous +essay on religion, and the best label for his attitude is perhaps Huxley's word, "Agnostic."</p> + +<p>As the French Revolution approached, the two friends fell under the +prevailing excitement. Godwin attended the Revolution Society's dinners, +and Holcroft was, as we have seen, a leading member of the Corresponding +Society. There is no difficulty in accounting for most of the opinions +which the two friends held in common, and which Godwin was soon to +embody in <i>Political Justice</i>. Some were common to all the group; others +lie in germ at least in the writings of the Encyclopædists. Even +communism was anticipated by Mably, and was held in some tentative form +by many of the leading men of the Revolution. (See Kropotkin: <i>The Great +French Revolution</i>.) The puzzle is rather to account for the anarchist +tendency which seems to be wholly original in Godwin. It was a revolt +not merely against all coercive action by the State, but also against +collective action by the citizens. The root of it was probably the +extreme individualism which felt that a man surrendered too much of +himself, too much of truth and manhood in any political association. The +beginnings of this line of thought may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> detected in a vivid +contemptuous account of the riotous Westminster election of 1788, in +which Holcroft had worked with the Foxites: "Scandal, pitiful, mean, +mutual scandal, never was more plentifully dispersed. Electioneering is +a trade so despicably degrading, so eternally incompatible with moral +and mental dignity that I can scarcely believe a truly great mind +capable of the dirty drudgery of such vice. I am at least certain no +mind is great while thus employed. It is the periodical reign of the evil nature or demon."</p> + +<p>This, to be sure, is no more than a hint of a tendency, but it shows +that experience was already fermenting in the brain of one member at +least of the pair, and it took these alchemists no great while to distil +from it their theoretic spirit. The doings of the Corresponding Society +were destined to enlarge and confirm this experience. In the hopes, the +indignations, and the perils of the years of revolutionary excitement +Godwin had his intimate share. He was one of a small committee which +undertook the publication of Paine's <i>Rights of Man</i>, and when the +repression began, those who were struck down were his associates and in +some cases his intimates. Holcroft, as we have seen, was tried for high +treason, and Joseph Gerrald, who was sent to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Botany Bay, was a friend +for whom he felt both admiration and affection. If the fate of these men +was a haunting pain to their friends, their high courage and idealistic +faith was a noble stimulus. "Human Perfectibility" had its martyrs, and +the words of Gerrald as he stood in the dock awaiting the sentence that +was to send him to his death among thieves and forgers, deserve a +respectful record: "Moral light is as irresistible by the mind as +physical by the eye. All attempts to impede its progress are vain. It +will roll rapidly along, and as well may tyrants imagine that by placing +their feet upon the earth they can stop its diurnal motion, as that they +shall be able by efforts the most virulent and pertinacious to +extinguish the light of reason and philosophy, which happily for mankind +is everywhere spreading around us." It was in this atmosphere of +enthusiasm and devotion that <i>Political Justice</i> was written.</p> + +<p>The main work of Godwin's life was begun in July, 1791. He was fortunate +in securing a contract from the publisher Robinson, on generous terms +which ultimately brought him in one thousand guineas. <i>Political +Justice</i> has been generally classed among the answers to Burke, but +Godwin's aim was in fact something more ambitious. A note<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> in his diary +deserves to be quoted: "My original conception proceeded on a feeling of +the imperfections and errors of Montesquieu, and a desire of supplying a +less faulty work. In the just fervour of my enthusiasm I entertained the +vain imagination of "hewing a stone from the rock," which by its +inherent energy and weight, should overbear and annihilate all +opposition and place the principles of politics on an immoveable basis."</p> + +<p>When he came to answer his critics, he apologised for extravagances on +the plea of haste and excitement; but in fact the work was slowly and +deliberately written, and was not completed until January, 1793. Its +doctrines, since the book is not now readily accessible, will be +summarised fully and in Godwin's own phraseology in the next chapter, +but it seems proper to draw attention here to the cool yet unprovocative +courage of its writer. It is filled with "hanging matters." Pitt was, +perhaps, no more disposed to punish a man for expounding the fundamental +principles of philosophic anarchism than was the Russian autocracy in +our own day when it tolerated Tolstoy. It was not for writing <i>Utopia</i> +that Sir Thomas More lost his head. But the book is quite unflinching in +its application of principle, and its attacks on monarchy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> are as +uncompromising as those for which Paine was outlawed. The preface calmly +discusses the possibility of prosecution, issues what is in effect a +quiet challenge, and concludes with the consolation that "it is the +property of truth to be fearless and to prove victorious over every +adversary." The fact was that Godwin watched the dangers of his friends +"almost with envy" (letter to Gerrald). But he held that a man who +deliberately provokes martyrdom acts immorally, since he confuses the +progress of reason by exciting destructive passions, and drives his +adversaries into evil courses.</p> + +<p>"For myself," he wrote, "I will never adopt any conduct for the express +purpose of being put upon my trial, but if I be ever so put, I will +consider that day as a day of triumph." Godwin escaped punishment for +his activity on behalf of Holcroft and the twelve reformers, because his +activity was successful. He escaped prosecution for <i>Political Justice</i> +because it was a learned book, addressed to educated readers, and issued +at the astonishing price of three guineas. The propriety of prosecuting +him was considered by the Privy Council; and Pitt is said to have +dismissed the suggestion with the remark that "a three guinea book could +never do much harm among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> those who had not three shillings to spare." +That this three-guinea book was bought and read to the extent of no less +than four thousand copies is a tribute not merely to its vitality, but +to the eagerness of the middle-classes during the revolutionary ferment +to drink in the last words of the new philosophy.</p> + +<p>A new edition was soon called for, and was issued early in 1796. Much of +the book was recast and many chapters entirely rewritten, as the +consequence not so much of any material change in Godwin's views, as of +the profit he had derived from private controversies. Condorcet (though +he is never mentioned) is, if one may make a guess, the chief of the new +influences apparent in the second edition. It is more cautious, more +visibly the product of a varied experience than the first draft, but it +abandons none of his leading ideas. A third edition appeared in 1799, +toned down still further by a growing caution. These revisions +undoubtedly made the book less interesting, less vivid, less readable. +No modern edition has ever appeared, and its direct influence had become +negligible even before Godwin's death. It is harder to account for the +oblivion into which the book has fallen, than to explain its early +popularity. It is not a difficult book to read. "The young and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> the +fair," Godwin tells us, "did not feel deterred from consulting my +pages." His style is always clear and often eloquent. His vocabulary +seems to a modern taste overloaded with Latin words, but the +architecture of his sentences is skilful in the classical manner. He can +vary his elaborate periods with a terse, strong statement which comes +with the force of an unexpected blow. He has a knack of happy +illustration, and a way of enforcing his points by putting problems in +casuistry which have an alluring human interest. The book moved his own +generation profoundly, and even to-day his more enthusiastic passages +convey an irresistible impression of sincerity and conviction.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>"POLITICAL JUSTICE"</h4> + +<p>The controversy which produced <i>Political Justice</i> was a dialogue +between the future and the past. The task of speculation in England had +been, through a stagnant century, to define the conditions of political +stability, and to admire the elaborate checks and balances of the +British Constitution as though change were the only evil that threatened +mankind. For Burke, change itself was but an incident in the triumph of +continuity and conservation. For Godwin the whole life of mankind is a +race through innovation to perfection, and his main concern is to exhort +the athlete to fling aside the garments of prejudice, tradition, and +constraint, until one asks at the end how much of flesh and blood has +been torn away with the garments. If one were to attempt in a phrase to +sum up his work, the best title which one could invent for it would be +Prolegomena to all Future Progress. What in a word are the conditions of +progress?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>His attitude to mankind is by turns a pedagogue's disapprobation and a +patron's encouragement. The worst enemy of progress was the systematic +optimism of Leibnitz and Pope, which Voltaire had overthrown. There is +indeed enough of progress in the past to fire our courage and our hopes. +In moments of depression, he would admire the beautiful invention of +writing and the power of mind displayed in human speech. But the general +panorama of history exhorts us to fundamental change. In bold sweeping +rhetoric he assures us that history is little else than the record of +crime. War has diminished neither its horror nor its frequency, and man +is still the most formidable enemy to man. Despotism is still the fate +of the greatest part of mankind. Penal laws by the terror of punishment +hold a numerous class in abject penury. Robbery and fraud are none the +less continual, and the poor are tempted for ever to violence against +the more fortunate. One person in seven comes in England on the poor +rates. Can the poor conceive of society as a combination to protect +every man in his rights and secure him the means of existence? Is it not +rather for them a conspiracy to engross its advantages for the favoured +few? Luxury insults them; admiration is the exclusive property of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +rich, and contempt the constant lacquey of poverty. Nowhere is a man +valued for what he is. Legislation aggravates the natural inequality of +man. A house of landlords sets to work to deprive the poor of the little +commonage of nature which remained to them, and its bias stands revealed +when we recollect that in England (as Paine had pointed out) while taxes +on land produce half a million less than they did a century ago, taxes +on articles of general consumption produce thirteen millions more. +Robbery is a capital offence because the poor alone are tempted to it. +Among the poor alone is all combination forbidden. Godwin was often an +incautious rhetorician. He painted the present in colours of such +unrelieved gloom, that it is hard to see in it the possibility of a +brighter future. Mankind seems hopeless, and he has to prove it perfectible.</p> + +<p>Are these evils then the necessary condition of society? Godwin answers +that question as the French school, and in particular Helvétius, had +done, by a preliminary assault on the assumptions of a reactionary +philosophy. He proposes to exhort the human will to embark with a +conscious and social resolve on the adventure of perfection. He must +first demonstrate that the will is sovereign.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> Man is the creature of +necessity, and the nexus of cause and effect governs the moral world +like the physical. We are the product of our conditions. But among +conditions some are within the power of the will to change and others +are not. Montesquieu had insisted that it is climate which ultimately +differentiates the races of mankind. Climate is clearly a despotism +which we can never hope to reform away. Another school has taught that +men come into the world with innate ideas and a predetermined character. +Others again would dispute that man is in his actions a reasonable +being, and would represent him as the toy of passion, a creature to whom +it is useless to present an argument drawn from his own advantage. The +first task of the progressive philosopher is to clear away these +preliminary obstacles. Man is the creature of conditions, but primarily +of those conditions which he may hope to modify—education, religion, +social prejudice and above all government. He is also in the last resort +a being whose conduct is governed by his opinions. Admit these premises +and the way is clear towards perfection. It is a problem which in some +form and in some dialect confronts every generation of reformers. We are +the creatures of our own environment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> but in some degree we are +ourselves a force which can modify that environment. We inherit a past +which weighs upon us and obsesses us, but in some degree each generation +is born anew. Godwin used the new psychology against the old +superstition of innate ideas. A modern thinker in his place would +advance Weissmann's biological theory that the acquired modifications of +an organism are not inherited, as an answer to the pessimism which bases +itself upon heredity.</p> + +<p>Godwin starts boldly with the thesis that "the characters of men +originate in their external circumstances." He brushes aside innate +ideas or instincts or even ante-natal impressions. Accidents in the womb +may have a certain effect, and every man has a certain disposition at +birth. But the multiplicity of later experiences wears out these early +impressions. Godwin, in all this, reproduces the current fallacy of his +generation. Impressions and experiences were for them something +external, flung upon the surface of the mind. They were just beginning +to realise that the mind works when it perceives. Change a nobleman's +child at birth with a ploughman's, and each will grow up quite naturally +in his new circumstances. Exercise makes the muscles; education,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +argument, and the exchange of opinion the mind. "It is impression that +makes the man, and compared with the empire of impression, the mere +differences of animal structure are inexpressibly unimportant and +powerless." Change continues through life; everything mental and +physical is in flux; why suppose that only in the propensities of the +new-born infant is there something permanent and inflexible? Helvétius +had been Godwin's chief precursor in this opinion. He had gone so far as +to declare that men are at birth equal, some raw human stuff which +"education," in the broad sense of the word, proceeds to modify in the +long schooling from the cradle to the grave. Men differ in genius, he +would assert, by education and experience, not by natural organisation. +The original acuteness of the senses has little to do with the +development of talent. The new psychology had swept "faculties" away. +Interest is the main factor in the development of perception and +attention. The scarcity of attention is the true cause of the scarcity +of genius, and the chief means of promoting it are emulation and the love of glory.</p> + +<p>Godwin is too cautious to accept this ultra-revolutionary statement of +the potential equality of men without some reserves. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> the idea +inspires him as it inspired all the vital thought of his day. It set +humane physicians at the height of the Terror to work on discovering a +method by which even defective and idiot children might be raised by +"education" to the normal stature of the human mind. It fired Godwin +himself with a zeal for education. "Folly," said Helvétius, "is +factitious." "Nature," said Godwin, "never made a dunce." The failures +of education are due primarily to the teacher's error in substituting +compulsion for persuasion and despotism for encouragement. The +excellences and defects of the human character are not due to occult +causes beyond the reach of ingenuity to modify or correct, nor are false +views the offspring of an irresistible destiny. Our conventional schools +are the slaughterhouses of mind; but of all the external influences +which build up character and opinion, the chief are political. It is +Godwin's favourite theme, and he carries it even further than Holbach +and Helvétius had done. From this influence there is no escape, for it +infects the teacher no less than the taught. Equality will make men +frank, ingenuous and intrepid, but a great disparity of ranks renders +men cold, irresolute, timid and cautious. However lofty the morality of +the teacher, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> mind of the child is continually corrupted by seeing, +in the society around him, wealth honoured, poverty contemned, intrepid +virtue proscribed and servility encouraged. From the influence of social +and political institutions there is no escape: "They poison our minds +before we can resist or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the +barbarous directors of Eastern seraglios they deprive us of our +virility, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle. So +false is the opinion that has too generally prevailed that politics is +an affair with which ordinary men have little concern."</p> + +<p>Here Godwin is introducing into English thinking an idea originally +French. English writers from Locke to Paine had spoken of government as +something purely negative, so little important that only when a man saw +his property threatened or his shores invaded, was he forced to +recollect that he had a country. Godwin saw its influence everywhere, +insinuating itself into our personal dispositions and insensibly +communicating its spirit to our private transactions. The idea in his +hands made for hope. Reform, or better still, abolish governments, and +to what heights of virtue might not men aspire? We need not say with +Rousseau that men are naturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> virtuous. The child, as Helvétius +delighted to point out, will do that for a coral or a doll which he will +do at a mature age for a title or a sceptre. Men are rather the +infinitely malleable, variable stuff on which education and persuasion can play.</p> + +<p>The first essential dogma of perfectibility, the first presupposition of +progress is, then, that men's characters depend on external +circumstances. The second dogma, the second condition of hope is that +the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions. It is an +orthodox Socratic position, but Godwin was not a student of Plato. He +laid down this dogma as the necessary basis of any reform by persuasion. +There is much virtue in the word "voluntary." In so far as actions are +voluntary, the doctrine is self-evident. A voluntary action is +accompanied by foresight, and the idea of certain consequences is its +motive. A judgment "this is good" or "this is desirable," has preceded +the action, and it originates therefore in an opinion however fugitive. +In moments of passion my attention is so engrossed by a particular view +of the subject that I forget considerations by which I am commonly +guided. Even in battles between reason and sense, he holds, the +contending forces assume<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> a rational form. It is opinion contending with +opinion and judgment with judgment. At this point the modern reader will +become sceptical. These internal struggles assume a rational form only +when self-consciousness reviews them—that is to say when they are over. +In point of fact, Godwin argues, sheer sensuality has a smaller empire +over us than we commonly suppose. Strip the feast of its social +pleasures, and the commerce of the sexes of all its intellectual and +emotional allurements, and who would be overcome?</p> + +<p>One need not follow Godwin minutely in his handling of what is after all +a commonplace of academic philosophy. He was concerned to insist that +men's voluntary actions originate in opinion, that he might secure a +fulcrum for the leverage of argument and persuasion. Vice is error, and +error can always be corrected. "Show me in the clearest and most +unambiguous manner that a certain mode of proceeding is most reasonable +in itself, or most conducive to my interest, and I shall infallibly +pursue that mode, so long as the views you suggested to me continue +present to my mind." The practical problem is therefore to make +ourselves and our fellows perfectly conscious of our motives, and always +prepared to render a reason for our actions. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> perfection of human +character is to approach as nearly as possible to the absolutely +voluntary state, to act always, in other words, from a clear and +comprehensive survey of the consequences which we desire to produce.</p> + +<p>The incautious reader may be invited to pause at this point, for in this +premise lies already the whole of philosophic anarchism. You have +admitted that voluntary action is rational. You have conceded that all +action <i>ought</i> to be voluntary. The silent assumption is that by +education and effort it <i>can</i> be made so. One may doubt whether in the +sense required by Godwin's argument any human action ever is or can be +absolutely "voluntary," rational or self-conscious. To attain it, we +should have to reason naked in a desert with algebraic symbols. To use +words is to think in step, and to beg our question. But Godwin is well +aware that most men rarely reason. He is here framing an ideal, without +realising its remoteness. The mischief of his faith in logic as a force, +was that it led him to ignore the æsthetic and emotional influences, by +which the mass of men can best be led to a virtuous ideal. Shelley, who +was a thorough Platonist, supplements, as we shall see (<a href="#Page_234">p. 234</a>), this +characteristic defect in his master's teaching.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> The main conclusions +follow rapidly. Sound reasoning and truth when adequately communicated +must always be victorious over error. Truth, then, is omnipotent, and +the vices and moral weaknesses of man are not invincible. Man, in short, +is perfectible, or in other words, susceptible of perpetual improvement. +These sentiments have to the modern ear a platitudinous ring. So far +from being platitudes, they are explosives capable of destroying the +whole fabric of government. For if truth is omnipotent, why trust to +laws? If men will obey argument, why use constraint?</p> + +<p>But let us move slowly towards this extreme conclusion. If reason +appears to-day to play but a feeble part in society, and exerts only a +limited empire over the actions of men, it is because unlettered +ignorance, social habits and the positive institutions of government +stand in the way. Where the masses of mankind are sunk in brutal +ignorance, one need not wonder that argument and persuasion have but a +small influence with them. Truth indeed is rarely recondite or difficult +to communicate. Godwin might have quoted Helvétius: "It is with genius +as with an astronomer; he sees a new star and forthwith all can see it." +Nor need we fear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> the objection that by introducing an intellectual +element into virtue, we have removed it beyond the reach of simple men. +A virtuous action, indeed, must be good both in intention and in +tendency. Godwin was like Helvétius and Priestley, a Utilitarian in +ethics, and defined duty as that mode of action on the part of the +individual which constitutes the best possible application of his +capacity to the general benefit, in every situation that presents +itself. One may be mistaken as to what will contribute to the general +benefit, as Sir Everard Digby was, for example, when he thought it his +duty to blow up King James and the Parliament. But the simple man need +be at no loss. An earnest desire will in some degree generate capacity. +There Godwin opened a profoundly interesting and stimulating line of +thought. The mind is formed not by its innate powers, but by its +governing desires. As love brings eloquence to the suitor, so if I do +but ardently desire to serve my kind, I shall find out a way, and while +I study a plan shall find that my faculties have been exercised and +increased. Moreover, in the struggle after virtue I am not alone.</p> + +<p>Burke made the first of the virtues prudence. Godwin would have given +sincerity that place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> To him and his circle the chief business of +social converse was by argument and exhortation to strengthen the habit +of virtue. There was something to be said for the practice of auricular +confession; but how much better would it be if every man were to make +the world his confessional and the human species the keeper of his +conscience. The practice of sincerity would give to our conversation a +Roman boldness and fervour. The frank distribution of praise and blame +is the most potent incentive to virtue. Were we but bold and impartial +in our judgments, vice would be universally deserted and virtue +everywhere practised. Our cowardice in censure and correction is the +chief reason of the perpetuation of abuses. If every man would tell all +the truth he knew, it is impossible to predict how short would be the +reign of usurpation and folly. Let our motive be philanthropy, and we +need not fear ruggedness or brutality, disdain or superiority, since we +aim at the interest of him we correct, and not at the triumph of the +corrector. In an aside Godwin demands the abolition of social +conventions which offend sincerity. If I must deny myself to a visitor, +I should scorn the polite lie that I am "not at home."</p> + +<p>It is a consequence also of this doctrine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> that there should be no +prosecutions for libel, even in private matters. Truth depends on the +free shock of opinions, and the unrestrained discussion of private +character is almost as important as freedom in speculative enquiry. "If +the truth were universally told of men's dispositions and actions, +gibbets and wheels might be dismissed from the face of the earth. The +knave unmasked would be obliged to turn honest in his own defence. Nay, +no man would have time to turn a knave. Truth would follow him in his +first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the +commencement of his career." It is shameful for a good man to retort on +a slander, "I will have recourse to the only means that are congenial to +guilt: I will compel you to be silent." Freedom in this matter, as in +all others, will engender activity and fortitude; positive institution +(Godwin's term for law and constraint) makes the mind torpid and +lethargic. It is hardly necessary to reproduce Godwin's vigorous +arguments for unfettered freedom in political and speculative +discussion, against censorships and prosecutions for religious and +political opinions. Even were we secure from the possibility of mistake, +mischief and not good would accrue from the attempt to impose our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +infallible opinions upon our neighbours. Men deserve approbation only in +so far as they are independent in their opinions and free in their actions.</p> + +<p>Equally clear is it that the establishment of religion and all systems +of tests must be abolished. They make for hypocrisy, check advance in +speculation, and teach us to estimate a disinterested sincerity at a +cheap rate. We need not fear disorder as a consequence of complete +liberty of speech. "Arguments alone will not have the power, unassisted +by the sense or the recollection of oppression or treachery to hurry the +people into excesses. Excesses are never the offspring of speculative +reason, are never the offspring of misrepresentation only, but of power +endeavouring to stifle reason, and to traverse the commonsense of mankind."</p> + +<p>A more original deduction from Godwin's demand for the unlimited freedom +of opinion, was that he objected vehemently to any system of national +education. Condorcet had drawn up a marvellously complete project for +universal compulsory education, with full liberty indeed for the +teachers, whose technical competence alone the State would guarantee, +and with a scheme of free scholarships, an educational "ladder" more +generous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> than anything which has yet been realised in fact. Godwin +objects that State-regulated institutions will stereotype knowledge and +make for an undesirable permanence and uniformity in opinion. They +diffuse what is known and forget what remains to be known. They erect a +system of authority and separate a tenet from the evidence on which it +rests, so that beliefs cease to be perceptions and become prejudices. No +Government is to be trusted with the dangerous power to create and +regulate opinions through its schools. Such a power is, indeed, more +dangerous than that of an Established Church, and would be used to +strengthen tyranny and perpetuate faulty institutions.</p> + +<p>Godwin, needless to say, takes, as did Condorcet, the side of frankness +in the controversy which was a test of democratic faith in this +generation—whether "political imposture" is allowable, and whether a +statesman should encourage the diffusion of "salutary prejudices" among +the unlearned, the poor and women. This was indeed the main eighteenth +century defence for monarchy and aristocracy. Kings and governors are +not wiser than other men, but it is useful that they should be thought +so. Such imposture, Godwin argued, is as futile as the parallel use by +religion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> pains and penalties of the afterworld. It is the sober +who are demoralised by it, and not the lawless who are deterred. To +terrify men is a strange way of rendering them judicious, fearless and +happy. It is to leave men indolent and unbraced by truth. He objects +even to the trappings and ceremonies which are used to render +magistrates outwardly venerable and awe-inspiring, so that they may +impress the irrational imagination. These means may be used as easily to +support injustice as to render justice acceptable. They divide men into +two classes; those who may reason, and those who must take everything on +trust. This is to degrade them both. The masses are kept in perpetual +vibration between rebellious discontent and infatuated credulity. And +can we suppose that the practice of concealment and hypocrisy will make +no breaches in the character of the governing class?</p> + +<p>The general effect of any meddling of authority with opinion is that the +mind is robbed of its genuine employment. Such a system produces beings +wanting in independence, and in that intrepid perseverance and calm +self-approbation which grow from independence. Such beings are the mere +dwarfs and mockeries of men.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>Godwin was at issue here as much with Rousseau as with Burke, but his +trust in the people, it should be explained, was based rather on faith +in what they might become, than on admiration for what they were.</p> + +<p>That all government is an evil, though doubtless a necessary evil, was +the typical opinion of the individualistic eighteenth century. It would +not long have survived such proposals as Paine's scheme of old age +pensions and Condorcet's project of national education. When men have +perceived that an evil can be turned to good account, they are already +on the road which will lead them to discard their premises. But Godwin +was quite unaffected by this new Liberalism. No positive good was to be +hoped from government, and much positive evil would flow from it at the +best. In his absolute individualism he went further. The whole idea of +government was radically wrong. For him the individual was tightly +enclosed in his own skin, and any constraint was an infringement of his +personality. He would have poured scorn on the half-mystical conception +of a social organism. Nor did it occur to him that a man might +voluntarily subject himself to government, losing none of his own +autonomy in the act, from a persuasion that government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> is on the whole +a benefit, and that submission, even when his own views are thwarted, is +a free man's duty within certain limits, accepted gladly for the sake of +preserving an institution which commonly works well. He did not see the +institution working well; he did not believe in the benefits; he was +convinced that more than all the advantages of the best of governments +could be obtained from the free operation of opinion in an unorganised +community.</p> + +<p>His main point is lucidly simple. It was an application of the Whig and +Protestant doctrine of the right of private judgment. "If in any +instance I am made the mechanical instrument of absolute violence, in +that instance I fall under a pure state of external slavery." Nor is the +case much better, if instead of waiting for the actual application of +coercion, I act in obedience to authority from the hope and fear of the +State's rewards and punishments. For virtue has ceased, and I am acting +from self-interest. It is a triviality to distinguish, as Whig thinkers +do, between matters of conscience (in which the State should not meddle) +and my conduct in the civil concerns of daily life (which the State +should regulate). What sort of moralist can he be, who makes no +conscience of what he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> does in his daily intercourse with other men? "I +have deeply reflected upon the nature of virtue, and am convinced that a +certain proceeding is incumbent on me. But the hangman supported by an +Act of Parliament assures me that I am mistaken. If I yield my opinion +to his dictum, my action becomes modified, and my character also.... +Countries exposed to the perpetual interference of decrees instead of +arguments, exhibit within their boundaries the mere phantoms of men."</p> + +<p>The root of the whole matter is that brute force is an offence against +reason, and an unnecessary offence, if in fact men are guided by opinion +and will yield to argument. "The case of punishment is the case of you +and me differing in opinion, and your telling me that you must be right +since you have a more brawny arm."</p> + +<p>If I must obey, it is better and less demoralising to yield an external +submission so as to escape penalty or constraint, than to yield to +authority from a general confidence which enslaves the mind. Comply but +criticise. Obey but beware of reverence. If I surrender my conscience to +another man's keeping, I annihilate my individuality as a man, and +become the ready tool of him among my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> neighbours who shall excel in +imposture and artifice. I put an end moreover to the happy collision of +understandings upon which the hopes of human improvement depend. +Governments depend upon the unlimited confidence of their subjects, and +confidence rests upon ignorance.</p> + +<p>Government (has not Burke said so?) is the perpetual enemy of change, +and prompts us to seek the public welfare not in alteration and +improvement, but in a timid reverence for the decisions of our +ancestors, as if it were the nature of the human mind always to +degenerate and never to advance. Godwin thought with John Bright, "We +stand on the shoulders of our forefathers—and see further."</p> + +<p>In proportion as weakness and ignorance shall diminish, the basis of +government will also decay. That will be its true euthanasia.</p> + +<p>There is indeed nothing to be said for government save that for a time, +and within jealously drawn limits, it may be a fatal and indispensable +necessity. A just government cannot be founded on force: for force has +no affinity with justice. It cannot be based upon the will of God; we +have no revelation that recommends one form of government rather than +another. As little can it be based upon contract. Who were the parties +to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> pretended social contract? For whom did they consent, for +themselves or for their descendants, and to how great a variety of +propositions? Have I assented or my ancestors for me, to the laws of +England in fifty volumes folio, and to all that shall hereafter be added +to them? In a few contemptuous pages Godwin buries the social contract. +Men when they digest the articles of a contract are not empowered to +create rights, but only to declare what was previously right. But the +doctrine of the natural rights of man fares no better at his hands. +There is no such thing as a positive right to do as we list. One way of +acting in every emergency is reasonable, and the other is not. One way +will benefit mankind, and the other will not. It is a pestilent doctrine +and a denial of all virtue, to say that we have a right to do what we +will with our own. Everything we possess has a destination prescribed to +it by the immutable voice of reason and justice.</p> + +<p>Duties and rights are correlative. As it cannot be the duty of men or +societies to do anything to the detriment of human happiness, so it +appears with equal evidence that they cannot have the right to do so. +There cannot be a more absurd proposition than that which affirms the +right of doing wrong. The voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> of the people is not the voice of God, +nor does universal consent or a majority vote convert wrong into right. +It is absurd to say that any set of people has a right to set up any +form of government it chooses, or any sect to establish any superstition +however detestable. All this would have delighted Burke, but Godwin +stands firmly in his path by asserting what he calls the one negative +right of man. It is in a word, the right to exercise virtue, the right +to a region of choice, a sphere of discretion, which his neighbours must +not infringe save by censure and remonstrance. When I am constrained, I +cease to be a person, and become a thing. "I ought to exercise my +talents for the benefit of others, but the exercise must be the fruit of +my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service."</p> + +<p>Government is an evil, and the business of human advancement is to +dispense with it as rapidly as may be. In the period of transition +Godwin had but a secondary interest, and his sketch of it is slight. He +dismisses in turn despotism, aristocracy, the "mixed monarchy" of the +Whigs, and the president with kingly powers of some American thinkers. +His pages on these subjects are vigorous, well-reasoned, and pointed in +their satire. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> required much courage to write them, but they do not +contain his original contribution to political theory. What is most +characteristic in his line of argument is his insistence on the moral +corruption that monarchy and aristocracy involve. The whole standard of +moral values is subverted. To achieve ostentation becomes the first +object of desire. Disinterested virtue is first suspected and then +viewed with incredulity. Luxury meanwhile distorts our whole attitude to +our fellows, and in every effort to excel and shine we wrong the +labouring millions. Aristocracy involves general degradation, and can +survive only amid general ignorance. "To make men serfs and villeins it +is indispensably necessary to make them brutes.... A servant who has +been taught to write and read, ceases to be any longer a passive machine."</p> + +<p>From the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy Godwin, and indeed the +whole revolutionary school, expected the cessation of war. War and +conquest elevate the few at the expense of the rest, and cannot benefit +the whole community. Democracies have no business with war save to repel +an invasion of their territory. He thought of patriotism and love of +country much as did Dr. Price.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> They are (as Hervé has argued in our own +day) specious illusions invented to render the multitude the blind +instruments of crooked designs. We must not be lured into pursuing the +general wealth, prosperity or glory of the society to which we belong. +Society is an abstraction, an "ideal existence," and is not on its own +account entitled to the smallest regard. Let us not be led away into +rendering services to society for which no individual man is the better. +Godwin is scornful of wars to maintain the balance of power, or to +protect our fellow-countrymen abroad. Some proportion must be observed +between the evil of which we complain and the evil which the proposed +remedy inevitably includes. War may be defensible in support of the +liberty of an oppressed people, but let us wait (here he is clearly +censuring the practice of the French Republic) until the oppressed +people rises. Do not interfere to force it to be free, and do not forget +the resources of pacific persuasion. As to foreign possessions there is +little to be said. Do without them. Let colonies attend to their own +defence; no State would wish to have colonies if free trade were +universal. Liberty is equally good for every race of men, and democracy, +since it is founded on reason, a universal form of government. There +follow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> some naïve prescriptions for conducting democratic wars. +Sincerity forbids ambuscades and secresy. Never invade, nor assume the +offensive. A citizen militia must replace standing armies. Training and +discipline are of little value; the ardour of a free people will supply +their place.</p> + +<p>Godwin's leading idea when he comes to sketch a shadowy constitution is +an extreme dislike of overgrown national States. Political speculation +in his day idealised the city republic of antiquity. Helvétius, hoping +to get rid as far as possible of government, had advocated a system of +federated commonwealths, each so small that public opinion and the fear +of shame would act powerfully within it. He would have divided France +into thirty republics, each returning four deputies to a federal +council. The Girondins cherished the same idea, and lost their heads for +it. Tolstoy, going back to the village community as the only possible +scene of a natural and virtuous life, exhibits the same tendency.</p> + +<p>For Godwin the true unit of society is the parish. Neighbours best +understand each others' concerns, and in a limited area there is no room +for ambition to unfold itself. Great talents will have their sphere +outside this little circle in the work of moulding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> opinion. Within the +parish public opinion is supreme, and acts through juries, which may at +first be obliged to exert some degree of violence in dealing with +offenders:—"But this necessity does not arise out of the nature of man, +but out of the institutions by which he has already been corrupted. Man +is not originally vicious. He would not ... refuse to be convinced by +the expostulations that are addressed to him, had he not been accustomed +to regard them as hypocritical, and to conceive that while his +neighbour, his parent and his political governor pretended to be +actuated by a pure regard to his interest or pleasure, they were in +reality, at the expense of his, promoting their own.... Render the plain +dictates of justice level to every capacity ... and the whole species +will become reasonable and virtuous. It will then be sufficient for +juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, without +assuming the prerogative of dictating that adjustment. It will then be +sufficient for them to invite offenders to forsake their errors.... +Where the empire of reason was so universally acknowledged, the offender +would either readily yield to the expostulations of authority, or if he +resisted, though suffering no personal molestation, he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> feel so +weary under the unequivocal disapprobation and the observant eye of +public judgment as willingly to remove to a society more congenial to +his errors." The picture is not so Utopian as it sounds. It is a very +fair sketch of the social structure of a Macedonian village community +under Turkish rule, with the massacres left out.</p> + +<p>For the rest Godwin was reluctantly prepared to admit the wisdom of +instituting a single chamber National Assembly, to manage the common +affairs of the parishes, to arrange their disputes and to provide for +national defence. But it should suffice for it to meet for one day +annually or thereabouts. Like the juries it would at first issue +commands, but would in time find it sufficient to publish invitations +backed by arguments. Godwin, who is quite prepared to idealise his +district juries, pours forth an unstinted contempt upon Parliaments and +their procedure. They make a show of unanimity where none exists. The +prospect of a vote destroys the intellectual value of debate; the will +of one man really dominates, and the existence of party frustrates +persuasion. The whole is based upon "that intolerable insult upon all +reason and justice, the deciding upon truth by the casting up of +numbers." He omits to tell us whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> he would allow his juries to +vote. Fortunately legislation is unnecessary: "The inhabitants of a +small parish living with some degree of that simplicity which best +corresponds with the real nature and wants of a human being, would soon +be led to suspect that general laws were unnecessary and would adjudge +the causes that came before them not according to certain axioms +previously written, but according to the circumstances and demand of +each particular cause."</p> + +<p>Godwin had a clear mental picture of the gradual decay of authority +towards the close of the period of transition; his vision of the earlier +stages is less definite. He set his faith on the rapid working of +enquiry and persuasion, but he does not explain in detail how, for +example, we are to rid ourselves of kings. He once met the Prince +Regent, but it is not recorded that he talked to him of virtue and +equality, as the early Quakers talked to the man Charles Stuart. He is +chiefly concerned to warn his revolutionary friends against abrupt +changes. There must be a general desire for change, a conviction of the +understanding among the masses, before any change is wise. When a whole +nation, or even an unquestionable majority of a nation, is resolved on +change, no government, even with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> a standing army behind it, can stand +against it. Every reformer imagines that the country is with him. What +folly! Even when the majority seems resolved, what is the quality of +their resolution? They do, perhaps, sincerely dislike some specific tax. +But do they dislike the vice and meanness that grow out of tyranny, and +pant for the liberal and ingenuous virtue that would be fostered in +their own minds by better conditions? It is a disaster when the +unillumined masses are instigated to violent revolution. Revolutions are +always crude, bloody, uncertain and inimical to tolerance, independence, +and intellectual inquiry. They are a detestable persecution when a +minority promotes them. If they must occur, at least postpone them as +long as possible. External freedom is worthless without the <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'magnaminity'">magnanimity</ins>, +firmness and energy that should attend it. But if a man have these +things, there is little left for him to desire. He cannot be degraded, +nor become useless and unhappy. Let us not be in haste to overthrow the +usurped powers of the world. Make men wise, and by that very operation +you make them free. It is unfortunate that men are so eager to strike +and have so little constancy to reason. We should desire neither violent +change nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> the stagnation that inflames and produces revolutions. Our +prayer to governments should be, "Do not give us too soon; do not give +us too much; but act under the incessant influence of a disposition to +give us something."</p> + +<p>These are the reflections of a man who wrote amid the Terror. He had +seen the Corresponding Society at work, and the experience made him more +than sceptical of any form of association in politics, and led him into +a curiously biassed argument, rhetorical in form, forensic in substance. +Temporary combinations may be necessary in a time of turmoil, or to +secure some single limited end, such as the redress of a wrong done to +an individual. Where their scope is general and their duration long +continued, they foster declamation, cabal, party spirit and tumult. They +are frequented by the artful, the intemperate, the acrimonious, and +avoided by the sober, the sceptical, the contemplative citizen. They +foster a fallacious uniformity of opinion and render the mind quiescent +and stationary. Truth disclaims the alliance of marshalled numbers. The +conditions most favourable to reasoned enquiry and calm persuasion are +to be found in small and friendly circles. The moral beauty of the +spectacle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> offered by these groups of friends united to pursue truth and +foster virtue, will render it contagious. So the craggy steep of science +will be levelled and knowledge rendered accessible to all.</p> + +<p>The conception of the State which Godwin sought to supplant was itself +limited and negative. Government was little else in his day than a means +for internal defence against criminals and for external defence against +aggression. For the rest, it helped landlords to enclose commons, kept +down wages by poor relief and in a muddle-headed way interfered with the +freedom of trade. But its central activity was the repression of crime, +and for Godwin's system the test question was his handling of the +problem of crime and punishment. He was no Platonist, but not for the +first time we discover him in a familiar Socratic position. "Do you +punish a man," asked Socrates, "to make him better or to make him +worse?" Godwin starts by rejecting the traditional conception of +punishment. The word means the infliction of evil upon a vicious being, +not merely because the public advantage demands it, but because there is +a certain fitness and propriety in making suffering the accompaniment of +vice, quite apart from any benefit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> that may be in the result. No +adherent of the doctrine of necessity in morals can justify that +attitude. The assassin could no more avoid the murder he committed than +could the dagger. Justice opposes any suffering, which is not attended +by benefit. Resentment against vice will not excuse useless torture. We +must banish the conception of desert. To punish for what is past and +irrecoverable must be ranked among the most baleful conceptions of +barbarism. Xerxes was not more unreasonable when he lashed the waves of +the sea, than that man would be who inflicted suffering on his fellow +from a view to the past and not from a view to the future.</p> + +<p>Excluding all idea of punishment in the proper sense of the word, it +remains only to consider such coercion as is used against persons +convicted of injurious action in the past, for the purpose of preventing +future mischief. Godwin now invites us to consider the futility of +coercion as a means of reforming, or as he would say, "enlightening the +understanding" of a man who has erred. Our aim is to bring him to the +acceptance of our conception of duty. Assuming that we possess more of +eternal justice than he, do we shrink from setting our wit against his? +Instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> acting as his preceptor we become his tyrant. Coercion first +annihilates the understanding of its victim, and then of him who adopts +it. Dressed in the supine prerogatives of a master, he is excused from +cultivating the faculties of a man. Coercion begins by producing pain, +by violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to +be impressed. It includes a tacit confession of imbecility.</p> + +<p>With some hesitation Godwin allows the use of force to restrain a man +found in actual violence. We may not have time to reason with him. But +even for self-defence there are other resources. "The powers of the mind +are yet unfathomed." He tells the story of Marius, who overawed the +soldier sent into his cell to execute him, with the words, "Wretch, have +you the temerity to kill Marius?" Were we all accustomed to place an +intrepid confidence in the unaided energy of the intellect, to despise +force in others and to refuse to employ it ourselves, who shall say how +far the species might be improved? But punitive coercion deals only with +a man whose violence is over. The only rational excuse for it is to +restrain a man from further violence which he will presumably commit. +Godwin condemns capital punishment as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> excessive, since restraint can be +attained without it, and corporal chastisement as an offence against the +dignity of the human mind. Let there be nothing in the state of +transition worse than simple imprisonment. Godwin, however, dissents +vehemently from Howard's invention of solitary confinement, designed to +shield the prisoner from the contamination of his fellow criminals. Man +is a social animal and virtue depends on social relations. As a +preliminary to acquiring it is he to be shut out from the society of his +fellows? How shall he exercise benevolence or justice in his cell? Will +his heart become softened or expand who breathes the atmosphere of a +dungeon? Solitary confinement is the bitterest torment that human +ingenuity can inflict. The least objectionable method of depriving a +criminal of the power to harm society is banishment or transportation. +Expose him to the stimulus of necessity in an unsettled country. New +conditions make new minds. But the whole attempt to apply law breaks +down. You must heap edict on edict, and to make your laws fit your +cases, must either for ever wrest them or make new ones. Law does not +end uncertainty, and it debilitates the mind. So long as men are +habituated to look to foreign guidance and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> external rules for +direction, so long the vigour of their minds will sleep.</p> + +<p>If Fénelon, saint and philosopher, with an incompleted masterpiece in +his pocket, and Fénelon's chambermaid, were both in danger of burning to +death in the archiepiscopal palace at Cambrai, and if I could save only +one of them, which ought I to save? It is a fascinating problem in +casuistry, and Godwin with his usual decision of mind, has no doubt +about the solution. He would save Fénelon as the more valuable life, and +above all Fénelon's manuscript, and the maid, he is quite sure, would +wish to give her life for his. Something (the modern reader will object) +might be urged on the other side. Just because he was a saint, it might +be argued that he was the fitter of the two to face the great adventure, +and one may be sure that he himself would have thought so. A philosopher +who gives his life for a kitten will have advanced the Kingdom of +Heaven. The chambermaid, moreover, may have in her a potentiality of +love and happiness which are worth many a masterpiece of French prose. +But Godwin has not yet exhausted his moral problem. How, if the maid +were my mother, wife or benefactress? Once more he gives his unflinching +answer. Justice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> still requires of me in the interests of mankind to +save the more valuable life. "What magic is there in the pronoun 'my' to +overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?" My mother may be a fool, a +liar, or a thief. Of what consequence then, is it that she is "mine"? +Gratitude ought not to blind me to my duty, though she have suckled me +and nursed me. The benevolence of a benefactor ought indeed to be +esteemed, but not because it benefited me. A benefactor ought to be +esteemed as much by another as by me, solely because he benefited a +human being. Gratitude, in short, has no place in justice or virtue, and +reason declines to recognise the private affections.</p> + +<p>Such, crudely stated, is Godwin's famous doctrine of "universal +benevolence." The virtuous man is like Swift's Houyhnhnms, noble +quadrupeds, wholly governed by reason, who cared for strangers as well +as for the nearest neighbour, and showed the same affection for their +neighbour's offspring as for their own. The centre of Godwin's moral +teaching was yet another Socratic thought. Politics are "the proper +vehicle of a liberal morality," and morals concern our relation to the +whole body of mankind. To realise justice is our prime concern as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +rational beings, and society is nothing but embodied justice. Justice +deals with beings capable of pleasure and pain. Here we are partakers of +a common nature with like faculties for suffering or enjoyment. +"Justice," then, "is that impartial treatment of every man in matters +that relate to his happiness, which is measured solely by a +consideration of the properties of the receiver and the capacity of him +who gives." Every man with whom I am in contact is a sentient being, and +one should be as much to me as another, save indeed where equity +corrects equality, by suggesting to me that one individual may be of +more value than another, because of his greater power to benefit +mankind. Justice exacts from us the application of our talents, time, +and resources with the single object of producing the greatest sum of +benefit to sentient beings. There is no limit to what I am bound to do +for the general weal. I hold my person and property both in trust on +behalf of mankind. A man who needs £10 has an absolute claim on me, if I +have it, unless it can be shown that the money could be more +beneficially applied. Every shilling I possess is irrevocably assigned +by some claim of eternal justice. Every article of property, it follows, +should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> belong to him in whose hands it will be of most benefit, and the +instrument of the greatest happiness.</p> + +<p>It is the love of distinction which attends wealth in corrupt societies +that explains the desire for luxury. We desire not the direct pleasure +to be derived from excessive possessions, but the consideration which is +attached to it. Our very clothes are an appeal to the goodwill of our +neighbours, and a refuge from their contempt. Society would be +transformed if the distinction were reversed, if admiration were no +longer rendered to the luxurious and avaricious and were accorded only +to talent and virtue. Let not the necessity of rewarding virtue be +suggested as a justification for the inequalities of fortune. Shall we +say, to a virtuous man: "If you show yourself deserving, you shall have +the essence of a hundred times more food than you can eat, and a hundred +times more clothes than you can wear. You shall have a patent for taking +away from others the means of a happy and respectable existence, and for +consuming them in riotous and unmeaning extravagance." Is this the +reward that ought to be offered to virtue, or that virtue should stoop +to take? Godwin is at his best on this theme of luxury: "Every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> man may +calculate in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament he +annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to +slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual +hardships, deplorable ignorance and brutal insensibility, that he may be +supplied with these luxuries. It is a gross imposition that men are +accustomed to put upon themselves, when they talk of the property +bequeathed to them by their ancestors. The property is produced by the +daily labour of men who are now in existence. All that the ancestors +bequeathed to them was a mouldy patent which they show as a title to +extort from their neighbours what the labour of those neighbours has +produced."</p> + +<p>It is a flagrant immorality that one man should have the power to +dispose of the produce of another man's toil, yet to maintain this power +is the main concern of police and legislation. Morality recognises two +degrees of property, (1) things which will produce the greatest benefit, +if attributed to me, in brief the necessities of life, my food, clothes, +furniture and apartment; (2) the empire which every man may claim over +the produce of his own industry, even over that part of it which ought +not to be used and appropriated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> by himself. Every man is a steward. But +subject to censure and remonstrance, he must be free to dispose of his +property as his own understanding shall dictate. The ideal is equality, +and all society should be what Coleridge called a Pantisocracy. It is +wrong for any one to enjoy anything, unless something similar is +accessible to all, and wrong to produce luxuries until the elementary +wants of all are satisfied. But it would be futile and wrong to attempt +to equalise property by positive enactment. It would be useless until +men are virtuous, and unnecessary when they are so. The moment +accumulation and monopoly are regarded by any society as dishonourable +and mischievous, the revolution in opinion will ensure that comforts +shall tend to a level.</p> + + +<p>Godwin objects to the plans put forward in France during the Revolution +for interfering with bequests and inheritance. He would, however, check +the incentives to accumulation by abolishing the feudal system, +primogeniture, titles and entail. Property is sacred—that good men may +be free to give it away. Reform public opinion, and a man engaged in +amassing wealth would soon hide his treasures as carefully as he now +displays them. The first step is to rob wealth of its distinction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +Wealth is acquired to-day in over-reaching our neighbours, and spent in +insulting them. Establish equality on a firm basis of rational opinion, +and you cut off for ever the great occasion of crime, remove the +constant spectacle of injustice with all its attendant demoralisation, +and liberate genius now immersed in sordid cares.</p> + +<p>"In a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where +all shared alike the bounties of nature, the sentiments of oppression, +servility and fraud would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of +selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little +store, or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each +would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. +No man would be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would have no +subject of contention, and of consequence philanthropy would resume the +empire which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her +perpetual anxiety about corporal support, and freed to expatiate in the +field of thought, which is congenial to her. Each would assist the +enquiries of all."</p> + +<p>Unnecessary tasks absorb most of our labour to-day. In the ideal +community,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> Godwin reckons that half an hour's toil from every man daily +will suffice to produce the necessities of life. He modified this +sanguine estimate in a later essay (<i>The Enquirer</i>) to two hours. He +dismisses all objections based on the sloth or selfishness of human +nature, by the simple answer that this happy state of things will not be +realised until human nature has been reformed. Need individuality +suffer? It need fear only the restraint imposed by candid public +opinion. That will not be irksome, because it will be frank. We shrink +from it to-day, only because it takes the form of clandestine scandal +and backbiting. Godwin contemplates no Spartan plan of common labour or +common meals. "Everything understood by the term co-operation is in some +sense an evil." To be sure, it may be indispensable in order to cut a +canal or navigate a ship. But mechanical invention will gradually make +it unnecessary. The Spartans used slaves. We shall make machines our +helots. Indeed, so odious is co-operation to a free mind, that Godwin +marvels that men can consent to play music in concert, or can demean +themselves to execute another man's compositions, while to act a part in +a play amounts almost to an offence against sincerity. Such +extravagances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> as this passage are amongst the most precious things in +<i>Political Justice</i>. Godwin was a fanatic of logic who warns us against +his individualist premises by pressing them to a fantastic conclusion.</p> + +<p>The sketch of the ideal community concludes with a demolition of the +family. Cohabitation, he argued, is in itself an evil. It melts opinions +to a common mould, and destroys the fortitude of the individual. The +wishes of two people who live together can never wholly coincide. Hence +follow thwartings of the will, bickering and misery. No man is always +cheerful and kind. We manage to correct a stranger with urbanity and +good humour. Only when the intercourse is too close and unremitted do we +degenerate into surliness and invective. In an earlier chapter Godwin +had formulated a general objection to all promises, which reminds us of +Tolstoy's sermons from the same individualistic standpoint on the text, +"Swear not at all." Every conceivable mode of action has its tendency to +benefit or injure mankind. I am bound in duty to one course of action in +every emergency—the course most conducive to the general welfare. Why, +then, should I bind myself by a promise? If my promise contradicts my +duty it is immoral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> if it agrees with it, it teaches me to do that from +a precarious and temporary motive which ought to be done from its +intrinsic recommendations. By promising we bind ourselves to learn +nothing from time, to make no use of knowledge to be acquired. Promises +depose us from a full use of our understanding, and are to be tolerated +only in the trivial engagements of our day-to-day existence. It follows +that marriage is an evil, for it is at once the closest form of +cohabitation, and the rashest of all promises. Two thoughtless and +romantic people, met in youth under circumstances full of delusion, have +bound themselves, not by reason but by contract, to make the best, when +they discover their deception, of an irretrievable mistake. Its maxim +is, "If you have made a mistake, cherish it." So long as this +institution survives, "philanthropy will be crossed in a thousand ways, +and the still augmenting stream of abuse continue to flow."</p> + +<p>Godwin has little fear of lust or license. Men will, on the whole, +continue to prefer one partner, and friendship will refine the grossness +of sense. There are worse evils than open and avowed inconstancy—the +loathsome combination of deceitful intrigue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> with the selfish monopoly +of property. That a child should know its father is no great matter, for +I ought not in reason to prefer one human being to another because he is +"mine." The mother will care for the child with the spontaneous help of +her neighbours. As to the business of supplying children with food and +clothing, "these would easily find their true level and spontaneously +flow from the quarter in which they abounded to the quarter that was +deficient." There must be no barter or exchange, but only giving from +pure benevolence without the prospect of reciprocal advantage.</p> + +<p>The picture of this easy-going Utopia, in which something will always +turn up for nobody's child, concludes with two sections which exhibit in +nice juxtaposition the extravagance and the prudence of Godwin. We may +look forward to great physical changes. We shall acquire an empire over +our bodies, and may succeed in making even our reflex notions conscious. +We must get rid of sleep, one of the most conspicuous infirmities of the +human frame. Life can be prolonged by intellect. We are sick and we die +because in a certain sense we consent to suffer these accidents. When +the limit of population is reached, men will refuse to propagate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +themselves further. Society will be a people of men, and not of +children, adult, veteran, experienced; and truth will no longer have to +recommence her career at the end of thirty years. Meanwhile let the +friends of justice avoid violence, eschew massacres, and remember that +prudent handling will win even rich men for the cause of human +perfection.</p> + +<p>So ends <i>Political Justice</i>, the strangest amalgam in our literature of +caution with enthusiasm, of visions with experience, of French logic +with English tactlessness, a book which only genius could have made so +foolish and so wise.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>GODWIN AND THE REACTION</h4> + +<p><i>Political Justice</i> brought its author instant fame. Society was for a +moment intimidated by the boldness of the attack. The world was in a +generous mood, and men did not yet resent Godwin's flattering suggestion +that they were demigods who disguised their own greatness. He had +assailed all the accepted dogmas and venerable institutions of +contemporary civilisation, from monarchy to marriage, but it was only +after several years that society recovered its breath, and turned to +rend him. He became an oracle in an ever-widening circle of friends, and +was naïvely pleased to find, when he went into the country, that even in +remote villages his name was known. He was everywhere received as a +sage, and some years passed before he discovered how much of this +deference was a polite disguise for the vulgar curiosity that attends a +sudden celebrity. Prosperity was a wholesome stimulus. He was "exalted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +in spirits," and became for a time (he tells us) "more of a talker than +I was before, or have been since."</p> + +<p>In this mood he wrote the one book which has lived as a popular +possession, and held its place among the classics which are frequently +reprinted. <i>Caleb Williams</i> (published in 1794) is incomparably the best +of his novels, and the one great work of fiction in our language which +owes its existence to the fruitful union of the revolutionary and +romantic movements. It spoke to its own day as Hugo's <i>Les Misérables</i> +and Tolstoy's <i>Resurrection</i> spoke to later generations. It is as its +preface tells us, "a general review of the modes of domestic and +unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man." It +conveys in the form of an eventful personal history the essence of the +criticism against society, which had inspired <i>Political Justice</i>. +Godwin's imagination was haunted by a persistent nightmare, in which a +lonely individual finds arrayed against him all the prejudices of +society, all the forms of convention, all the forces of law. They hurl +themselves upon him in a pitiless pursuit, and wherever he flees, the +pervading corruptions, the ingrained cowardices of over-governed mankind +beset his feet like gins and pitfalls. It was a hereditary nightmare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +and with a less pedestrian imagination, his daughter, Mary Shelley, used +the same theme of a remorseless pursuit in <i>Frankenstein</i>.</p> + +<p>Caleb Williams, a promising lad of humble birth but good parts, is +broken at the outset of his career, in the tremendous clash between two +formidable characters, who represent, each in his own way, the +corruptions of aristocracy. Mr. Tyrrel is a brutal English squire, a +coarse and domineering bully, whom birth and wealth arm with the power +to crush his dependents. Mr. Falkland personifies the spirit of chivalry +at its best and its worst. All his native humanity and acquired polish +is in the end turned to cruelty by the influence of a worship of honour +and reputation which make him "the fool of fame." As the absorbing story +unfolds itself, we realise (if indeed we are not too much enthralled by +the plot to notice the moral) that all the institutions of society and +law are nicely adjusted to give the moral errors of the great their +utmost scope. Society is a vast sounding-board which echoes the first +whispers of their private folly, until it swells into a deafening chorus +of cruelty and wrong. There are vivid scenes in a prison which give life +to Godwin's reasoned criticisms of our penal methods. There is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> band +of outlaws whose rude natural virtues remind us, by contrast with the +corruption of all the officers of the law, how much less demoralising it +is to revolt against a crazy system of coercion than to become its tool. +To describe the book in greater detail would be to destroy the pleasure +of the reader. It is a forensic novel. It sets out to frame an +indictment of society, and a novelist who imposes this task on himself +must in the end create an impression of improbability by the partiality +with which he selects his material. But there is fire enough in the +telling, and interest enough in the plot to silence our criticisms while +we read. <i>Caleb Williams</i> is a capital story; it is also a living and +humane book, which conveys with rare power and reasoned emotion the +revolt of a generous mind against the oppressions of feudalism and the +stupidities of the criminal law.</p> + +<p>Three years later (1797) Godwin once more restated the main positions of +<i>Political Justice</i>. <i>The Enquirer</i> is a volume of essays, which range +easily over a great variety of subjects from education to English style. +His opinions have neither advanced nor receded, and the mood is still +one of assurance, enthusiasm, and hope. The only noteworthy change is in +the style. <i>Political Justice</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> belongs to the generation of Gibbon, +eloquent, elaborate and periodic at its best; heavy and slightly verbose +at its worst. With <i>The Enquirer</i> we are just entering the generation of +Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. The language is simpler and more flexible, the +construction of the sentences more varied, the mood more vivacious, and +the tone more conversational. The best things in the book belong to that +social psychology, the observation of men in classes and professions, in +which this age excelled. There is an outspoken attack on the clergy, as +a class of men who have vowed themselves to study without enquiry, who +must reason for ever towards a conclusion fixed by authority, whose very +survival depends on the perennial stationariness of their understanding. +Another essay attempts a vivacious criticism of "common honesty," the +moral standard of the average decent citizen, a code of negative virtues +and moral mediocrity which is content to avoid the obvious unsocial sins +and concerns itself but little to enforce positive benevolence. The +reader who would meet Godwin at his best should turn to the essay <i>On +Servants</i>. Starting from the universal reluctance of the upper and +middle classes to allow their children to associate closely with +servants,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> he enlarges the confession of the systematic degradation of a +class which this separation involves, into a condemnation of our whole +social structure.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The year 1797 marks the culmination of Godwin's career, and it would +have been well for his fame if it had been its end. He had just passed +his fortieth year; he had made the most notable contribution to English +political thought since the appearance of the <i>Wealth of Nations</i>; he +had won the gratitude and respect of his friends by his intervention in +the trial of the Twelve Reformers. He was famous, prosperous, popular, +and his good fortune brought to his calm temperament the stimulus of +excitement and high spirits which it needed. There came to him in this +year the crown of a noble love. It was in the winter of 1791 that he +first met Mary Wollstonecraft, the one woman of genius who belonged to +the English revolutionary circle. He was not impressed, thought that she +talked too much, and in his diary spelled her name incorrectly.</p> + +<p>In the interval between 1791 and 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft was to write +one of the books which belong to the spiritual foundations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> of the next +century, to taste fame and detraction, to know the joys of love and +maternity, and to experience a misery and wrong which made life itself +an unendurable shame. A later chapter will attempt an estimate of the +ideas and personality of this brilliant and courageous woman. A few +sentences must suffice here to recall the bare facts of her life +history. Born in 1759, the child of a drunken and disreputable father, +she had struggled with indomitable energy, first as a teacher and then +as a translator and literary "hack," to keep herself and help her still +more unfortunate sisters. In 1792 she published <i>A Vindication of the +Rights of Woman</i>, a plea for the human dignity of her sex and for its +claim to education. At the end of this year she went to Paris as much to +see the Revolution as to perfect herself in French. She there met a +clever and interesting American, one Gilbert Imlay, a traveller of some +little note, a soldier in the War of Independence, and now a speculative +merchant. He lived with her, and in documents acknowledged her as his +wife, though neither felt the need of a binding ceremony. A baby, Fanny, +was born, but Imlay's business imposed long separations. He gradually +tired of the woman who had honoured him too highly, and entered on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> more +than one intrigue. Mary Wollstonecraft attempted in despair to drown +herself in the Thames, was saved and nursed back to life and courage by +devoted friends. She again took up her pen to gain a livelihood, and for +the sake of her child's future, gradually returned to the literary +circle which valued her, not merely for her genius and originality, but +also for her beauty, her vivacity, and her charm, for her daring and +independence, and her warm, impulsive, affectionate heart.</p> + +<p>Godwin met her again while she was bruised and lonely and +disillusionised with mankind. Her charming volume of travel sketches +(<i>Letters from Norway, 1796</i>) had made, as it well might, a deep +impression on his taste. He was, what Imlay was not, her intellectual +equal, and his character deserved her respect. He has left in the little +book which he published to vindicate her memory, a delicate sketch of +their mutual love: "The partiality we conceived for each other was in +that mode which I have always considered as the purest and most refined +style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would +have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was +before and who was after. One sex did not take the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> priority which +long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that +delicacy which is so severely imposed. I am not conscious that either +party can assume to have been the agent or the patient, the toil +spreader or the prey in the affair. When in the course of things, the +disclosure came, there was nothing in a manner for either party to +disclose to the other.... There was no period of throes and resolute +explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting into love."</p> + +<p>The two lovers, in strict obedience to the principles of <i>Political +Justice</i>, made their home, at first with no legal union, in a little +house in the Polygon, Somers Town, then the extreme limit of London, +separated from the suburban village of Camden Town by open fields and +green pastures. A few doors away Godwin had his study, where he spent +most of his industrious day, often breakfasted and sometimes slept. Both +partners of this daringly unconventional union had their own particular +friends and retained their separate places in society. Some quaint notes +have survived, which passed between them, borrowing books or making +appointments. "Did I not see you, friend Godwin," runs one of these, "at +the theatre last night?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> I thought I met a smile, but you went out +without looking round. We expect you at half-past four." It was the +coming of a child which induced them to waive their theories and face +for its sake a repugnant compliance with custom. They were married in +Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797, and the insignificant fact was +communicated only gradually, and with laboured apologies for the +inconsistency, to their friends.</p> + +<p>Southey, who met them in this month, has left a lively portrait: "Of all +the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay's countenance is the +best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression +somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display—an +expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary +Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and ... +they are the most meaning I ever saw.... As for Godwin himself he has +large noble eyes and a <i>nose</i>—oh, most abominable nose. Language is not +vituperatious enough to describe the effect of its downward elongation." +Godwin, if one may trust the portrait by Northcote, had impressive if +not exactly handsome features. The head is shapely, the brow ample, the +nose decidedly too long, the shaven lips and chin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> finely chiselled. The +whole suggestion is of a character self-absorbed and contemplative. He +was short and sturdy in build, and in his sober dress and grave +deportments, suggested rather the dissenting preacher than the prophet +of philosophic anarchism. He was not a ready debater or a fluent talker. +His genius was not spontaneous or intuitive. It was rather an elaborate +effort of the will, which deliberately used the fruits of his +accumulative study and incessant activity of mind. He resembled, says +Hazlitt, who admired and liked him, "an eight-day clock that must be +wound up long before it can strike. He is ready only on reflection: +dangerous only at the rebound. He gathers himself up, and strains every +nerve and faculty with deliberate aim to some heroic and dazzling +achievement of intellect; but he must make a career before he flings +himself armed upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed."</p> + +<p>No two minds could have presented a greater contrast. Had Mary +Wollstonecraft lived they must have moulded each other into something +finer than Nature had made of either. The year of married life was +ideally happy, and the strange experiment in reconciling individualism +with love apparently succeeded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Mrs. Godwin, for all her revolutionary +independence, leaned affectionately on her husband, and he, in spite of +his rather overgrown self-esteem, regarded her with reverence and pride. +She was quick in her affections and resentments, but looking back many +years later Godwin declares that they were "as happy as is permitted to +human beings." "It must be remembered, however, that I honoured her +intellectual powers and the nobleness and generosity of her +propensities; mere tenderness would not have been adequate to produce +the happiness we experienced."</p> + +<p>Godwin's novels suggest that, on the whole, he shared her views about +women, though in a later essay (on "Friendship," in <i>Thoughts on Man</i>), +there are some passages which suggest a less perfect understanding. But +he never used his pen to carry on her work, and the emancipation of +women had to await its philosopher in John Stuart Mill. The happy +marriage ended abruptly and tragically. On August 30, 1797, was born the +child Mary, who was to become Shelley's wife, and carry on in a second +generation her parents' tradition of fearless love and revolutionary +hope. Ten days after the birth, the mother died in spite of all that the +devotion of her husband and the skill of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> medical friends could do +to save her. A few broken-hearted letters are left to record Godwin's +agony of mind.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>With the death of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, ended all that was happy +and stimulating in Godwin's career. It was for him the year of private +disaster, and from it he dated also the triumph of the reaction in +England. The stimulus of the revolutionary period was withdrawn. He +lived no longer among ardent spirits who would brave everything and do +anything for human perfectibility. Some were in Botany Bay, and others, +like the indomitable Holcroft, were absorbed in the struggle to live, +with the handicap of political persecution against them. Godwin, indeed, +never fell into despair over the ruin of his political hopes. Like +Beethoven he revered Napoleon, at all events until he assumed the title +of Emperor, and would console himself with the conviction that this +"auspicious and beneficent genius" had "without violence to the +principles of the French Revolution ... suspended their morbid +activity," while preserving "all the great points" of its doctrine. But +while all England hung on the event of the titanic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> struggle against +this "beneficent genius," what was a philanthropist to do? The world was +rattling back into barbarism, and the generation which emerged from the +long nightmare of war, famine, and repression, was incomparably less +advanced in its thinking, narrower and timider in its whole habit of +mind than the men who were young in 1789. There was nothing to do, and a +philosopher whose only weapon was argument, kept silence when none would +listen. Of what use to talk of "peace and the powers of the human mind," +while all England was gloating over the brutal cartoons of Gillray, and +trying on the volunteer uniforms, in which it hoped to repel Napoleon's +invasion? We need not wonder that Godwin's output of philosophic writing +practically ceased with the eighteenth century. He was henceforth a man +without a purpose, who wrote for bread and renounced the exercise of his +greater powers.</p> + +<p>The end of Godwin's active apostolic life is clearly marked in a +pamphlet which he issued in 1801 ("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 +[Malthus] of the <i>Essay on</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> <i>Population</i> and others"). It is a masterly +piece of writing. Coleridge scribbled in the copy that now lies on the +shelves of the British Museum this tribute to its author: "I remember +few passages in ancient or modern authors that contain more just +philosophy in appropriate, chaste or beautiful diction than the fine +following pages. They reflect equal honour on Godwin's head and heart. +Though I did it in the zenith of his reputation, yet I feel remorse even +to have only spoken unkindly of such a man.—S. T. C."</p> + +<p>Godwin tells how the reaction burst over him, and he dates it from 1797: +"After having for four years heard little else than the voice of +commendation, I was at length attacked from every side, and in a style +which defied all moderation and decency.... The cry spread like a +general infection, and I have been told that not even a petty novel for +boarding-school misses now ventures to aspire to favour unless it +contains some expression of dislike or abhorrence to the new +philosophy." Some of the attacks were scurrilous and all of them +proceeded on the common assumption of the defenders of authority in all +ages and nations, that the man who would innovate in morals is himself +immoral.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>He goes on to sketch the present case of the revolutionary party: "The +societies have perished, or where they have not, have shrunk to a +skeleton; the days of democratical declamation are no more; even the +starving labourer in the alehouse is become the champion of +aristocracy.... Jacobinism was destroyed; its party as a party was +extinguished; its tenets were involved in almost universal unpopularity +and odium; they were deserted by almost every man high or low in the +island of Great Britain." Even the young Pantisocrats had gone over to +the enemy, and Wordsworth, grave and disillusionised, tried to forget +that he had ever exhorted his fellow-students to burn their books and +"read Godwin on Necessity." The defection of Dr. Parr and Mackintosh was +symptomatic. Both had been Godwin's personal friends, and both of them +had hailed the new philosophy. No one remembers them to-day, but they +were in their time intellectual oracles. The scholar Parr was called by +flatterers the Whig Johnson, and Mackintosh enjoyed in Whig society a +reputation as a brilliant talker, and an encyclopædic mind which reminds +us of Macaulay's later fame. They had both to make their peace with the +world and to bury their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> compromised past; the easiest way was to fall +upon Godwin.</p> + +<p>Malthus was a more worthy antagonist, though Godwin did not yet perceive +how formidable his attack in reality was. To the picture of human +perfection he opposed the nightmare of an over-populated planet, and +combated universal benevolence by teaching that even charity is an +economic sin. English society cares little either for Utopias or for +science. But it welcomes science with rapture when it destroys Utopias. +If Godwin had pricked men's consciences, Malthus brought the balm. +Altruism was exposed at length for the thing it was, an error in the +last degree unscientific and uneconomic. The rickety arithmetic of +Malthusianism was used against the revolutionary hope, exactly as a +travestied version of Darwinianism was used in our own day against +Socialism. Godwin preserved his dignity in this controversy and made +concessions to his critics with a rare candour. But while he abandons +none of his fundamental doctrines, one feels that he will never fight +again.</p> + +<p>Only once in later years did Godwin the philosopher break his silence, +and then it was to attempt in 1820 an elaborate but far from impressive +answer to Malthus. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> history of that controversy has been brilliantly +told by Hazlitt. It seems to-day too distant to be worth reviving. Our +modern pessimists write their jeremiads not about the future +over-population of the planet, but about the declining birth-rate. That +elaborate civilisations shows a decline in fertility is a fact now so +well recognised, that we feel no difficulty in conceding to Godwin that +the reasonable beings of his ideal community might be trusted to show +some degree of self-control.</p> + +<p>Godwin possessed two of the cardinal virtues of a thinker, courage and +candour. No fear of ridicule deterred him from pushing his premises to +their last conclusion; no false shame restrained him in a controversy +from recanting an error. He discarded the wilder developments of his +theory of "universal benevolence," and gave it in the end a form which +has ceased to be paradoxical. When he wrote <i>Political Justice</i> he was a +celibate student who had escaped much of the formative experience of a +normal life. As a husband and a father he revised his creed, and devoted +no small part of his later literary activity to the work of preaching +the claims of those "private affections" which he had scouted as an +elderly youth of forty. The re-adjustment in his theory was so simple, +that only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> a great philosopher could have failed to make it sooner. +Justice requires me to use all my powers to contribute to the sum of +human benefit. But as regards opportunity, I am not equally situated +towards all my fellows. By devoting myself more particularly to wife or +child with an exclusive affection which is not in the abstract +altogether reasonable, I may do more for the general good than I could +achieve by a severely impartial benevolence.</p> + +<p>He developed this view first in his <i>Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft</i>, +then in the preface to <i>St. Leon</i>, and finally in the pamphlet which +answered Mackintosh and Dr. Parr. The man who would be "the best moral +economist of his time" will use much of it to seek "the advantage and +content of those with whom he has most frequent intercourse," and this +not merely from calculation, but from affection. "I ought not only in +ordinary cases to provide for my wife and children, my brothers and +relations before I provide for strangers, but it would be well that my +doing so should arise from the operation of those private and domestic +affections by which through all ages of the world the conduct of mankind +has been excited and directed."</p> + +<p>The recantation is sufficiently frank. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> family, dissipated in +<i>Political Justice</i> by the explosive charities of "universal +benevolence," is now happily re-united. Godwin maintains, however, that +his moral theory and his political superstructure stands intact, and the +claim is not unreasonable. He retains his criterion of justice and +utility, though he has seen better how to apply it. The duty of +universal benevolence is still paramount; the end of contributing to the +general good still sovereign, and a reasoned virtue is still to be +recommended in preference to instinctive goodness, even where their +results are commonly the same. "The crown of a virtuous character +consists in a very frequent and very energetic recollection of the +criterion by which all his actions are to be tried.... The person who +has been well instructed and accomplished in the great schools of human +experience has passions and affections like other men. But he is aware +that all these affections tend to excess, and must be taught each to +know its order and its sphere. He therefore continually holds in mind +the principles by which their boundaries are fixed."</p> + +<p>What Godwin means is something elementary, and for that reason of the +first importance. Let a man love his wife above other women,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> but +"universal benevolence" will forbid him to exploit other women in order +to surround her with luxury. Let him love his sons, but virtue will +forbid him to accumulate a fortune for them by the sweated labour of +poor men's children. Let him love his fellow-countrymen, but reason +forbids him to seek their good by enslaving other races and waging +aggressive wars. Godwin, in short, no longer denies the beauty and duty +(to use Burke's phrase) of loving "the little platoon to which I +belong," but he urges that these domestic affections are in little +danger of neglect. Men learned to love kith and kin, neighbours and +comrades, while still in the savage state. The characteristic of a +civilised morality, the necessary accompaniment of all the varied and +extended relationships which modern existence has brought with it, must +be a new and emphatic stress on my duty to the stranger, to the unknown +producer with whom I stand in an economic relationship, and to the +foreigner beyond my shores. "Let us endeavour to elevate philanthropy +into a passion, secure that occasions enough will arise to drag us down +from an enthusiastic eminence. A virtuous man will teach himself to +recollect the principle of universal benevolence as often as pious men +repeat their prayers."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>If the central tendencies of Godwin's teaching survive these later +modifications, it is none the less true that some of his theoretic +foundations have been shaken in the work of reconstruction. The isolated +individual shut up in his own animal skin and communicating with his +fellows through the antennæ of his logical processes, has vanished away. +Allow him to extend his personality through the private affections, and +he has ceased to be the abstract unit of individualism. Godwin should +have revised not only his doctrine of the family, but his hatred of +co-operation. There is still something to be learned from the view of +his school that the human mind, as it begins to absorb the collective +experience of the race, is an infinitely variable spiritual stuff, an +intellectual protoplasm. They stated the view with a rash emphasis, +until one is forced to ask whether a mind which is originally nothing at +all, can absorb, or as psychologists say, "apperceive" anything +whatever. Nothing comes out of nothing, and nothing can be added to nothing.</p> + +<p>Godwin and his school set out to show that the human mind is not +necessarily fettered for all time by the prejudices and institutions in +which it has clothed itself. When he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> done stripping us, it was a +nice question whether even our nakedness remained. He treated our +prejudices and our effete institutions as though they were something +external to us, which had come out of nowhere and could be flung into +the void from whence they came. When you have called opinion a +prejudice, or traced an institution to false reasoning, you have, after +all, only exhibited an interesting zoological fact about human beings. +We are exactly the sort of creature which evolves such prejudices. +Godwin in unwary moments would talk as though aristocracy and positive +law had come to us from without, by a sort of diabolic revelation. This, +however, is not a criticism which destroys the value of his thinking. +His positions required restatement in terms of the idea of development. +If he did not anticipate the notion of evolution, he was the apostle of +the idea of progress. We may still retain from his reasonings the +hopeful conclusion that the human mind is a raw material capable of +almost unlimited variation, and, therefore, of some advance towards +"perfection." We owe an inestimable debt to the school which proclaimed +this belief in enthusiastic paradoxes.</p> + +<p>Godwin's influence as a thinker permeated the older generation of +"philosophic radicals"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> in England. The oddest fact about it is that it +had apparently no part in founding the later philosophic anarchism of +the Continent. None of its leaders seem to have read him; and <i>Political +Justice</i> was not translated into German until long after it had ceased +to be read in England. Its really astonishing blindness to the +importance of the economic factor in social changes must have hastened +its decline. Godwin writes as though he had never seen a factory nor +heard of capital. In all his writing about crime and punishment, full as +it is of insight, sympathy and good sense, it is odd that a mind so +fertile nowhere anticipated the modern doctrine of the connection +between moral and physical degeneracy. He saw in crime only error, where +we see anæmia: he would have cured it with syllogisms, where we should +administer proteids. His entire psychology, both social and individual, +is vitiated by a naïve and headstrong intellectualism. Life is rather a +battle between narrow interests and the social affections than a debate +between sound and fallacious reasoning. He saw among mankind only +sophists and philosophers, where we see predatory egoists and their +starved and stunted victims. But we have advanced far enough on our own +lines of thinking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> to derive a new stimulus from Godwin's one-sided +intellectualism. Our danger to-day is that we may succumb to an economic +and physiological determinism. We are obsessed by financiers and +bacilli; it is salutary that our attention should be directed from time +to time to the older bogeys of the revolution, to kings and priests, +authority and superstition, to prejudice and political subjection. "The +greatest part of the people of Europe," wrote Helvétius, "honour virtue +in speculation; this is an effect of their education. They despise it in +practice; that is an effect of the form of their governments." We think +that we have got beyond that epigram to-day. But have we quite exhausted +its meaning?</p> + +<p>Precisely because of its revolutionary <i>naïveté</i>, its unscientific +innocence, there is in Godwin's democratic anarchism a stimulus +peculiarly tonic to the modern mind. No man has developed more firmly +the ideal of universal enlightenment, which has escaped feudalism, only +to be threatened by the sociological expert. No writer is better fitted +to remind us that society and government are not the same thing, and +that the State must not be confounded with the social organism. No +moralist has written a more eloquent page on the evil of coercion and +the unreason of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> force. <i>Political Justice</i> is often an imposing system. +It is sometimes an instructive fallacy. It is always an inspiring +sermon. Godwin hoped to "make it a work from the perusal of which no man +should rise without being strengthened in habits of sincerity, fortitude +and justice." There he succeeded.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>GODWIN AND SHELLEY</h4> + +<p>In a letter written in 1811 Shelley records how he suddenly heard with +"inconceivable emotion" that Godwin was still alive. He "had enrolled +his name on the list of the honourable dead." Godwin, to quote Hazlitt's +rather cruel phrase, had "sunk below the horizon," in his later years, +and enjoyed "the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality." Serene +unfortunately it was not. With a lonely home and two little girls to +care for, Godwin thought once more of marriage. Twice his wooing was +unsuccessful, and the philosopher who believed that reason was +omnipotent, tried in vain in long, elaborate letters to argue two ladies +into love. His second wife came unsought. As he sat one day at his +window in the Polygon, a handsome widow spoke to him from the +neighbouring balcony, with these arresting words, "Is it possible that I +behold the immortal Godwin?" They were married before the close of the +year (1801).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>Mrs. Clairmont was a strange successor to Mary Wollstonecraft. She was a +vulgar and worldly woman, thoroughly feminine, and rather inclined to +boast of her total ignorance of philosophy. A kindly and loyal wife she +may have been, but she was jealous of Godwin's friends, and would tell +petty lies to keep them apart from him. She brought with her two +children of a former marriage—Charles (who was unhappy in this strange +home and went early abroad) and Jane. On this clever, pretty and +mercurial daughter all her partiality was lavished; and the unhappy +girl, pampered by a philistine mother in a revolutionary atmosphere, was +at the age of seventeen seduced by Byron, and became the mother of the +fairy child, Allegra. The second Mrs. Godwin was the stepmother of +convention, and treated both Fanny Imlay and Mary Godwin with consistent +unkindness. It was the fate of the gentle, melancholy and lovable Fanny +to take her own life at the age of twenty-two (1816). The destiny of +these children, all gifted with what the age called sensibility, has +served as the text of many a sermon against "the new philosophy." No +one, however, can read the documents which this strange household left +behind, without feeling that the parent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> of the disaster in their lives +was not their philosophic father, but this commonplace "womanly woman," +who flattered, intrigued, and lied. In 1803, there was born of this +second marriage, a son, William, who inherited something of his father's +ability. He became a journalist, and died at the early age of +twenty-nine, after publishing a novel of some promise, <i>Transfusion</i>, +steeped in the same romantic fancies which colour Mary Shelley's more +famous <i>Frankenstein</i>.</p> + +<p>With the cares of this family on his shoulders Godwin began to form the +habit of applying to his wealthy friends for aid. In judging this part +of his conduct, one must bear in mind both his own doctrine about +property, and the practice of the age. Godwin was a communist, and so, +in some degree, were most of his friends. When he applied to Wedgwood, +the philosophic potter of Etruria, or to Ritson, the vegetarian, or in +later years to Shelley for money, he was simply giving virtue its +occasion, and assisting property to find its level. He practised what he +preached, and he would himself give with a generosity which seemed +prodigal, to his own relatives, to promising young men, and even to +total strangers. He supported one disciple at Cambridge, as he had +educated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> Cooper in his younger days. It was the prevailing theory of +the age that men of genius have the right to call on society in the +persons of its wealthier members for support. Helvétius, himself a rich +man, had maintained this view. Southey and Coleridge acted on it. Dr. +Priestley, universally respected both for his character and his talents, +received large gifts from friends, admirers, members of his congregation +and aristocratic patrons. To Godwin, profoundly individualistic as he +was, a post in the civil service, or even a professorship, would have +seemed a more degrading form of charity than this private benevolence.</p> + +<p>Partly to mend his fortunes, partly to furnish himself with an +occupation when his mind refused original work, Godwin in 1805 turned +publisher. It was a disastrous inspiration, due apparently to his wife, +who believed herself to possess a talent for business. The firm was +established in Skinner Street, Holborn, and specialised in school books +and children's tales. They were well-printed, and well-illustrated, and +Godwin, writing under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin, to avoid the +odium which had now overtaken his own name, compiled a series of +histories with his usual industry and conscientious finish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> Through +years darkened with misfortune and clouded by failing health, he worked +hard at the business of publishing. His capital was never adequate, +though his friends and admirers twice came to his aid with public +subscriptions. In 1822 he was evicted for arrears of rent, and in 1825 +the unlucky venture came to an end.</p> + +<p>These years were crowded with literary work, for neither "Baldwin" nor +Godwin allowed their common pen to idle. Two elaborate historical works +enjoyed and deserved a great reputation in their day, though subsequent +research has rendered them obsolete—a <i>Life of Geoffrey Chaucer</i> (1803) +and a <i>History of the Commonwealth of England from its Commencement to +the Restoration of Charles II.</i> (1824-8). It is not easy for modern +taste to do justice to Godwin's novels; but on them his contemporary +fame chiefly rested, and publishers paid for them high though +diminishing prices. They all belong to the romantic movement; some have +a supernatural basis, and most of them discover a too obvious didactic +purpose. <i>St. Leon</i> (1799), almost as popular in its day as <i>Caleb +Williams</i>, mingles a romance of the elixir of life and the philosopher's +stone with an ardent recommendation of those family affections which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +<i>Political Justice</i> had depreciated. <i>Fleetwood</i> (1805) makes war on +debauchery with sincere and impressive dulness. <i>Mandeville</i> (1817), +<i>Cloudesley</i> (1830) and <i>Deloraine</i> (1833) are dead beyond the reach of +curiosity, yet the Radical critics of his day, including Hazlitt, tried +hard to convince themselves that Godwin was a greater novelist than the +Tory, Scott. It remains to mention Godwin's two attempts to conquer the +theatre with <i>Antonio</i> (1800) and <i>Faulkener</i> (1807). Neither play +lived, and <i>Antonio</i>, written in a sort of journalese, cut up into blank +verse lines, was too frigid to survive the first night. Godwin's +disappointment would be comical if it were not painful. He regarded +these deplorable tragedies as the flower of his genius.</p> + +<p>Through these years of misfortune and eclipse, the friendships which +Godwin could still retain were his chief consolation. The published +letters of Coleridge and Lamb make a charming record of their intimacy. +Whimsical and affectionate in their tone, they are an unconscious +tribute as much to the man who received them as to the men who wrote +them. Conservative critics have talked of Godwin's "coldness" because he +could reason. But the abiding and generous regard of such a nature as +Charles Lamb's is answer enough to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> these summary valuations. But +Godwin's most characteristic relationship was with the young men who +sought him out as an inspiration. He would write them long letters of +advice, encouragement, and criticism, and despite his own poverty, would +often relieve their distresses. The most interesting of them was an +adventurous young Scot named Arnot who travelled on foot through the +greater part of Europe during the Napoleonic wars. The tragedy which +seemed always to pursue Godwin's intimates drove another of them, +Patrickson, to suicide while an undergraduate at Cambridge. Bulwer +Lytton, the last of these admiring young men, left a note on Godwin's +conversational powers in his extreme old age, which assures us that he +was "well worth hearing," even amid the brilliance of Lamb, Hunt, and +Hazlitt, and could display "a grim jocularity of sarcasm."</p> + +<p>One of these relationships has become historical, and has coloured the +whole modern judgment of Godwin. It would be no exaggeration to say that +Godwin formed Shelley's mind, and that <i>Prometheus Unbound</i> and <i>Hellas</i> +were the greatest of Godwin's works. That debt is too often forgotten, +while literary gossip loves to remind us that it was repaid in cheques +and <i>post-obits</i>. The intellectual relationship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> will be discussed in a +later chapter; the bare facts of the personal connection must be told +here. <i>Political Justice</i> took Shelley's mind captive while he was still +at Eton, much as it had obsessed Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth. The +influence with him was permanent; and <i>Queen Mab</i> is nothing but Godwin +in verse, with prose notes which quote or summarise him. A +correspondence began in 1811, and the pupil met the master late in 1812, +and again in 1813. They talked as usual of virtue and human +perfectibility; and as the intimacy grew, Shelley, whose chief +employment at this time was to discover and relieve genius in distress, +began to place his present resources and future prospects at Godwin's +disposal. It was not an unnatural relationship to arise between a +grateful disciple, heir to a great fortune, and a philosopher, aged, +neglected, and sinking under the burden of debt.</p> + +<p>Shelley's romantic runaway match with Harriet Westbrook had meanwhile +entered on the period of misery and disillusion. She had lost her early +love of books and ideas, had taken to hats and ostentation, and had +become so harsh to him that he welcomed absence. It is certain that he +believed her to be also in the vulgar sense of the word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> unfaithful. At +this crisis, when the separation seemed already morally complete, he met +Mary Godwin, who had been absent from home during most of his earlier +visits. She was a young girl of seventeen, eager for knowledge and +experience, and as her father described her, "singularly bold, somewhat +imperious and active of mind," and "very pretty." They rapidly fell in +love. Godwin's conduct was all that the most conventional morality could +have required of him. His theoretical views of marriage were still +unorthodox; he held at least that "the institution might with advantage +admit of certain modifications." But nine years before in the preface to +<i>Fleetwood</i> he had protested that he was "the last man to recommend a +pitiful attempt by scattered examples to renovate the face of society." +He seems, indeed, to have forgotten his own happy experiment with Mary +Wollstonecraft, and protests with a vigour hardly to be expected from so +stout an individualist against the idea, that "each man for himself +should supersede and trample upon the institutions of the country in +which he lives. A thousand things might be found excellent and salutary +if brought into general practice, which would in some cases appear +ridiculous and in others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> attended with tragical consequences if +prematurely acted upon by a solitary individual."</p> + +<p>On this view he acted. He forbade Shelley his house, and tried to make a +reconciliation between him and Harriet. On July 28, 1814, Mary secretly +left her father's house, joined her lover, and began with him her life +of ideal intimacy and devotion. Godwin felt and expressed the utmost +disapproval, and for two years refused to meet Shelley, until at the +close of 1816, after the suicide of the unhappy Harriet, he stood at his +daughter's side as a witness to her marriage. His public conduct was +correct. In private he continued to accept money from the erring +disciple whom he refused to meet, and salved his elderly conscience by +insisting that the cheques should be drawn in another name. There Godwin +touched the lowest depths of his moral degeneration. Let us remember, +however, that even Shelley, who saw the worst of Godwin, would never +speak of him with total condemnation. "Added years," he wrote near the +end of his life, "only add to my admiration of his intellectual powers, +and even the moral resources of his character." In the poetical epistle +to Maria Gisborne, he wrote of</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +"That which was Godwin—greater none than he<br /> +Though fallen, and fallen on evil times, to stand<br /> +Among the spirits of our age and land<br /> +Before the dread tribunal of To-come<br /> +The foremost, while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb."</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>The end came to the old man amid comparative peace and serenity. He +accepted a sinecure from the Whigs, and became a Yeoman Usher of the +Exchequer, with a small stipend and chambers in New Palace Yard. It was +a tribute as much to his harmlessness as to his merit. The work of his +last years shows little decay in his intellectual powers. <i>His Thoughts +on Man</i> (1831) collects his fugitive essays. They are varied in subject, +suave, easy and conversational in manner, more polished in style than +those of the <i>Enquirer</i>, if a good deal thinner in matter. They avoid +political themes, but the idea of human perfectibility none the less +pervades the book with an unaggressive presence, a cold and wintry sun. +One curious trait of his more cautious and conservative later mind is +worth noting. When he wrote <i>Political Justice</i>, the horizons of science +were unlimited, the vistas of discovery endless. Now he questions even +the mathematical data of astronomy, talks of the limitations of our +faculties, and applauds a positive attitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> that refrains from +conjecture. His last years were spent in writing a book in which he +ventured at length to state his views upon religion. Like Helvétius he +perceived the advantages which an unpopular philosopher may derive from +posthumous publication. Freed at last from the vulgar worries of debt +and the tragical burden of personal ties, the fighting ended which had +never brought him the joy of combat, the material struggle over which +had issued in defeat, he became again the thing that was himself, a +luminous intelligence, a humane thinker.</p> + +<p>With eighty years of life behind him, and doubting whether the curtain +of death concealed a secret, Godwin tranquilly faced extinction in April, 1836.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"To do my part to free the human mind from slavery," that in his own +words was the main object of Godwin's life. The task was not fully +discharged with the writing of <i>Political Justice</i>. He could never +forget the terror and gloom of his own early years, and, like all the +thinkers of the revolution, he coupled superstition with despotism and +priests with kings as the arch-enemies of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> human liberty. The terrors of +eternal punishment, the firmly riveted chains of Calvinistic logic, had +fettered his own growing mind in youth; and to the end he thought of +traditional religion as the chief of those factitious things which +prevent mankind from reaching the full stature to which nature destined +it. Paine had attempted this work from a similar standpoint, but Godwin, +with his trained speculative mind, and his ideal of courtesy and +persuasiveness in argument, thought meanly (as a private letter shows) +of his friend's polemics. It was an unlucky timidity which caused Mrs. +Shelley to suppress her father's religious essays when the manuscript +was bequeathed to her for publication on his death. When, at length, +they appeared in 1873 (<i>Essays never before Published</i>), the work which +they sought to accomplish had been done by other pens. They possess none +the less an historical interest; some fine pages will always be worth +reading for their humane impulse and their manly eloquence; they help us +to understand the influence which Godwin's ideas, conveyed in personal +intercourse, exerted on the author of <i>Prometheus Unbound</i>. There is +little in them which a candid believer would resent to-day. Most of the +dogmas which Godwin assailed have long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> since crumbled away through the +sapping of a humaner morality and a more historical interpretation of the Bible.</p> + +<p>The book opens with a protest against the theory and practice of +salutary delusions; and Godwin once more pours his scorn upon those who +would cherish their own private freedom, while preserving popular +superstitions, "that the lower ranks may be kept in order." The +foundation of all improvement is that "the whole community should run +the generous race for intellectual and moral superiority." Godwin would +preserve some portion of the religious sense, for we can reach sobriety +and humility only by realising "how frail and insignificant a part we +constitute of the great whole." But the fundamental tenets of dogmatic +Christianity are far, he argues, from being salutary delusions. At the +basis alike of Protestantism and Catholicism, he sees the doctrine of +eternal punishment; and with an iteration that was not superfluous in +his own day, he denounces its cruel and demoralising effects. It saps +the character where it is really believed, and renders the mind which +receives it servile and pusillanimous. The case is no better when it is +neither sincerely believed nor boldly rejected. Such an attitude, which +is, he thinks, that of most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> professing believers, makes for +insincerity, and for an indifference to all honest thought and +speculation. The man who dare neither believe nor disbelieve is debarred from thinking at all.</p> + +<p>Worst of all, this doctrine of endless torment and arbitrary election +involves a blasphemous denial of the goodness of God. "To say all, then, +in a word, since it must finally be told, the God of the Christians is a +tyrant." He quotes the delightfully naïve reflection of Plutarch, who +held that it was better to deny God than to calumniate Him, "for I had +rather it should be said of me, that there was never such a man as +Plutarch, than that it should be said that Plutarch was ill-natured, +arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and inexorable." A survey of Church +History brings out what Godwin calls "the mixed character of +Christianity, its horrors and its graces." In much of what has come down +to us from the Old Testament he sees the inevitable effects of +anthropomorphism, when the religion of a barbarous age is reduced to +writing, and handed down as the effect of inspiration. He cannot +sufficiently admire the beauty of Christ's teaching of a perfect +disinterestedness and self-denial—a doctrine in his own terminology of +"universal benevolence." But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> the disciples lived in a preternatural +atmosphere, continually busied with the four Last Things, death, +judgment, heaven, and hell; and they distorted the beauty of the +Christian morality by introducing an other-worldliness, to which the +ancients had been strangers. From this came the despotism of the Church +based on the everlasting burnings and the keys, and something of the +spirit of St. Dominic and the Inquisition can be traced, he thinks, even +to the earliest period of Christianity. The Gospel sermons do not always +realise the Godwinian ideal of rational persuasion.</p> + +<p>Godwin's own view is in the main what we should call agnostic: "I do not +consider my faculties adequate to pronouncing upon the cause of all +things. I am contented to take the phenomena as I behold them, without +pretending to erect an hypothesis under the idea of making all things +easy. I do not rest my globe of earth upon an elephant [a reference to +the Indian myth], and the elephant upon a tortoise. I am content to take +my globe of earth simply, in other words to observe the objects which +present themselves to my senses, without undertaking to find out a cause +why they are what they are."</p> + +<p>With cautious steps, he will, however, go a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> little further than this. +He regards with reverence and awe "that principle, whatever it is, which +acts everywhere around me." But he will not slide into anthropomorphism, +nor give to this Supreme Thing, which recalls Shelley's Demogorgon, the +shape of a man. "The principle is not intellect; its ways are not our +ways." If there is no particular Providence, there is none the less a +tendency in nature which seconds our strivings, guarantees the work of +reason, and "in the vast sum of instances, works for good, and operates +beneficially for us." The position reminds us of Matthew Arnold's +definition of God as "the stream of tendency by which all things strive +to fulfil the law of their being." "We have here," writes Godwin, "a +secure alliance, a friend that so far as the system of things extends +will never desert us, unhearing, inaccessible to importunity, +uncapricious, without passions, without favour, affection, or +partiality, that maketh its sun to rise on the evil and the good, and +its rain to descend on the just and the unjust."</p> + +<p>Amid the dim but rosy mist of this vague faith the old man went out to +explore the unknown. A bolder and more rebellious thought was his real +legacy to his age. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> the central impulse of the whole revolutionary +school: "We know what we are: we know not what we might have been. But +surely we should have been greater than we are but for this disadvantage +[dogmatic religion, and particularly the doctrine of eternal +punishment]. It is as if we took some minute poison with everything that +was intended to nourish us. It is, we will suppose, of so mitigated a +quality as never to have had the power to kill. But it may nevertheless +stunt our growth, infuse a palsy into every one of our articulations, +and insensibly change us from giants of mind which we might have been +into a people of dwarfs."</p> + +<p>Let us write Godwin's epitaph in his own Roman language. He stood erect +and independent. He spoke what he deemed to be truth. He did his part to +purge the veins of men of the subtle poisons which dwarf them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT</h4> + +<p>When women, standing at length beyond the last of the gates and walls +that have barred their road to freedom, measure their debt to history, + +there will be little to claim their gratitude before the close of the +eighteenth century. The Protestant Reformation on the whole depressed +their status, and even among its more speculative sects the Quakers +stood alone in preaching the equality of the sexes. The English Whigs +ignored the existence of women. It was left for the French thinkers who +laid the foundations of the Revolution to formulate a view of society +and human nature which, as it were, insisted on its own application to +women. The idea of women's emancipation was alive among their +principles. One can name its parents, and one marvels not at all that it +seized this mind and the other, but that any mind among the professors +of the "new philosophy" contrived to escape it. The central thought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +which inspired the gospel of perfectibility has a meaning for men which +an enlightened mind can grasp, but it tells the plain obvious fact about +women.</p> + +<p>When Holcroft compares the influence of laws and institutions upon men +to the action of beggars who mutilate their children, when Godwin talks +of the subtle poisons of dogma and custom, which cause mankind to grow +up a race of dwarfs when they should be giants, they seem to be using +metaphors which describe nothing so well as the effect of an artificial +education and a tradition of <ins class="correction" title="original reads 'subjecttion'">subjection</ins> upon women. One by one the +thinkers of this generation were unconsciously laying down the premises +which the women's movement needed. At the end of all their arguments for +liberty and perfectibility, we seem to hear to-day a chorus of women's +voices which points the application to themselves. There was little hope +for women while the opinion prevailed that minds come into the world +with their qualities innate and their limitations fixed by nature. If +that were the case, then the undeniable fact that women were +intellectually and morally dependent and inferior must be accepted as +their inevitable destiny. Helvétius, all unconscious of what he did, was +the hope-bringer, when he insisted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> that mind is the creation of +education and experience. When he urged that the very inequality of +men's talents is itself factitious and the result of more or less good +fortune in the occasions which provoke a mind to activity, who could +fail to enquire whether the accepted inferiority of women were so +natural and so necessary as the whole world assumed?</p> + +<p>This school of thought revelled in social psychology. It studied in turn +the soldier, the priest and the courtier, and shewed how each of these +has a secondary character, a professional mind, a class morality +impressed and imposed upon him by his education and employment. Looking +down from the vantage ground of their philosophic salon upon their +contemporaries in French society who owed their fortunes and reputations +to the favour of an absolute court, Helvétius and his friends framed +their general theory of the demoralisation which despotism brings about +in the human character. They studied the natural history of the human +parasite who flourished under the Bourbons. They need not have travelled +to Versailles to find him. The domestic subjection of wives to husbands, +the education of girls in a specialised morality, the fetters of custom +and fashion, the experience of economic dependence, the denial of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> every +noble stimulus to thought and action—these causes, more potent and more +universal than any which work at Court, were making a sex condemned to +an artificial inferiority, an induced parasitism. Thinkers who had +discarded the notion that human minds come into the world with an innate +character and with their limitations already predestined, were ripe to +draw the conclusion. The Revolution believed that men by taking thought +might add many cubits to their mental stature. To think in these terms +was to prepare oneself to see that the "lovely follies" the "amiable +weaknesses" of the "fair sex" were in their turn nothing innate, but the +fostered characteristics of a class bred in subjection, the trading +habits of a profession which had bent all its faculties to the art of +pleasing. Reformers who sought to raise the peasant, the negro, and even +the courtier to his full stature as a man, were inevitably led to +consider the case of their own wives and daughters. They were not the +men to be arrested by the distinction which has been recently invented. +Democracy, we are told, is concerned with the removal not of natural, +but of artificial inequalities. Their bias was to regard all +inequalities as artificial. Looking forward to the goal of human +perfection, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> were prompt to realise that every advance would be +insecure, and the final hope a delusion, if on their road they should leave half mankind behind them.</p> + +<p>It requires a vigorous exercise of the historical imagination to realise +the conditions which society imposed upon women in the eighteenth +century. If Godwin and Paine had reflected closely on the position of +women, they might have been led to modify their exaggerated antithesis +between society and government. Government, indeed, imposed a barbarous +code of laws upon women. It was a trifle that they were excluded from +political power. The law treated a wife as the chattel of her husband, +denied her the disposal of her own property, even when it was the +produce of her own labour, sanctioned his use of violence to her person, +and refused (as indeed it still in part does) to recognise her rights as +a parent. But the state of the law reflected only too faithfully the +opinions of society, and these opinions in their turn formed the minds +of women. Civilised people amuse themselves to-day by detecting how much +of the old prejudices still lurk in a shamefaced half-consciousness in +the minds of modern men. There was no need in the eighteenth century for +any fine analysis to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> detect the naïve belief that women exist only as +auxiliary beings to contribute to the comfort and to flatter the +self-esteem of men. The belief was avowed and accepted as the +unquestioned basis of human society. Good men proclaimed it, and the +cleverest women dared not question it.</p> + +<p>For the crudest statement of it we need not go to men who defended +despotism and convention in other departments of life. The most +repulsive of all definitions of the principle of sex-subjection is to be +found in Rousseau:—"The education of women should always be relative to +that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem +them, to educate us when young, to take care of us when grown up, to +advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are +the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in +their infancy." When the men of the eighteenth century said this, they +meant it, and they accepted not only its plain meaning, but its remotest +logical consequences. It was a denial of the humanity and personality of +women. A slave is a human being, whom the law deprives of his right to +sell his labour. A woman had to learn that her subjection affected not +only her relations to men, but her attitude to nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> and to God. The +subtle poison ran in her veins when she prayed and when she studied. +Subject in her body, she was enslaved in mind and soul as well. Milton +saw the husband as a priest intervening between a woman and her God:—</p> + +<div class="poem">He for God only, she for God in him.</div> + +<p>Even on her knees a woman did not escape the consciousness of sex, and a +manual of morality written by a learned divine (Dr. Fordyce) assured her +that a "fine woman" never "strikes so deeply" as when a man sees her +bent in prayer. She was encouraged to pray that she might be seen of +men—men who scrutinised her with the eyes of desire. It is a woman, +herself something of a "blue-stocking," who has left us the most +pathetic statement of the intellectual fetters which her sex accepted. +Women, says Mrs. Barbauld, "must often be content to know that a thing +is so, without understanding the proof." They "cannot investigate; they +may remember." She warns the girls whom she is addressing that if they +will steal knowledge, they must learn, like the Spartan youths, to hide +their furtive gains. "The thefts of knowledge in our sex are only +connived at while carefully concealed, and if displayed punished with +disgrace."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>Religion was sullied; knowledge was closed; but above all the sentiment +of the day perverted morals. Here, too, everything was relative to men, +and men demanded a sensitive weakness, a shrinking timidity. Courage, +honour, truth, sincerity, independence—these were items in a male +ideal. They were to a woman as unnecessary, nay, as harmful in the +marriage market as a sturdy frame and well-knit muscles. Dean Swift, a +sharp satirist, but a good friend of women, comments on the prevailing +view. "There is one infirmity," he writes in his illuminating <i>Letter to +a very young lady on her marriage</i>, "which is generally allowed you, I +mean that of cowardice," and he goes on to express what was in his day +the wholly unorthodox view that "the same virtues equally become both +sexes." There he was singular. The business of a woman was to cultivate +those virtues most conducive to her prosperity in the one avocation open +to her. That avocation was marriage, and the virtues were those which +her prospective employer, the average over-sexed male, anxious at all +points to feel his superiority, would desire in a subject wife. +Submission was the first of them, and submission became the foundation +of female virtue. Lord Kames, a forgotten but once popular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> Scottish +philosopher, put the point quite fairly (the quotation, together with +that from Mrs. Barbauld, is to be found in Mr. Lyon Blease's valuable +book on <i>The Emancipation of Englishwomen</i>): "Women, destined by nature +to be obedient, ought to be disciplined early to bear wrongs without +murmuring.... This is essential to the female sex, for ever subjected to +the authority of a single person."</p> + +<p>The rest of morality was summed up in the precepts of the art of +pleasing. Chastity had, of course, its incidental place; it enhances the +pride of possession. The art of pleasing was in practice a kind of +furtive conquest by stratagems and wiles, by tears and blushes, in which +the woman, by an assumed passivity, learned to excite the passions of +the male. Rousseau owed much of his popularity to his artistic statement +of this position:—"If woman be formed to please and to be subjected to +man, it is her place, doubtless, to render herself agreeable to him.... +The violence of his desires depends on her charms; it is by means of +these that she should urge him to the exertion of those powers which +nature hath given him. The most successful method of exciting them is to +render such exertion necessary by resistance; as in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> that case self-love +is added to desire, and the one triumphs in the victory which the other +is obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various modes of attack and +defence between the sexes; the boldness of one sex and the timidity of +the other; and in a word, that bashfulness and modesty, with which +nature hath armed the weak in order to subdue the strong."</p> + +<p>The "soft," the "fair," the "gentle sex" learned its lesson with only +too much docility. It grew up stunted to meet the prevailing demand. It +acquired weakness, feigned ignorance, and emulated folly as sedulously +as men will labour to make at least a show of strength, good sense, and +knowledge. It adapted itself only too successfully to the economic +conditions in which it found itself. Men accepted its flatteries and +returned them with contempt. "Women," wrote that dictator of morals and +manners, Lord Chesterfield, "are only children of a larger growth.... A +man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and +flatters them, as he does a sprightly, forward child." The men of that +century valued women only as playthings. They forgot that he is the child who wants the toy.</p> + +<p>The first protests against this morality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> of degradation came, as one +would expect, from men. Demoralising as it was for men, it did at least +leave them the free use of their minds. Enquiry, reflection, scepticism, +unsuitable if not immodest in a woman, were the rights of a manly +intellect. Defoe and Swift uttered an unheeded protest in England, but +neither of them carried the subject far. There are some good critical +remarks in Helvétius about women's education; but the first man in that +century who seemed to realise the importance and scope of what several +dimly felt, was Baron Holbach, whose materialism was so peculiarly +shocking to our forefathers. A chapter "On Women" in his <i>Système +Social</i> (1774) opens thus: "In all the countries of the world the lot of +women is to submit to tyranny. The savage makes a slave of his mate, and +carries his contempt for her to the point of cruelty. For the jealous +and voluptuous Asiatic, women are but the sensual instruments of his +secret pleasures.... Does the European, in spite of the apparent +deference which he affects towards women, really treat them with more +respect? While we refuse them a sensible education, while we feed their +minds with tedium and trifles, while we allow them to busy themselves +only with playthings and fashions and adornments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> while we seek to +inspire them only with the taste for frivolous accomplishments, do we +not show our real contempt, while we mask it with a show of deference and respect?"</p> + +<p>Holbach was a rash and rather superficial metaphysician, but the +warm-hearted and honest pages which follow this opening inspire a deep +respect for the man. He talks of the absurdities of women's education; +draws a bitter picture of a woman's fate in a loveless marriage of +convenience; remarks that esteem is necessary for a happy marriage, but +asks sadly how one is to esteem a mind which has emerged from a +schooling in folly; assails the practice of gallantry, and the +fashionable conjugal infidelities of his day; writes with real +indignation of the dangers to which working-class girls are exposed; +proposes to punish seduction as a crime no less cruel than murder, and +concludes by confessing that he would like to adopt Plato's opinion that +women should share with men in the tasks of government, but dreads the +effects which would flow from the admission of the corrupt ladies of his day to power.</p> + +<p>Twenty years later this promising beginning bore fruit in the mature and +reasoned pleading of Condorcet for the reform of women's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> education. +There was no subject on which this noble constructive mind insisted with +such continual emphasis. His feminism (to use an ugly modern word), was +an integral part of his thinking. He remembered women when he wrote of +public affairs as naturally as most men forget them. He deserves in the +gratitude of women a place at least as distinguished as John Stuart +Mill's. The best and fullest statement of his position is to be found in +the report and draft Bill on national education (Sur l'Instruction +Publique), which he prepared for the Revolutionary Convention in 1792 +(see also <a href="#Page_109">p. 109</a>). He maintains boldly that the system of national +education should be the same for women as for men. He specially insists +that they should be admitted to the study of the natural sciences (these +were days when it was held that a woman would lose her modesty if she +studied botany), and thinks that they would render useful services to +science, even if they did not attain the first rank. They ought to be +educated for many reasons. They must be able to teach their children. If +they remain ignorant, the curse of inequality will be introduced into +the family, and mothers will be regarded by their sons with contempt. +Nor will men retain their intellectual interests,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> unless they can share +them with women. Lastly, women have the same natural right to knowledge +and enlightenment as men. The education should be given in common, and +this will powerfully further the interests of morality. The separation +of the sexes in youth really proceeds from the fear of unequal +marriages, in other words, from avarice and pride. It would be dangerous +for a democratic community to allow the spirit of social inequality to +survive among women, with the consequence that it could never be +extirpated among men. Condorcet was not a brilliant writer, but the +humanity and generosity of his thought finds a powerful and reasoned +expression in his sober and somewhat laboured sentences.</p> + +<p>So far a good and enlightened man might go. The substance of all that +need be said against the harem with the door ajar, in which the +eighteenth century had confined the mind if not the body, of women, is +to be found in Holbach and Condorcet. But they wrote from outside. They +were the wise spectators who saw the consequences of the degradation of +women, but did not intimately know its cause. Mary Wollstonecraft's +<i>Vindication of the Rights of Woman</i> (1792) is perhaps the most original +book of its century, not because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> its daring ideas were altogether new, +but because in its pages for the first time a woman was attempting to +use her own mind. Her ideas, as we have seen, were not absolutely new. +They were latent in all the thinking of the revolutionary period. They +had been foreshadowed by Holbach (whom she may have read), by Paine +(whom she had occasionally met), and by Condorcet (whose chief +contribution to the question, written in the same year as her +<i>Vindication</i>, she obviously had not read). What was absolutely new in +the world's history was that for the first time a woman dared to sit +down to write a book which was not an echo of men's thinking, nor an +attempt to do rather well what some man had done a little better, but a +first exploration of the problems of society and morals from a +standpoint which recognised humanity without ignoring sex. She showed +her genius not so much in writing the book, which is, indeed, a faulty +though an intensely vital performance, as in thinking out its position for herself.</p> + +<p>She had her predecessors, but she owed to them little, if anything. +There was not enough in them to have formed her mind, if she had come to +their pages unemancipated. She freed herself from mental slavery, and +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> utmost which she can have derived from the two or three men who +professed the same generous opinions, was the satisfaction of +encouragement or confirmation. She owed to others only the powerful +stimulus which the Revolution gave to all bold and progressive thought. +The vitality of her ideas sprang from her own experience. She had +received rather less than was customary of the slipshod superficial +education permitted to girls of the middle classes in her day. With this +nearly useless equipment, she had found herself compelled to struggle +with the world not merely to gain a living, but to rescue a luckless +family from a load of embarrassments and misfortunes. Her father was a +drunkard, idle, improvident, moody and brutal, and as a girl she had +often protected her mother from his violence. A sister had married a +profligate husband, and Mary rescued her from a miserable home, in which +she had been driven to temporary insanity. The sisters had attempted to +live by conducting a suburban school for girls; a brief experience as a +governess in a fashionable family had been even more formative.</p> + +<p>When at length she took to writing and translating educational books, +with the encouragement of a kindly publisher, she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> practising under +the stimulus of necessity the doctrine of economic independence, which +became one of the foundations of her teaching. It is the pressure of +economic necessity which in this generation and the last has forced +women into a campaign for freedom and opportunity. What the growth of +the industrial system has done for women in the mass, a hard experience +did for Mary Wollstonecraft. In her own person or through her sisters +she had felt in an aggravated form most of the wrongs to which women +were peculiarly exposed. She had seen the reverse of the shield of +chivalry, and known the domestic tyrannies of a sheltered home.</p> + +<p>The miracle was that Mary Wollstonecraft's mind was never distorted by +bitterness, nor her faith in mankind destroyed by cynicism. Her +personality lives for us still in her own books and in the records of +her friends. Opie's vivid painting hangs in the National Portrait +Gallery to confirm what Godwin tells us of her beauty in his pathetic +<i>Memoir</i> and to remind us of Southey's admiration for her eyes. Godwin +writes of "that smile of bewitching tenderness ... which won, both heart +and soul, the affection of almost every one that beheld it." She was, he +tells us, "in the best and most engaging sense,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> feminine in her +manners"; and indeed her letters and her books present her to us as a +woman who had courage and independence precisely because she was so +normal, so healthy in mind and body, so richly endowed with a generous +vitality. If she won the hearts of all who knew her, it was because her +own affections were warm and true. She was a good sister, a good +daughter, a passionate lover, an affectionate friend, a devoted and tender mother.</p> + +<p>She was too real a human being to be misled by the impartialities of +universal benevolence. "Few," she wrote, "have had much affection for +mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, +and even the domestic brutes whom they first played with." That eloquent +trait, her love of animals and her hatred of cruelty, helps to define +her character. She was, says Godwin, "a worshipper of domestic life," +and, for all her proud independence, in love with love. In Godwin's prim +phraseology, she "set a great value on a mutual affection between +persons of an opposite sex, and regarded it as the principal solace of +human life." Indeed, in the <i>Letters to Imlay</i>, which appeared after her +death, it is not so much the strength and independence of her final +attitude which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> impresses us, as her readiness to forgive, her +reluctance to resent his neglect, her affection which could survive so +many proofs of the man's unworthiness. The strongest passion in her +generous nature was maternal tenderness. It won her the enduring love of +the children whom she taught as a governess. It caused her mind to be +busied with the problem of education as its chief preoccupation. It +informs her whole view of the rights and duties of women in her +<i>Vindication</i>. It inspired the charming fragment entitled <i>Lessons for +Little Fanny</i>, which is one of the most graceful expressions in English +prose of the physical tenderness of a mother's love. If she despised the +artificial sensibility which in her day was admired and cultivated by +women, it was because her own emotions were natural and strong. Her +intellect, which no regular discipline had formed, impressed the +laborious and studious Godwin by its quickness and its flashes of sudden +insight—its "intuitive perception of intellectual beauty."</p> + +<p>The <i>Vindication</i> is certainly among the most remarkable books that have +come down to us from that opulent age. It has in abundance most of the +faults that a book can have. It was hastily written in six weeks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> It is +ill-arranged, full of repetitions, full of digressions, and almost +without a regular plan. Its style is unformed, sometimes rhetorical, +sometimes familiar. But with all these faults, it teems with apt +phrases, telling passages, vigorous sentences which sum up in a few +convincing lines the substance of its message. It lacks the neatness, +the athletic movement of Paine's English. It has nothing of the +learning, the formidable argumentative compulsion of Godwin's writing. +But it is sold to-day in cheap editions, while Godwin survives only on +the dustier shelves of old libraries. Its passion and sincerity have +kept it alive. It is the cry of an experience too real, too authentic, +to allow of any meandering down the by-ways of fanciful speculation. It +said with its solitary voice the thing which the main army of thinking +women is saying to-day. There is scarcely a passage of its central +doctrine which the modern leaders of the women's movement would +repudiate or qualify; and there is little if anything which they would +wish to add to it. Writers like Olive Schreiner, Miss Cicely Hamilton, +and Mrs. Gilman have, indeed, a background of historical knowledge, an +evolutionary view of society, a sense of the working of economic causes +which Mary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Wollstonecraft did not possess and could not in her age have +acquired, even if she had been what she was not, a woman of learning. +But she has anticipated all their main positions, and formulated the +ideal which the modern movement is struggling to complete. Her book is +dated in every chapter. It is as much a page torn from the journals of +the French Revolution as Paine's <i>Rights of Man</i> or Condorcet's +<i>Sketch</i>. And yet it seems, as they do not, a modern book.</p> + +<p>The chief merit of the <i>Vindication</i> is its clear perception that +everything in the future of women depends on the revision of the +attitude of men towards women and of women towards themselves. The rare +men who saw this, from Holbach and Condorcet to Mill, were philosophers. +Mary Wollstonecraft had no pretensions to philosophy. A brilliant +courage gave her in its stead her range and breadth of vision. It would +have been so much easier to write a treatise on education, a plea for +the reform of marriage, or even an argument for the admission of women +to political rights. To the last of these themes she alludes only in a +single sentence: "I may excite laughter, by dropping a hint, which I +mean to pursue, some future time, for I really think that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> women ought +to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without +having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of +government." She had the insight to perceive that the first task of the +pioneer was to raise the whole broad issue of the subjection of her sex. +She begins by linking her argument with a splendid imprudence to the +revolutionary movement. It had proclaimed the supremacy of reason, and +based freedom on natural right. Why was it that the new Constitution +ignored women? With a fresh simplicity, she appeals to the French +Convention in the name of its own abstract principles, as modern women +appeal (with more experience of the limitations of male logic) to +English Liberalism. But she knew very well what was the enormous +despotism of interest and prejudice that she was attacking. The +sensualist and the tyrant were for her interchangeable terms, and with +great skill she enlists on her side the new passion for liberty. "All +tyrants want to crush reason, from the weak king to the weak father." +She demands the enlightenment of women, as the reformers demanded that +of the masses: "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there +will be an end to blind obedience; but as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> blind obedience is ever +sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they +endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want +slaves, and the latter a plaything."</p> + +<p>With a shrewd if instinctive insight into social psychology, she traces +to the unenlightened self-interest of the dominant sex the code of +morals which has been imposed upon women. Rousseau supplies her with the +perfect and finished statement of all that she opposed. He and his like +had given a sex to virtue. She takes her stand on a broad human +morality. "Freedom must strengthen the reason of woman until she +comprehend her duty." Against the perverted sex-morality which treated +woman in religion, in ethics, in manners as a being relative only to +men, she directs the whole of her argument. It is "vain to expect virtue +from women, till they are in some degree independent of men."</p> + +<p>"Females have been insulated, as it were, and while they have been +stripped of the virtue that should clothe humanity, they have been +decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short-lived +tyranny.... Their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion instead +of inspiring respect;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> and this ignoble desire, like the servility in +absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of character. Liberty is the +mother of virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, +and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they +must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in +nature.... Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they +are human duties.... If marriage be the cement of society, mankind +should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the +sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship, nor will women ever +fulfil the peculiar duties of their sex, till they become enlightened +citizens, till they become free by being enabled to earn their own +subsistence, independent of men; in the same manner, I mean, to prevent +misconstruction, as one man is independent of another. Nay, marriage +will never be held sacred till women, by being brought up with men, are +prepared to be their companions rather than their mistresses."</p> + +<p>It is a brave but singularly balanced view of human life and society. +There is in it no trace of the dogmatic individualism that distorts the +speculations of Godwin and clogs the more practical thinking of Paine. +It is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> indeed, a protest against the exaggeration of sex, which +instilled in women "the desire of being always women." It flouts that +external morality of reputation, which would have a woman always "seem +to be this and that," because her whole status in the world depended on +the opinion which men held of her. It demands in words which anticipate +Ibsen's <i>Doll's House</i>, that a woman shall be herself and lead her own +life. But "her own life" was for Mary Wollstonecraft a social life. The +ideal is the perfect companionship of men and women, and the preparation +of men and women, by an equal practice of modesty and chastity, and an +equal advance in education, to be the parents of their children. She is +ready indeed to rest her whole case for the education of women upon the +duties of maternity. "Whatever tends to incapacitate the maternal +character takes woman out of her sphere." The education which she +demanded was the co-education of men and women in common schools. She +attacked the dual standard of sexual morality with a brave plainness of + +speech. She demanded the opening of suitable trades and professions to +women. She exposed the whole system which compels women to "live by +their charm." But a less destruc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>tive reformer never set out to +overthrow conventions. For her the duty always underlies the right, and +the development of the self-reliant individual is a preparation for the +life of fellowship.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>SHELLEY</h4> + +<p>If it were possible to blot out from our mind its memory of the Bible +and of Protestant theology, and with that mind of artificial vacancy to +read <i>Paradise Lost</i> and <i>Samson Agonistes</i>, how strange and great and +mad would the genius of Milton appear. We should wonder at his creative +mythological imagination, but we should marvel past all comprehending at +his conceptions of the divine order, and the destiny of man. To attempt +to understand Shelley without the aid of Godwin is a task hardly more +promising than it would be to read Milton without the Bible.</p> + +<p>The parallel is so close that one is tempted to pursue it further, for +there is between these two poets a close sympathy amid glaring +contrasts. Each admitted in spite of his passion for an ideal world an +absorbing concern in human affairs, and a vehement interest in the +contemporary struggle for liberty. If the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> one was a Republican Puritan +and the other an anarchical atheist, the dress which their passion for +liberty assumed was the uniform of the day. Neither was an original +thinker. Each steeped himself in the classics. But more important even +than the classics in the influences which moulded their minds, were the +dogmatic systems to which they attached themselves. It is not the power +of novel and pioneer thought which distinguishes a philosophical from a +purely sensuous mind. Shelley no more innovated or created in +metaphysics or politics than did Milton. But each had, with his gift of +imagery, and his power of musical speech, an intellectual view of the +universe. The name of Milton suggests to us eloquent rhythms and images +which pose like Grecian sculpture. But Milton's world was the world as +the grave, gowned men saw it who composed the Westminster Confession. +The name of Shelley rings like the dying fall of a song, or floats +before our eyes amid the faery shapes of wind-tossed clouds. But +Shelley's world was the world of the utilitarian Godwin and the +mathematical Condorcet. The supremacy of an intellectual vision is not a +common characteristic among poets, but it raises Milton and Shelley to +the choir in which Dante and Goethe are leaders.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> For Keats beauty was +truth, and that was all he cared to know. Coleridge, indeed, was a +metaphysician of some pretensions, but the "honey dew" on which he fed +when he wrote <i>Christabel</i> and <i>Kubla Khan</i> was not the <i>Critique of +Pure Reason</i>. But to Shelley <i>Political Justice</i> was the veritable "milk +of paradise." We must drink of it ourselves if we would share his +banquet. Godwin in short explains Shelley, and it is equally true that +Shelley is the indispensable commentary to Godwin. For all that was +living and human in the philosopher he finds imaginative expression. His +mind was a selective soil, in which only good seed could germinate. The +flowers wear the colour of life and emotion. In the clear light of his +verse, gleaming in their passionate hues, they display for us their +values. Some of them, the bees of a working hive will consent to +fertilise; from others they will turn decidedly away. Shelley is +Godwin's fertile garden. From another standpoint he is the desert which +Godwin laid waste.</p> + +<p>It is, indeed, the commonplace of criticism to insist on the reality +which the ideal world possessed for Shelley. Other poets have +illustrated thought by sensuous imagery. To Shelley, thought alone was +the essential<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> thing. A good impulse, a dream, an idea, were for him +what a Centaur or a Pegasus were for common fancy. He sees in +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i> a spirit who</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Speeded hither on the sigh</span><br /> +Of one who gave an enemy<br /> +His plank, then plunged aside to die.</div> + +<p>Another spirit rides on a sage's "dream with plumes of flame"; and a +third tells how a poet</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Will watch from dawn to gloom</span><br /> +The lake-reflected sun illume,<br /> +The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,<br /> +Nor heed, nor see, what things they be;<br /> +But from these create he can<br /> +Forms more real than living man,<br /> +Nurslings of immortality.</div> + +<p>How naturally from Shelley's imagination flowed the lines about Keats:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +All he had loved and moulded into thought<br /> +From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound<br /> +Lamented Adonais.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>This was no rhetoric, no affectation of fancy. Shelley saw the immortal +shapes of "Desires and Adorations" lamenting over the bier of the mortal +Keats, because for him an idea or a passion was incomparably more real +and more comprehensible than the things of flesh and earth, of whose +existence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> the senses persuade us. To such a mind philosophy was not a +distant world to be entered with diffident and halting feet, ever ready +to retreat at the first alarm of commonsense. It was his daily +habitation. He lived in it, and guided himself by its intellectual +compass among the perils and wonders of life, as naturally as other men +feel their way by touch. This ardent, sensitive, emotional nature, with +all its gift of lyrical speech and passionate feeling, was in fact the +ideal man of the Godwinian conception, who lives by reason and obeys +principles. Three men in modern times have achieved a certain fame by +their rigid obedience to "rational" conceptions of conduct—Thomas Day, +who wrote <i>Sandford and Merton</i>, Bentham, and Herbert Spencer. But the +erratic, fanciful Shelley was as much the enthusiastic slave of reason, +as any of these three; and he seemed erratic only because to be +perfectly rational is in this world the wildest form of eccentricity. He +came upon <i>Political Justice</i> while he was still a school-boy at Eton; +and his diaries show that there hardly passed a year of his life in +which he omitted to re-read it. Its phraseology colours his prose; his +mind was built upon it, as Milton's was upon the Bible. We hardly +require his own confession to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> assure us of the debt. "The name of +Godwin," he wrote in 1812, "has been used to excite in me feelings of +reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a +luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the +earliest period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently +desired to share on the footing of intimacy that intellect which I have +delighted to contemplate in its emanations. Considering then, these +feelings, you will not be surprised at the inconceivable emotions with +which I learnt your existence and your dwelling. I had enrolled your +name in the list of the honourable dead. I had felt regret that the +glory of your being had passed from this earth of ours. It is not so. +You still live, and I firmly believe are still planning the welfare of +human kind."</p> + +<p>The enthusiastic youth was to learn that his master's preoccupation was +with concerns more sordid and more pressing than the welfare of human +kind; but if close personal intercourse brought some disillusionment +regarding Godwin's private character, it only deepened his intellectual +influence, and confirmed Shelley's lifelong adhesion to his system. No +contemporary thinker ever contested Godwin's empire over Shelley's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +mind; and if in later years Plato claimed an ever-growing share in his +thoughts, we must remember that in several of his fundamental tenets +Godwin was a Platonist without knowing it. It is only in his purely +personal utterances, in the lyrics which rendered a mood or an +impression, or in such fancies as the <i>Witch of Atlas</i>, that Shelley can +escape from the obsession of <i>Political Justice</i>. The voice of Godwin +does not disturb us in <i>The Skylark</i>, and it is silenced by the violent +passions of <i>The Cenci</i>. But in all the more formal and graver +utterances of Shelley's genius, from <i>Queen Mab</i> to <i>Hellas</i>, it +supplies the theme and Shelley writes the variations. <i>Queen Mab</i>, +indeed, is nothing but a fervent lad's attempt to state in verse the +burden of Godwin's prose. Some passages in it (notably the lines about +commerce) are a mere paraphrase or summary of pages from <i>The Enquirer</i> +or <i>Political Justice</i>. In the <i>Revolt of Islam</i>, and still more in +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i>, Shelley's imagination is becoming its own master. +The variations are more important, more subtle, more beautiful than the +theme; but still the theme is there, a precise and definite dogma for +fancy to embroider. It is only in <i>Hellas</i> that Shelley's power of +narrative (in Hassan's story), his irrepressible lyrical gift,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> and his +passion which at length could speak in its own idiom, combine to make a +masterpiece which owes to Godwin only some general ideas. If the +transcript became less literal, it was not that the influence had waned. +It was rather that Shelley was gaining the full mastery of his own +native powers of expression. In these poems he assumes or preaches all +Godwin's characteristic doctrines, perfectibility, non-resistance, +anarchism, communism, the power of reason and the superiority of +persuasion over force, universal benevolence, and the ascription of +moral evil to the desolating influence of "positive institution."</p> + +<p>The general agreement is so obvious that one need hardly illustrate it. +What is more curious is the habit which Shelley acquired of reproducing +even the minor opinions or illustrations which had struck him in his +continual reading of Godwin. When Mammon advises Swellfoot the Tyrant to +refresh himself with</p> + +<div class="poem"> +A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook<br /> +Such as is served at the Great King's second table.<br /> +The price and pains which its ingredients cost<br /> +Might have maintained some dozen families<br /> +A winter or two—not more.</div> + +<p>he is simply making an ironical paraphrase from Godwin. The fine scene +in Canto XI.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> of the <i>Revolt of Islam</i>, in which Laon, confronting the +tyrant on his throne, quells by a look and a word a henchman who was +about to stab him, is a too brief rendering of Godwin's reflections on +the story of Marius and the Executioner (see <a href="#Page_128">p. 128</a>).</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one more daring, raised his steel anew</span><br /> +To pierce the stranger: "What hast thou to do<br /> +With me, poor wretch?"—calm, solemn and severe<br /> +That voice unstrung his sinews, and he threw<br /> +His dagger on the ground, and pale with fear,<br /> +Sate silently.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>The pages of Shelley are littered with such reminiscences.</p> + +<p>Matthew Arnold said of Shelley that he was "a beautiful and ineffectual +angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." One is tempted to +retort that to be beautiful is in itself to escape futility, and to +people a void with angels is to be far from ineffectual. But the +metaphor is more striking as phrase-making than as criticism. The world +into which the angel fell, wide-eyed, indignant, and surprised, was not +a void. It was a nightmare composed of all the things which to common +mortals are usual, normal, inevitable—oppressions and wars, follies and +crimes, kings and priests, hangmen and inquisitors, poverty and luxury. +If he beat his wings in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> this cage of horrors, it was with the rage and +terror of a bird which belongs to the free air. Shelley, Matthew Arnold +held, was not quite sane. Sanity is a capacity for becoming accustomed +to the monstrous. Not time nor grey hairs could bring that kind of +sanity to Shelley's clear-sighted madness. If he must be compared to an +angel, Mr. Wells has drawn him for us. He was the angel whom a country +clergyman shot in mistake for a buzzard, in that graceful satire, <i>The +Wonderful Visit</i>. Brought to earth by this mischance, he saw our follies +and our crimes without the dulling influence of custom. Satirists have +loved to imagine such a being. Voltaire drew him with as much wit as +insight in <i>L'Ingénu</i>—the American savage who landed in France, and +made the amazing discovery of civilisation. Shelley had not dropped from +the clouds nor voyaged from the backwoods, but he seems always to be +discovering civilisation with a fresh wonder and an insatiable +indignation.</p> + +<p>One may doubt whether a saint has ever lived more selfless, more devoted +to the beauty of virtue; but one quality Shelley lacked which is +commonly counted a virtue. He had none of that imaginative sympathy +which can make its own the motives and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> desires of other men. +Self-interest, intolerance and greed he understood as little as common +men understand heroism and devotion. He had no mean powers of +observation. He saw the world as it was, and perhaps he rather +exaggerated than minimised its ugliness. But it never struck him that +its follies and crimes were human failings and the outcome of anything +that is natural in the species. The doctrines of perfectibility and +universal benevolence clothed themselves for him in the Godwinian +phraseology, but they were the instinctive beliefs of his temperament. +So sure was he of his own goodness, so natural was it with him to love +and to be brave, that he unhesitatingly ascribed all the evil of the +world to the working of some force which was unnatural, accidental, +anti-human. If he had grown up a mediæval Christian, he would have found +no difficulty in blaming the Devil. The belief was in his heart; the +formula was Godwin's. For the wonder, the miracle of all this unnatural, +incomprehensible evil in the world, he found a complete explanation in +the doctrine that "positive institutions" have poisoned and distorted +the natural good in man. After a gloomy picture in <i>Queen Mab</i> of all +the oppressions which are done under the sun, he suddenly breaks away to +absolve nature:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Nature!—No!</span><br /> +Kings, priests and statesmen blast the human flower<br /> +Even in its tender bud; their influence darts<br /> +Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins<br /> +Of desolate society....<br /> +Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man<br /> +Inherits vice and misery, when force<br /> +And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe<br /> +Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>It is a stimulating doctrine, for if humanity had only to rid itself of +kings and priests, the journey to perfection would be at once brief and +eventful. As a sociological theory it is unluckily unsatisfying. There +is, after all, nothing more natural than a king. He is a zoological +fact, with his parallel in every herd of prairie dogs. Nor is there +anything much more human than the tendency to convention which gives to +institutions their rigidity. If force and imposture have had a share in +the making of kings and priests, it is equally true that they are the +creation of the servility and superstition of the mass of men. The +eighteenth century chose to forget that man is a gregarious animal. +Oppression and priestcraft are the transitory forms in which the flock +has sought to cement its union. But the modern world is steeped in the +lore of anthropology; there is little need to bring its heavy guns to +bear upon the slender fabric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> of Shelley's dream. <i>Queen Mab</i> was a +boy's precocious effort, and in later verses Shelley put the case for +his view of evil in a more persuasive form. He is now less concerned to +declare that it is unnatural, than to insist that it flows from defects +in men which are not inherent or irremovable. The view is stated with +pessimistic malice by a Fury in <i>Prometheus Unbound</i> after a vision of +slaughter.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Fury.</span></p> + +<p>Blood thou can'st see, and fire; and can'st hear groans.<br /> +Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Prometheus.</span></p> + +<p>Worse?</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Fury.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">In each human heart terror survives</span><br /> +The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear,<br /> +All that they would disdain to think were true:<br /> +Hypocrisy and custom make their minds<br /> +The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.<br /> +They dare not devise good for man's estate,<br /> +And yet they know not that they do not dare.<br /> +The good want power, but to weep barren tears.<br /> +The powerful goodness want—worse need for them.<br /> +The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom.<br /> +And all best things are thus confused to ill.<br /> +Many are strong and rich, and would be just,<br /> +But live among their suffering fellow-men<br /> +As if none felt; they know not what they do.</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>Shelley so separated the good and evil in the world, that he was +presently vexed as acutely as any theist with the problem of accounting +for evil. Paine felt no difficulty in his sharp, positive mind. He +traced all the wrongs of society to the egoism of priests and kings; +and, since he did not assume the fundamental goodness of human nature, +it troubled none of his theories to accept the crude primitive fact of +self-interest. What Shelley would really have said in answer to a +question about the origin of evil, if we had found him in a prosaic +mood, it is hard to guess, and the speculation does not interest us. +Shelley's prose opinions were of no importance. What we do trace in his +poetry is a tendency, half conscious, uttering itself only in figures +and parables, to read the riddle of the universe as a struggle between +two hostile principles. In the world of prose he called himself an +atheist. He rejoiced in the name, and used it primarily as a challenge +to intolerance. "It is a good word of abuse to stop discussion," he said +once to his friend Trelawny, "a painted devil to frighten the foolish, a +threat to intimidate the wise and good. I used it to express my +abhorrence of superstition. I took up the word as a knight takes up a +gauntlet in defiance of injustice."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>Shelley was an atheist because Christians used the name of God to +sanctify persecution. That was really his ultimate emotional reason. His +mythology, when he came to paint the world in myths, was Manichean. His +creed was an ardent dualism, in which a God and an anti-God contend and +make history. But in his mood of revolt it suited him to confuse the +names and the symbols. The snake is everywhere in his poems the +incarnation of good, and if we ask why, there is probably no other +reason than that the Hebrew mythology against which he revolted, had + +taken it as the symbol of evil. The legitimate Gods in his Pantheon are +always in the wrong. He belongs to the cosmic party of opposition, and +the Jupiter of his <i>Prometheus</i> is morally a temporarily omnipotent +devil. Like Godwin he felt that the God of orthodoxy was a "tyrant," and +he revolted against Him, because he condemned the world which He had made.</p> + +<p>The whole point of view, as it concerns Christian theology, is stated +with a bitter clearness, in the speech of Ahasuerus in <i>Queen Mab</i>. The +first Canto of the <i>Revolt of Islam</i> puts the position of dualism +without reserve:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +Know, then, that from the depths of ages old<br /> +Two Powers o'er mortal things dominion hold,<br /> +Ruling the world with a divided lot,<br /> +Immortal, all-pervading, manifold,<br /> +Twin Genii, equal Gods—when life and thought<br /> +Sprang forth, they burst the womb of inessential Nought.</div> + +<p>The good principle was the Morning Star (as though to remind us of +Lucifer) until his enemy changed him to the form of a snake. The +anti-God, whom men worship blindly as God, holds sway over our world. +Terror, madness, crime, and pain are his creation, and Asia in +<i>Prometheus</i> cries aloud—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Utter his name: a world pining in pain</span><br /> +Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>In the sublime mythology of <i>Prometheus</i> the war of God and anti-God is +seen visibly, making the horrors of history. As Jupiter's Furies rend +the heart of the merciful Titan chained to his rock on Caucasus, murders +and crucifixions are enacted in the world below. The mythical cruelties +in the clouds are the shadows of man's sufferings below; and they are +also the cause. A mystical parallelism links the drama in Heaven with +the tragedy on earth; we suffer from the malignity of the World's Ruler, +and triumph by the endurance of Man's Saviour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>Nothing could be more absurd than to call Shelley a Pantheist. Pantheism +is the creed of conservatism and resignation. Shelley felt the world as +struggle and revolt, and like all the poets, he used Heaven as the vast +canvas on which to paint with a demonic brush an heroic idealisation of +what he saw below. It would be interesting to know whether any human +heart, however stout and rebellious, when once it saw the cosmic process +as struggle, has ever been able to think of the issue as uncertain. +Certainly for Shelley there was never a doubt about the final triumph of +good. Godwin qualified his agnosticism by supposing that there was a +tendency in things (he would not call it spiritual, or endow it with +mind) which somehow cooperates with us and assures the victory of life +(see <a href="#Page_184">p. 184</a>). One seems to meet this vague principle, this reverend +Thing, in Shelley's Demogorgon, the shapeless, awful negation which +overthrows the maleficent Jupiter, and with his fall inaugurates the +golden age. The strange name of Demogorgon has probably its origin in +the clerical error of some mediæval copyist, fumbling with the scholia +of an anonymous grammarian. One can conceive that it appealed to +Shelley's wayward fancy because it suggested none of the traditional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +theologies; and certainly it has a mysterious and venerable sound. +Shelley can describe It only as Godwin describes his principle by a +series of negatives.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I see a mighty darkness</span><br /> +Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom<br /> +Dart round, as light from the meridian sun,<br /> +Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb,<br /> +Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is<br /> +A living spirit.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>It is the eternal <big><strong>X</strong></big> which the human spirit always assumes when it is at +a loss to balance its equations. Demogorgon is, because if It were not, +our strivings would be a battle in the mist, with no clear trumpet-note +that promised triumph. Shelley, turning amid his singing to the +supremest of all creative work, the making of a mythology, invents his +God very much as those detested impostors, the primitive priests, had +done. He gives Humanity a friendly Power as they had endowed their tribe +with a god of battles. Humanity at grips with chaos is curiously like a +nigger clan in the bush. It needs a fetish of victory. But a poet's +mythology is to be judged by its fruits. A faith is worth the cathedral +it builds. A myth is worth the poem it inspires.</p> + +<p>If Shelley's ultimate view of reality is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> vague, a thing to be shadowed +in myths and hinted in symbols, there is nothing indefinite in his view +of the destinies of mankind. Here he marched behind Godwin, and Godwin +hated vagueness. His intellect had assimilated all the steps in the +argument for perfectibility. It emerges in places in its most dogmatic +form. Institutions make us what we are, and to free us from their +shackles is to liberate virtue and unleash genius. He pauses midway in +the preface to <i>Prometheus</i> to assure us that, if England were divided +into forty republics, each would produce philosophers and poets as great +and numerous as those of Athens. The road to perfection, however, is not +through revolution, but by the gradual extirpation of error. When he +writes in prose, he expresses himself with all the rather affected +intellectualism of the Godwinian psychology. "Revenge and retaliation," +he remarks in the preface to <i>The Cenci</i> "are pernicious <i>mistakes</i>." +But temperament counts for something even in a disciple so devout as +Shelley. He had an intellectual view of the world; but, when once the +rhythm of his musical verse had excited his mind to be itself, the force +and simplicity of his emotion transfuse and transform these +abstractions. Godwin's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> "universal benevolence" was with him an ardent +affectionate love for his kind. Godwin's cold precept that it was the +duty of an illuminated understanding to contribute towards the progress +of enquiry, by arguing about perfection and the powers of the mind in +select circles of friends who meet for debate, but never (virtue +forbids) for action, became for him a zealous missionary call.</p> + +<p>One smiles, with his irreverent yet admiring biographers, at the early +escapades of the married boy—the visit to Dublin at the height of the +agitation for Catholic emancipation, the printing of his Address to the +Irish Nation, and his trick of scattering it by flinging copies from his +balcony at passers-by, his quaint attempts to persuade grave Catholic +noblemen that what they ought really to desire was a total and rapid +transformation of the whole fabric of society, his efforts to found an +association for the moral regeneration of mankind, and his elfish +amusement of launching the truth upon the waters in the form of +pamphlets sealed up in bottles. Shelley at this age perpetrated "rags" +upon the universe, much as commonplace youths make hay of their fellows' +rooms. It is amusing to read the solemn letters in which Godwin, +complacently accepting the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> post of mentor, tells Shelley that he is +much too young to reform the world, urges him to acquire a vicarious +maturity by reading history, and refers him to <i>Political Justice +passim</i> for the arguments which demonstrate the error of any attempt to +improve mankind by forming political associations.</p> + +<p>It is questionable how far the world has to thank Godwin for dissuading +ardent young men from any practical effort to realise their ideals. It +is just conceivable that, if the generation which hailed him as prophet +had been stimulated by him to do something more than fold its hands in +an almost superstitious veneration for the Slow Approach of Truth, there +might have arisen under educated leaders some movement less class-bound +than Whig Reform, less limited than the Corn Law agitation, and more +intelligent than Chartism. But, if politics lost by Godwin's quietism, +literature gained. It was Godwin's mission in life to save poets from +Botany Bay; he rescued Shelley, as he had rescued Southey and Coleridge. +It was by scattering his pity and his sympathy on every living creature +around him, and squandering his fortune and his expectations in charity, +while he dodged the duns and lived on bread and tea, that Shelley +followed in action the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> principles of universal benevolence. Godwin +omitted the beasts; but Shelley, practising vegetarianism and buying +crayfish in order to return them to the river, realised the "boast" of +the poet in <i>Alastor</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast<br /> +I consciously have injured, but still loved<br /> +And cherished these my kindred—</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>We hear of his gifts of blankets to the poor lace-makers at Marlow, and +meet him stumbling home barefoot in mid-winter because he had given his +boots to a poor woman.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most characteristic picture of this aspect of Shelley is +Leigh Hunt's anecdote of a scene on Hampstead Heath. Finding a poor +woman in a fit on the top of the Heath, Shelley carries her in his arms +to the lighted door of the nearest house, and begs for shelter. The +householder slams it in his face, with an "impostors swarm everywhere," +and a "Sir, your conduct is extraordinary."</p> + +<p>"Sir," cried Shelley, "I am sorry to say that <i>your</i> conduct is not +extraordinary.... It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the +patience of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes in +this country (which is very probable), recollect what I tell you. You +will have your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> house, that you refuse to put this miserable woman into, +burnt over your head."</p> + +<p>It must have been about this very time that the law of England (quite +content to regard the owner of the closed door as a virtuous citizen) +decided that the Shelley who carried this poor stranger into shelter, +fetched a doctor, and out of his own poverty relieved her direr need, +was unfit to bring up his own children.</p> + +<p>If Shelley allowed himself to be persuaded by Godwin to abandon his +missionary adventures, he pursued the ideal in his poems. Whether by +Platonic influence, or by the instinct of his own temperament, he moves +half-consciously from the Godwinian notion that mankind are to be +reasoned into perfection. The contemplation of beauty is with him the +first stage in the progress towards reasoned virtue. "My purpose," he +writes in the preface to <i>Prometheus</i>, "has been ... to familiarise ... +poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware +that, until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and +endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the +highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, +although they would bear the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> harvest of his happiness." It was for want +of virtue, as Mary Wollstonecraft reflected, writing sadly after the +Terror, that the French Revolution had failed. The lesson of all the +horrors of oppression and reaction which Shelley described, the comfort +of all the listening spirits who watch from their mental eyries the slow +progress of mankind to perfection, the example of martyred +patriots—these tend always to the moral which Demogorgon sums up at the +end of the unflagging, unearthly beauties of the last triumphant act of +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;<br /> +To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;<br /> +To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;<br /> +To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates<br /> +From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;<br /> +Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;<br /> +This like thy glory, Titan! is to be<br /> +Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;<br /> +This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>To suffer, to forgive, to love, but above all, to defy—that was for +Shelley the whole duty of man.</p> + +<p>In two peculiarities, which he constantly emphasised, Shelley's view of +progress differed at once from Godwin's conception, and from the notion +of a slow evolutionary growth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> which the men of to-day consider +historical he traced the impulse which is to lead mankind to perfection, +to the magnetic leading of chosen and consecrated spirits. He saw the +process of change not as a slow evolution (as moderns do), nor yet as +the deliberate discarding of error at the bidding of rational argument +(as Godwin did), but rather as a sudden emotional conversion. The +missionary is always the light-bringer. "Some eminent in virtue shall +start up," he prophesies in <i>Queen Mab</i>. The <i>Revolt of Islam</i>, so +puzzling to the uninitiated reader by the wilful inversions of its +mythology, and its history which seems to belong to no conceivable race +of men, becomes, when one grasps its underlying ideas, a luminous epic +of revolutionary faith, precious if only because it is told in that +elaborately musical Spenserian stanza which no poet before or after +Shelley has handled with such easy mastery. Their mission to free their +countrymen comes to Laon and Cythna while they are still children, +brooding over the slavery of modern Greece amid the ruins of a free +past. They dream neither of teaching nor of fighting. They are the +winged children of Justice and Truth, whose mere words can scatter the +thrones of the oppressor, and trample the last altar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> in the dust. It is +enough to speak the name of Liberty in a ship at sea, and all the coasts +around it will thrill with the rumour of her name. In one moving, +eloquent harangue, Cythna converts the sailors of the ship, laden with +slaves and the gains of commerce, into the pioneers of her army. She +paints to them the misery of their own lot, and then appeals to the +central article of revolutionary faith:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +This need not be; ye might arise and will<br /> +That gold should lose its power and thrones their glory.<br /> +That love which none may bind be free to fill<br /> +The world like light; and evil faith, grown hoary<br /> +With crime, be quenched and die.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>"Ye might arise and will"—it was the inevitable corollary of the facile +analysis which traced all the woes of mankind not to "nature," but to +kings, priests, and institutions. Shelley's missionaries of liberty +preach to a nation of slaves, as the apostles of the Salvation Army +preach in the slums to creatures reared in degradation, the same +mesmeric appeal. Conversion is a psychological possibility, and the +history of revolutions teaches its limitations and its power as +instructively as the history of religion. It breaks down not because men +are incapable of the sudden effort that can "arise and will," but +rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> because to render its effects permanent, it must proceed to +regiment the converts in organised associations, which speedily develop +all the evils that have ruined the despotism it set out to overthrow.</p> + +<p>The interest of this revolutionary epic lies largely in the marriage of +Godwin's ideas with Mary Wollstonecraft's, which in the second +generation bears its full imaginative fruit. The most eloquent verses +are those which describe Cythna's leadership of the women in the +national revolt, and enforce the theme "Can man be free, if woman be a +slave?" Not less characteristic is the Godwinian abhorrence of violence, +and the Godwinian trust in the magic of courageous passivity. Laon finds +the revolutionary hosts about to slaughter their vanquished oppressors, +and persuades them to mercy and fraternity with the appeal.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +O wherefore should ill ever flow from ill<br /> +And pain still keener pain for ever breed.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>He pardons and spares the tyrant himself; and Cythna shames the slaves +who are sent to bind her, until they weep in a sudden perception of the +beauty of virtue and courage. When the reaction breaks at length upon +the victorious liberators, they stand passive to be hewn down, as +Shelley, in the <i>Masque of</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> <i>Anarchy</i>, written after Peterloo, advised +the English reformers to do.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +With folded arms and steady eyes,<br /> +And little fear and less surprise,<br /> +Look upon them as they slay,<br /> +Till their rage has died away.<br /> +<br /> +Then they will return with shame<br /> +To the place from which they came,<br /> +And the blood thus shed will speak<br /> +In hot blushes on their cheek.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>The simple stanzas might have been written by Blake. There is something +in the primitive Christianity of this aggressive Atheist which breathes +the childlike innocence of the Kingdom of Heaven. Shelley dreamed of "a +nation made free by love." With a strange mystical insight, he stepped +beyond the range of the Godwinian ethics, when he conceived of his +humane missionaries as victims who offer themselves a living sacrifice +for the redemption of mankind. Prometheus chained to his rock, because +he loved and defied, by some inscrutable magic of destiny, brings at +last by his calm endurance the consummation of the Golden Age. Laon +walks voluntarily on to the pile which the Spanish inquisitor had heaped +for him; and Cythna flings herself upon the flames in a last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +affirmation of the power of self-sacrifice and the beauty of comradeship.</p> + +<p>Thrice Shelley essayed to paint the state of perfection which mankind +might attain, when once it should "arise and will." The first of the +three pictures is the most literally Godwinian. It is the boyish sketch +of <i>Queen Mab</i>, with pantisocracy faithfully touched in, and Godwin's +speculations on the improvement of the human frame suggested in a few +pregnant lines. One does not feel that Shelley's mind is even yet its +own master in the firmer and maturer picture which concludes the third +act of <i>Prometheus Unbound</i>. He is still repeating a lesson, and it +calls forth less than the full powers of his imagination. The picture of +perfection itself is cold, negative, and mediocre. The real genius of +the poet breaks forth only when he allows himself in the fourth act to +sing the rapture of the happy spirits who "bear Time to his tomb in +eternity," while they circle in lyrical joy around the liberated earth. +There sings Shelley. The picture itself is a faithful illustration +etched with a skilful needle to adorn the last chapter of <i>Political +Justice</i>. Evil is once more and always something factitious and +unessential. The Spirit of the Earth sees the "ugly human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> shapes and +visages" which men had worn in the old bad days float away through the +air like chaff on the wind. They were no more than masks. Thrones are +kingless, and forthwith men walk in upright equality, neither fawning +nor trembling. Republican sincerity informs their speech:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +None talked that common false cold hollow talk<br /> +Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes.</div> + +<p>Women are "changed to all they dared not be," and "speak the wisdom once +they could not think." "Thrones, altars, judgment-seats and prisons," +and all the "tomes of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance" cumber the +ground like the unnoticed ruins of a barbaric past.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains<br /> +Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man<br /> +Equal, unclassed, tribeless and nationless<br /> +Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king<br /> +Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man<br /> +Passionless.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>The story ends there, and if we do not so much as wait for the assurance +that man passionless, tribeless, and nationless lived happily ever +afterwards, it is because we are unable to feel even this faint interest +in his destiny. There is something amiss with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> ideal which is +constrained to express itself in negatives. What should be the climax of +a triumphant argument becomes its refutation. To reduce ourselves to +this abstract quintessential man might be euthanasia. It would not be paradise.</p> + +<p>The third of Shelley's visions of perfection is the climax of <i>Hellas</i>. +One feels in attempting to make about <i>Hellas</i> any statement in bald +prose, the same sense of baffled incompetence that a modest mind +experiences in attempting to describe music. One reads what the critics +have written about Beethoven's Heroic Symphony, to close the page +wondering that men with ears should have dared to write it. The +insistent rhythm beats in your blood, the absorbing melodies obsess your +brain, and you turn away realising that emotion, when it can find a +channel of sense, has a power which defies the analytic understanding. +<i>Hellas</i>, in a sense, is absolute poetry, as the "Eroica" is absolute +music. Ponder a few lines in one of the choruses which seem to convey a +definite idea, and against your will the elaborate rhythms and rhymes +will carry you along, until thought ceases and only the music and the +picture hold your imagination.</p> + +<p>And yet Shelley meant something as certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> as Beethoven did. Nowhere +is his genius so realistic, so closely in touch with contemporary fact, +yet nowhere does he soar so easily into his own ideal world. He +conceived it while Mavrocordato, about to start to fight for the +liberation of Greece, was paying daily visits to Shelley's circle at +Pisa. The events in Turkey, now awful, now hopeful, were before him as +crude facts in the newspaper. The historians of classical Greece were +his continual study. As he steeped himself in Plato, a world of ideal +forms opened before him in a timeless heaven as real as history, as +actual as the newspapers. <i>Hellas</i> is the vision of a mind which touches +fact through sense, but makes of sense the gate and avenue into an +immortal world of thought. Past and present and future are fused in one +glowing symphony. The Sultan is no more real than Xerxes, and the golden +consummation glitters with a splendour as dazzling and as present as the +Age of Pericles. For Shelley, this denial of time had become a conscious +doctrine. Berkeley and Plato had become for him in his later years +influences as intimate as Godwin. Again and again in his later poems, he +turns from the cruelties and disappointments of the world, from death +and decay and failure, no longer with revolt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> and anger, but with a +serene contempt. Thought is the only reality; time with its appearance +of mortality is the dream and the illusion. Says Ahasuerus in <i>Hellas</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +The future and the past are idle shadows<br /> +Of thought's eternal flight.</div> + +<p>The moral rings out at the end of "The Sensitive Plant" with an almost +conversational simplicity;</p> + +<div class="poem"> +Death itself must be,<br /> +Like all the rest, a mockery.</div> + +<p>Most eloquent of all are the familiar lines in <i>Adonais</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis we who lost in stormy visions keep</span><br /> +With phantoms an unprofitable strife,</div> + +<p>and again:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +The One remains, the many change and pass.<br /> +Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly;<br /> +Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,<br /> +Stains the white radiance of eternity.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>In all the musical and visionary glory of <i>Hellas</i> we seem to hear a +subtle dialogue. It never reaches a conclusion. It never issues in a +dogma. The oracle is dumb, and the end of it all is rather like a +prayer. At one moment Shelley toys with the dreary sublimity of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +Stoic notion of world-cycles. The world in the Stoic cosmogony followed +its destined course, until at last the elemental fire consumed it in the +secular blaze, which became for mediæval Christianity the <i>Dies irae</i>. +And then once more it rose from the conflagration to repeat its own +history again, and yet again, and for ever with an ineluctable fidelity. +That nightmare haunts Shelley in <i>Hellas</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +Worlds on worlds are rolling ever<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From creation to decay,</span><br /> +Like the bubbles on a river,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sparkling, bursting, borne away.</span></div> + +<p>The thought returns to him in the final chorus like the "motto" of a +symphony; and he sings it in a triumphant major key:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +The world's great age begins anew,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The golden years return,</span><br /> +The earth doth like a snake renew<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her winter weeds outworn.</span><br /> +Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam<br /> +Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>He is filled with the afflatus of prophecy, and there flow from his +lips, as if in improvisation, surely the most limpid, the most +spontaneous stanzas in our language:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +A brighter Hellas rears its mountains<br /> +From waves serener far.</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>He sings happily and, as it were, incautiously of Tempe and Argo, of +Orpheus and Ulysses, and then the jarring note of fear is heard:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +O write no more the tale of Troy<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If earth Death's scroll must be,</span><br /> +Nor mix with Laian rage the joy<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which dawns upon the free.</span></div> + +<p> </p> +<p>He has turned from the empty abstraction of the Godwinian vision of +perfection. He dissolves empires and faiths, it is true. But his +imagination calls for action and movement. The New Philosophy had driven +history out of the picture. This lyrical vision restores it, whole, +complete, and literal. The wealth of the concrete takes its revenge upon +the victim of abstraction. The men of his golden age are no longer +tribeless and nationless. They are Greeks. He has peopled his future; +but, as the picture hardens into detail, he seems to shrink from it. +That other earlier theme of his symphony recurs. His chorus had sung:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The foul cubs like their parents are,</span><br /> +Their den is in their guilty mind,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And conscience feeds them with despair.</span></div> + +<p>Some end there must be to the <i>perpetuum mobile</i> of wrong and revenge. +And yet it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> seems to be in human affairs the very principle of motion. +He ends with a cry and a prayer, and a clouded vision. The infinity of +evil must be stayed, but what if its cessation means extinction?</p> + +<div class="poem"> +O cease! must hate and death return?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cease! must men kill and die?</span><br /> +Cease! Drain not to its dregs the urn<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of bitter prophecy.</span><br /> +The world is weary of the past<br /> +O might it die, or rest at last.</div> + +<p> </p> +<p>Never were there simpler verses in a great song. But he were a bold man +who would pretend to know quite certainly what they mean. Shelley is not +sure whether his vision of perfection will be embodied in the earth. For +a moment he seems to hope that Greece will renew her glories. For one +fleeting instant—how ironical the vision seems to us—he conceives that +she may be re-incarnated in America. But there is a deeper doubt than +this in the prophet's mind. He is not sure that he wants to see the +Golden Age founded anew in the perilous world of fact. There is a +pattern of the perfect society laid up in Heaven, or if that phrase by +familiarity has lost its meaning, let us say rather that the Republic +exists firmly founded in the human mind itself:</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +But Greece and her foundations are<br /> +Built below the tide of war,<br /> +Based on the crystalline sea<br /> +Of thought and its eternity.</div> + +<p>Again, and yet again, he tells us that the heavenly city, the New +Athens, "the kingless continents, sinless as Eden" shine in no common +day, beside no earthly sea:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">If Greece must be</span><br /> +A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble,<br /> +And build themselves impregnably<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In a diviner clime,</span><br /> +To Amphionic music on some cape sublime<br /> +Which frowns above the idle foam of Time.</div> + +<p>Is it only an eloquent phrase, which satisfies us, by its beautiful +words, we know not why, as the chords that make the "full close" in +music content us? Or shall we re-interpret it in our own prose? Where +any mind strives after justice, where any soul suffers and loves and +defies, there is the ideal Republic.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We have moved from Dr. Price's sermon to Shelley's chorus. The eloquent +old man, preaching in the first flush of hope that came with the new +time, conceived that his eyes had seen the great salvation. The day of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +tyrants and priests was already over, and before the earth closed on his +grave, a free Europe would be linked in a confederacy that had abolished +war. A generation passed, and the winged victory is now a struggling +hope, her pinions singed with the heat of battle, her song mingled with +the rumour of massacre, speeding, a fugitive from fact, to the diviner +climes of an ideal world. The logic of the revolution has worked to its +predestined conclusion. It dreamed too eagerly of the end. It thought in +indictments. It packed the present on its tumbrils, and cleared away the +past with its dialectical guillotine. When the present was condemned and +the past buried, the future had somehow eluded it. It executed the +mother, and marvelled that the child should die.</p> + +<p>The human mind can never be satisfied with the mere assurance that +sooner or later the golden years will come. The mere lapse of time is in +itself intolerable. If our waking life and our years of action are to +regain a meaning, we must perceive that the process of evolution is +itself significant and interesting. We are to-day so penetrated with +that thought, that the notion of a state of perfection in the future +seems to us as inconceivable and as little interesting as Rousseau's +myth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> of a state of innocence in the past. We know very well that our +ideal, whether we see it in the colours of Plato or Godwin or William +Morris, does but measure the present development of our faculties. Long +before the dream is realised in fact, a new horizon will have been +unfolded before the imagination of mankind.</p> + +<p>What is of value in this endless process is precisely the unfolding of +ideals which record themselves, however imperfectly, in institutions, +and still more the developing sense of comradeship and sympathy which +links us in relations of justice and love with every creature that +feels. We are old enough to pass lightly over the enthusiastic paradoxes +that intoxicated the youth of the progressive idea. It is a truth that +outworn institutions fetter and dwarf the mind of man. It is also a +truth that institutions have moulded and formed that mind. To condemn +the past is in the same breath to blast the future. The true basis for +that piety towards our venerable inheritance which Burke preached, is +that it has made for us the possibility of advance.</p> + +<p>But our strivings would be languid, our march would be slow, were it not +for the revolutionary leaven which Godwin's generation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> set fermenting. +They taught how malleable and plastic is the human mind. They saw that +by a resolute effort to change the environment of institutions and +customs which educate us, we can change ourselves. They liberated us not +so much from "priests and kings" as from the deadlier tyranny of the +belief that human nature, with all its imperfections, is an innate +character which it were vain to hope to reform. Their teaching is a +tonic to the will, a reminder still eloquent, still bracing, that among +the forces which make history the chief is the persuasion of the +understanding, the conscious following of a rational ideal. From much +that is iconoclastic and destructive in their ideal we may turn away +unconvinced. There remain its ardent statement of the duty of humanity, +which shames our practice after a century of progress, and its faith in +the efficacy of unregimented opinion to supersede brute force. They +taught a lesson which posterity has but half learned. We shall be the +richer for returning to them, as much by what we reject as by what we +embrace.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> +<h3>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h3> + +<p class="center">GENERAL</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lecky.</span> <i>History of England in the 18th Century.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Leslie Stephen.</span>—<i>History of English Thought in the 18th Century.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Oliver Elton.</span>.—<i>A Survey of English Literature.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Edward Dowden</span>—<i>The French Revolution and English Literature.</i></p> + +<p>The most vivid impression of the period from the standpoint of Godwin's +Circle is conveyed in the <i>Memoirs</i> of Thomas Holcroft edited by +Hazlitt, and in Hazlitt's portraits of Godwin, Malthus and Mackintosh in +<i>The Spirit of the Age</i> (Everyman's Library).</p> + +<p>Of the opposite way of thinking the one immortal record is Burke's +<i>Reflections on the French Revolution</i>. Lord Morley's <i>Burke</i> (English +Men of Letters) should be read, and the eloquent exposition by Lord Hugh +Cecil (<i>Conservatism</i>) in this (H.U.L.) series.</p> + +<p>The main works of the French revolutionary thinkers have been issued in +Dent's series of French classics. For study and pleasure consult Lord +Morley's books on Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot.</p> + +<p>The details given in the first chapter concerning the London +Corresponding Society are based on its pamphlets in the British Museum.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">THOMAS PAINE</p> + +<p>Paine's writings are published in cheap editions by the Rationalist +Press, and may be had bound in one volume.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> The +same press issues a cheap edition of the admirable <i>Life</i> by Dr. Moncure D. Conway.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">WILLIAM GODWIN</p> + +<p>Godwin's works are now procurable only in old libraries, with the +exception of <i>Caleb Williams</i>. <i>Political Justice</i> should be read in the +second edition (1796), which is maturer than the first and more lively +than the third. A modern summary of it by Mr. Salt, with the full text +of the last section "On Property," was published by Swan, Sonnenschein & +Co. This selection emphasises his communism, but hardly does full +justice to the novelty of his anarchist opinions. Full biographical data +are to be found in <i>William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries</i>, by +Mr. Kegan Paul, which contains a readable collection of letters. There +is a painstaking and elaborate study in French by Raymond Gourg (Félix +Alcan, 1908) and a stimulating little essay in German from the anarchist +standpoint (<i>William Godwin, der Theoretiker des Kommunistischen +Anarchismus.</i> Von Pierre Ramus. Leipzig. Dietrich).</p> + +<p>For a modern statement of Anarchist Communism read Kropotkin's <i>The +Conquest of Bread</i> (Chapman and Hall).</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT</p> + +<p><i>The Rights of Woman</i> has been reissued in Everyman's Library. The +volume of <i>Selections</i> in the Regent Library (Herbert and Daniel) was +well edited by Miss Jebb, and may be recommended, for Mary +Wollstonecraft rather gains than loses by compression. For her life Mr. +Kegan Paul's <i>William Godwin</i> should be consulted. The edition of the +<i>Rights</i>, published by T. Fisher Unwin, contains an admirable critical +study of Mrs. Fawcett. There is no general history of the so-called +"feminist" movement, and in English books the French pioneers are +ignored. Mr. Lyon Blease has some good historical chapters in <i>The +Emancipation of English Women</i>.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">SHELLEY<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>Shelley literature is a library in itself. The standard edition is +Forman's; the standard biography is the tolerant, human, gossipy <i>Life</i> +by Professor Dowden. The general reader can use no better edition than +Mrs. Shelley's. Of critical essays the most notable are Matthew Arnold's +oddly unsympathetic essay, and Sir Leslie Stephen's informing but +hostile study on <i>Godwin and Shelley</i> ("Hours in a Library"). Professor +Santayana may be mentioned among the few critics who have realised that +Shelley thought before he sang (<i>Winds of Doctrine</i>). Incomparably the +best of all the critical essays is the little monograph by Francis +Thompson (Burns and Oates).</p> +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h3><i>POSTSCRIPT</i>, 1942</h3> + +<p>Since this book was written two indispensable aids to the study of +Godwin and his Circle have been published. (1) An adequate modern life +of Godwin is now available: <i>The Life of William Godwin</i> by Ford K. +Brown (J. M. Dent & Sons). The work could hardly have been better done. +(2) Mr. Elbridge Colby has given us in two volumes a modern edition of +<i>The Life of Thomas Holcroft</i> (Constable & Co.) by himself with +Hazlitt's continuation. Mr. Colby's scholarly notes and introduction add +greatly to its value.</p> + +<p>A modern edition of Godwin's <i>Political Justice</i> (Knopf, Political +Science Classics) is now available, but cannot be recommended. The +editor has abbreviated it by capricious omissions.</p> + +<p><i>The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers</i> by Carl L. +Becker (Oxford University Press, also Yale) is a most readable study of +the political thought of the period. See also Professor H. J. Laski's +<i>The Rise of European Liberalism</i> (Allen & Unwin) and <i>Voltaire</i> by H. +N. Brailsford in this series.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> +<h3>INDEX</h3> + + +<p> +<i>Age of Reason</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a><br /> +<br /> +Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br /> +<br /> +Arnot, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Baldwin, Edward, <a href="#Page_172">172</a><br /> +<br /> +Barbauld, Mrs., <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br /> +<br /> +Blake, Wm., <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br /> +<br /> +Bright, John, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br /> +<br /> +Burke, <a href="#Page_15">15-26</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a><br /> +<br /> +Burney, Fanny, <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Caleb Williams</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br /> +<br /> +Calvinism, <a href="#Page_79">79</a><br /> +<br /> +Chesterfield, Lord, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br /> +<br /><a name="clair" id="clair"></a> +Clairmont, Mrs. (afterwards Godwin), <a href="#Page_169">169-70</a><br /> +<br /> +Clairmont, Jane, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br /> +<br /> +Coleridge, S. T., <a href="#Page_51">51-55</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Condorcet, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br /> +<br /> +Convention, English, <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br /> +—— Scottish, <a href="#Page_41">41-43</a><br /> +<br /> +Cooper, Thomas, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a><br /> +<br /> +Corresponding Society (see <a href="#london">London</a>)<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Dundas, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Enquirer, The</i>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Essays</i> (on Religion) by Wm. Godwin, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Fénelon, <a href="#Page_130">130</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Fleetwood</i>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Gatton, Borough of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br /> +<br /> +Gerrald, Joseph, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +<ins class="correction" title="original reads 'Gilray'">Gillray</ins>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a><br /> +<br /> +Godwin, William: as historian <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter on trial of twelve Reformers, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">experience during Revolution, <a href="#Page_49">49-51</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence on Coleridge and Southey, <a href="#Page_51">51-55</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to Paine, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to Holcroft, <a href="#Page_84">84-88</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early life, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Political Justice</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89-141</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Caleb Williams</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">controversies, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">estimate of his work, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second marriage and later life, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">later works, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relations with Shelley, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religious views, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">intellectual influence on Shelley, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>seq.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +Godwin, William (junior), <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Godwin, Mrs. (<i>see</i> <a href="#wolls">Wollstonecraft</a> and <a href="#clair">Clairmont</a>)<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hardy, Thomas, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a><br /> +<br /> +Hazlitt, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Helvétius, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br /> +<br /> +Hervé, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br /> +<br /> +Holbach, Baron d', <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br /> +<br /> +Holcroft, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early life of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trial of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">association with Paine, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Influence on Godwin, <a href="#Page_84">84-88</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Imlay, Fanny, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br /> +<br /> +Imlay, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Jones, Sir Wm., <a href="#Page_37">37</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Kames, Lord, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br /> +<br /> +Kant, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Lafayette, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a><br /> +<br /> +Lamb, Charles, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Leibnitz, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br /> +<br /><a name="london" id="london"></a> +London Corresponding Society, <a href="#Page_33">33-48</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br /> +<br /> +Lovell, R., <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br /> +<br /> +Lytton, Bulwer, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Mably, <a href="#Page_87">87</a><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span><br /> +Mackintosh, Sir James, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br /> +<br /> +Malthus, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br /> +<br /> +Margarot, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +Marius, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br /> +<br /> +Milton, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br /> +<br /> +Montesquieu, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +Muir, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Napoleon, <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Paine, Thomas, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biographical sketch, <a href="#Page_57">57-68</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">political views <a href="#Page_69">69-75</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religious views, <a href="#Page_75">75-77</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Palmer, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +Pantisocracy, <a href="#Page_51">51-55</a><br /> +<br /> +Parr, Rev. Dr., <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br /> +<br /> +Patrickson, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /> +<br /> +Pitt, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br /> +<br /><a name="plato" id="plato"></a> +Plato, Platonism, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br /> +<br /> +Plutarch, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Political Justice</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89-141</a><br /> +<br /> +Price, Rev. Dr., <a href="#Page_10">10-15</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +Priestley, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Rights of Man</i>, Paine's, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a><br /> +<br /><a name="rights" id="rights"></a> +<i>Rights of Woman—a Vindication of the</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Ritson, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Roosevelt, Theodore, <a href="#Page_75">75</a><br /> +<br /> +Rousseau, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Sandemanians, <a href="#Page_79">79</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sepulchres, Godwin's Essay on</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a><br /> +<br /> +Shelley, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal relations with Godwin, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">intellectual outlook, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">debt to Godwin, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his mythology, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his view of human perfectibility, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Shelley, Mary, née Godwin, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br /> +<br /> +Sheridan, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Sinclair, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +Skirving, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +Socrates, Socratic (<i>see</i> <a href="#plato">Plato</a>)<br /> +<br /> +Southey, <a href="#Page_51">51-55</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>St. Leon</i>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a><br /> +<br /> +Stanhope, Earl, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br /> +<br /> +Swift, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Tolstoy, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a><br /> +<br /> +Tooke, Horne, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br /> +<br /> +Turgot, <a href="#Page_28">28</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Vindication of the Rights of Women</i> (<i>see <a href="#rights">Rights</a></i>)<br /> +<br /> +Voltaire, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Wedgwood, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Weissmann, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br /> +<br /> +Wells, H. G., <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br /> +<br /> +Westbrook, Harriet, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br /> +<br /> +Windham, <a href="#Page_48">48</a><br /> +<br /><a name="wolls" id="wolls"></a> +Wollstonecraft, Mary, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early life, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage and death, <a href="#Page_149">149-154</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her personality, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her originality, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">summary of "Rights," <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relation to French Revolution, <a href="#Page_186">186-199</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reflection in Shelley, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Wordsworth, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="u">Transcriber's Note:</span></p> + +<p>Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate +both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as +presented in the original text.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle, by +H. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle + +Author: H. N. Brailsford + +Release Date: September 13, 2009 [EBook #29978] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHELLEY, GODWIN AND THEIR CIRCLE *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + + THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY + OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE + + LXXVII + SHELLEY, GODWIN + AND THEIR CIRCLE + + + + _EDITORS OF_ + THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY + OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE + + PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY, O.M., LL.D., F.B.A. + JULIAN S. HUXLEY, D.Sc., F.R.S. + PROFESSOR G. N. CLARK, LL.D., F.B.A. + + + + SHELLEY, GODWIN + AND THEIR CIRCLE + + + _By_ + H. N. BRAILSFORD + M.A. + + + OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + + + +_First published in 1913, and reprinted in 1919, 1925, 1927, 1930, 1936 +and 1942_ + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 7 + + II THOMAS PAINE 56 + + III WILLIAM GODWIN AND THE REVOLUTION 78 + + IV "POLITICAL JUSTICE" 94 + + V GODWIN AND THE REACTION 142 + + VI GODWIN AND SHELLEY 168 + + VII MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 186 + + VIII SHELLEY 212 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 252 + + INDEX 255 + + + + +SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND +THEIR CIRCLE + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND + + +The history of the French Revolution in England begins with a sermon and +ends with a poem. Between that famous discourse by Dr. Richard Price on +the love of our country, delivered in the first excitement that followed +the fall of the Bastille, and the publication of Shelley's _Hellas_ +there stretched a period of thirty-two years. It covered the dawn, the +clouding and the unearthly sunset of a hope. It begins with the grave +but enthusiastic prose of a divine justly respected by earnest men, who +with a limited horizon fulfilled their daily duties in the city. It ends +in the rapt vision, the magical music of a singer, who seemed as he sang +to soar beyond the range of human ears. The hope passes from the +confident expectation of instant change, through the sobrieties of +disillusionment and the recantations of despair, to the iridescent +dreams of a future which has taken wing and made its home in a fairy +world. + +In 1789 when Dr. Price preached to his ardent congregation of +Nonconformist Radicals in the meeting-house at the Old Jewry, the +prospect was definite and the place of the millennium was merely the +England over which George III. ruled. The hope was a robust but +pedestrian "mental traveller," and its limbs wore the precise garments +of political formulae. It looked for honest Parliaments and manhood +suffrage, for the triumph of democracy and the abolition of war. Its +scene as Wordsworth put it, was + + Not in Utopia, subterraneous fields, + Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where, + But in the very world which is the world + Of all of us, the place where in the end + We find our happiness, or not at all. + + +The impetus of its own aspiration carried it swiftly beyond the prosaic +demand for Parliamentary Reform. It evolved its programme for the +reconstruction of all human institutions, and projected the amendment of +human nature itself. America had made an end of kings and France was in +the full tide of revolution. Nothing was too mighty for this +new-begotten hope, and the path to human perfectibility stretched as +plain as the narrow road to Bunyan's Heavenly City. + +There followed the phase when persecution from alarmed defenders of +things as they are, disgust at the failures of the revolution in France, +and contempt for the futilities of the revolution at home, drove the new +movement into as many refuges as its votaries had temperaments. For some +there was cynicism, for others recantation. "The French Revolution" as +Hazlitt put it, "was the only match that ever took place between +philosophy and experience; and waking from the trance of theory we hear +the words Truth, Reason, Virtue, Liberty, with the same indifference or +contempt that a cynic who has married a jilt or a termagant listens to +the rhapsodies of lovers." Godwin found his own alluring by-way, and +turning away at once from political repression and political agitation, +became the pioneer of philosophic anarchism. To Shelley at the end of +this marvellous thirty years of ardour, speculation, and despair, the +hope became winged. She had her place no longer in "the very world +which is the world of all of us." She had moved to + + Kingless continents, sinless as Eden + Around mountains and islands inviolably + Prankt on the sapphire sea. + + +It requires no inordinate effort for us who live in an equable political +climate to realise the atmosphere of Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. The +lapse of a century indeed has made him a more intelligible figure than +he could have seemed to the generation which immediately followed him. +He was temperate in his rationalism and thrifty in his philanthropy. He +tended to Unitarianism in his theology, but was a sturdy defender of +Free Will. He had written a widely-read apology for the Colonial side in +the American Civil War. A stout individualist in his political theory, +inspired, as were nearly all the English progressive thinkers of his +day, by an extreme jealousy of State action, he yet guarded himself +carefully against anarchical conclusions, and followed Saint Paul in +teaching obedience to magistrates. He had written a treatise on ethics +which on some points anticipated Kant. But his most characteristic +pre-occupation was a study of finance in the interests of national +thrift and social benevolence. This cold moralist, who despised the +emotional aspects of human nature and found no place for the affections +in his scheme of the virtues, lapsed into passion when he attacked the +National Debt, and developed an arithmetical enthusiasm when he +explained his plan for providing through voluntary insurance for the old +age of the worthy poor. He was not quite the first of the philosophers +to dream of the abolition of war, and to plan an international tribunal +for the settlement of disputes between nations. In that he followed +Leibnitz, as he anticipated Kant. + +It was such an essentially cold and calculating intellect as this which +in that age of ferment could launch the new doctrine of the infinite +perfectibility of mankind. Modern readers know the Rev. Dr. Price only +from the fulminations of Burke, in whose pages he figures now as an +incendiary and again as a fool. He was in point of fact the soul of +sobriety and the mirror of all the respectabilities in his serious +dissenting world. It is worth while to note that he was also, with his +friend Priestley, perhaps the only English Nonconformist preacher who +has ever enjoyed a European reputation. No less a man than Condorcet +refers to him as one of the formative minds of the century. + +Dr. Price's sermon is worth a glance, not merely because it was the goad +which provoked Burke to eloquent fury, but still more because it is a +document which records for us the mood in which even the older and +graver progressives of his generation greeted the French Revolution. It +was an official discourse delivered before the Society for Commemorating +the Revolution in Great Britain. This typically English club claimed to +have met annually since 1688 for a dinner and a sermon. The centenary of +our own Revolution and the events in France gave it for a moment a +central place on the political stage. It was an eminently respectable +society, mainly composed of middle-class Nonconformists, with four +Doctors of Divinity on its Committee, an entrance fee of half-a-guinea, +and a radical peer, Earl Stanhope, for its Chairman. At its annual +meeting in November, 1789, Dr. Price "disdaining national partialities +and rejoicing in every triumph of liberty and justice over arbitrary +power," had moved an address congratulating the French National Assembly +on "the Revolution in that country and on the prospect it gives to the +two first kingdoms in the world of a common participation in the +blessings of civil and religious liberty." The sermon was an eloquent +expansion of this address. + +It opens with a defence of the cosmopolitan attitude which could rejoice +at an improvement in the prospects of our hereditary rival. Christ +taught not patriotism, but universal benevolence, as the parable of the +Good Samaritan shows. "My neighbour" is he to whom I can do most good, +whether foreigner or fellow-citizen. We should love our country +"ardently but not exclusively," considering ourselves "citizens of the +world," and taking care "to maintain a just regard to the rights of +other countries." Patriotism had been in history a scourge of mankind. +It was among the Romans no better than "a principle holding together a +band of robbers in their attempts to crush all liberty but their own." +The aim of those who love their kind can be only to spread Truth, Virtue +and Liberty. To make mankind happy and free, it should suffice to +instruct them. "Ignorance is the parent of bigotry, intolerance, +persecution and slavery. Inform and instruct mankind and these evils +will be excluded." There follow some rambling remarks on the need for a +revisal of the Liturgy and the Articles, a complaint of the servility +shown in a recent address to King George, who ought to consider himself +rather the servant than the sovereign of his people, and a prediction +that France and England, each delivered from despotism by a happy +revolution, will now "not merely refrain from engaging in wars with one +another, but unite in preventing wars everywhere." As for our own +Revolution of 1688, it was a great but not a perfect work. It had left +religious toleration incomplete and the Parliamentary franchise unequal. +We must continue to enforce its principles, especially in the matter of +removing the disabilities that still weigh upon dissenters. Those +principles are briefly (1) Liberty of Conscience, (2) The right to +resist power when it is abused, and (3) The right to choose our own +governors, to cashier them for misconduct and to frame a government for +ourselves. There follows a curious little moral exhortation which shows +how far the good Dr. Price was from forgetting his duties as a preacher. +He had been distressed by the lax morals of some of his colleagues in +the agitation for Reform, and he pauses to deplore that "not all who are +zealous in this cause are as conspicuous for purity of morals as for +ability." He cannot reconcile himself to the idea of an immoral patriot, +and begs that they will at least hide their vices. The old man finds +his peroration in Simeon's prayer. He had seen the great salvation. "I +have lived to see thirty millions of people indignant and resolute, +spurning at slavery and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice, +their king led in triumph and an arbitrary monarch surrendering himself +to his subjects. And now methinks I see the ardour for liberty catching +and spreading, a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the +dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of +priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience." + +The world remembers the scholar Salmasius only because he provoked +Milton to a learned outbreak of bad manners. There is something immortal +even in the ill-temper of great men, and Dr. Price lives in modern +memory chiefly because he moved Burke to declamatory rage. His +_Reflections on the French Revolution_ was an answer to the Old Jewry +sermon, which, eloquent itself, was to beget much eloquence in others. +For four years the mighty debate went on, and it became as the +disputants conversed across the echoes of the Terror, rather a dialogue +between the past and the future, than a discussion between human voices. +Burke answered Dr. Price, and to Burke in turn replied Tom Paine with +the brilliant, confident, hard-hitting logic of a pamphlet (_The Rights +of Man_) which for all the efforts of Pitt to suppress it, is still read +and circulated to-day. Two notable answers were ephemeral, one from Mary +Wollstonecraft, and another (_Vindiciae Gallicae_) from Mackintosh, who +afterwards recanted his own opinions and lived to be known as Sir James. + +To lift the discussion to the height of a philosophical argument was +reserved for William Godwin, a mind steeped in the French and English +speculation of his century, gifted with rare powers of analysis, and +inspired with a faith in human reason in general and his own logical +capacity in particular, which no English mind before him or after him +has approached. In spite of a lucid style and a certain cold eloquence +which illumines if it does not warm, Godwin's _Political Justice_ was +dead before its author, while Burke lives and was never more widely read +than to-day. + +The ghosts of great men have an erratic habit in walking. It is passion +rather than any mere intellectual momentum which drives them from the +tomb. There is, moreover, in Burke a variety and a humanity which +appeals in some one of its phases and moods to all of us in turn. The +great store-house of his emotions and his phrases has the catholicity of +the Bible. Each man can find in it what he seeks. He is like the +luminous phantom which walked in _Faust_ through the witcheries of the +Brocken. Each man saw in her his own first love. He has been hero and +prophet to Whigs and Tories, and in our own generation we have seen him +bequeath an equal inspiration to a Cecil and a Morley. It is no part of +our task to attempt even the briefest exposition of his philosophy; we +are concerned with him here chiefly as an influence which helped by its +vehemence and its superb rhetorical exaggerations to drive the +revolutionary thinkers who answered him to parallel exaggerations and +opposite extremes. Inspired himself with a distrust of generalisation, +and a hatred of philosophers, he none the less evolved a philosophy as +he talked. Against his will he was forced into the upper air in his +furious pursuit of the "political aeronauts." His was a volcanic +intellect which flung up principles in its moments of eruption, and +poured them forth pell-mell with the vituperations and the exaltations. + +No logical dissection can reach the inner truth of Burke. Every +statement of a principle in an orator or a pamphleteer is coloured by +the occasion, the emotion, and the mood of an audience to whom it is +addressed. Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the +subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French +Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of +his philosophical _obiter dicta_ were uttered. The real nerve of the +thinking of a mind so vehement, so passionate, so essentially dramatic +is to be sought not in some principle which was the major premise of his +syllogisms, but in some pervading emotion. Fanny Burney said of him that +when he spoke of the Revolution his face immediately assumed "the +expression of a man who is going to defend himself against murderers." +That is exactly the tone of all his later utterances. His mission was to +spread panic because he felt it. By no other reading can one explain or +excuse the rage of his denunciation of the excellent Dr. Price. + +If his was philosophy it was philosophy seeing red. He predicted the +Terror before it occurred, and by his work in stirring Europe to the +coalition against France, he did much to realise his own forebodings. +But, to do Burke justice, his was a disinterested fear, and it would be +fairer to call it a hatred of cruelty. Burke was not a man to take fire +because he thought a principle false. His was rather the practical logic +which found a principle false because it led to evil; and the evil which +caused his mind to blaze was nearly always cruelty. He hated the French +philosophers because in the groves of their Academy "at the end of every +vista you see nothing but the gallows." He pursued Rousseau and Dr. +Price because their teaching, on his reading of cause and effect, had +set the tumbrils rolling and weighted the guillotine for Marie +Antoinette. It was precisely the same impulse which had caused him to +pursue Warren Hastings for his cruelties towards the Begums of Oude. The +spring of all this speculation was a nerve which twitched with a +maddening sensitiveness at the sight of suffering. + +To rouse Burke's genius to its noblest utterance, there must needs be a +suffering which he could personify and dramatise. He saw nothing of the +dull peasant misery which in truth explained the Revolution. He ignored +those catalogues of injustice and wrong that composed the mandates (the +_cahiers_) which the Deputies carried with them to the National +Assembly. He forgot the famines, the exactions, the oppressive +privileges which made revolt, and saw only the pathos of the Queen's +helplessness before it. In Paine's immortal epigram, he "pitied the +plumage and forgot the dying bird." But it is paradoxically true that +while he pursued the friends of humanity, his real impulse was the +hatred of cruelty which modern men call humanitarian. To that hatred he +was always true. No abstract principle, but always this dominating +passion, covers his inconsistencies, and bridges the gulf between his +earlier Whiggery and his later Toryism. In the French Revolution he saw +only cruelty, and he opposed it as he had opposed Indian Imperialism, +negro slavery, the savage criminal justice of his day, and the penal +laws against the Irish Catholics. Of Burke one must ask not so much What +did he believe? as Whom did he pity? + +It was the contrast of temperament and attitude which made the cleavage +between Burke and the friends of the French Revolution deep and +irreconcilable. In the fundamentals of political theory he often seems +to agree with some of them, and they differ as often among themselves. +Burke seems often to retain the typical eighteenth century fiction that +the State is based on some original pact or social contract. That was +Rousseau's starting point, and it was Godwin's work (after Hume) to +shatter this heritage which French and English speculation had been +content to accept from Locke. There are passages in which Burke appears +to accept the notion, unintelligible to modern minds, of the natural, or +as he put it, "primitive," rights of man. He reserved his contempt for +those who sought to tabulate or codify these rights, and he would always +brush aside any argument based upon them, by asking the prior question, +what in the given emergency was best for the good of society, or the +happiness of men. Paine, when he was in his more _a priori_ moods, was +capable of deducing his whole practical system from the abstract rights +of man; Godwin was a modern in virtually dismissing the whole notion. +While Burke was belabouring Dr. Price, he whittled away the whole +theoretic significance of the English Revolution of 1688, but he +remained its partisan. He tried to deny Dr. Price's claim to "choose our +governors," but he could not relapse into the seventeenth-century Tory +doctrine of non-resistance, and would always allow in extreme cases the +right of rebellion. Here again there was no final opposition, for there +are passages in Godwin against rash rebellion and the anarchy of +revolution more impressive, if less emotional, than anything in Burke. + +Modern criticism is disposed to base the greatness of Burke on his +inspired anticipation of the historical view of politics. Quotation has +made classical those noble passages which glorify the continuous life of +mankind, link the present by a chain of pieties to the past, conjure up +a glowing vision of the social organism, and celebrate the wisdom of our +ancestors and the infallibility of the race. There was, indeed, a real +opposition of temperament here; but Burke had no monopoly of the +historical vision. It is a travesty to suggest that the revolutionary +school despised history. Paine, indeed, was a self-taught man, who knew +nothing of history and cared less. But Godwin wrote history with success +and even penned a remarkable essay (_On Sepulchres_) in which he +anticipated the Comtist veneration for the great dead, and proposed a +national scheme for covering the country with monuments to their memory. +Condorcet, perhaps the greatest intellect and certainly the noblest +character among them, wrote the first attempt at a systematic +evolutionary interpretation of history. + +But it makes some difference whether a man sees history from above or +from below. Burke saw it from the comfortable altitude of the Whig +aristocracy to which he had allied himself. The revolutionary school saw +its inverse, from the standpoint of the "swinish multitude" (an angry +indiscretion of Burke's) for whom it had worked to less advantage. Paine +was a man of the people, and Godwin belonged by birth to the dissenting +community for whom history had been chiefly a record of persecution, +illuminated by rebellion. For Burke the product of history was the +sacred constitution in which he saw an "entailed heritage," the social +fabric "well cramped and bolted together in all its parts." For Godwin +it was mainly a chronicle of criminal wars, savage oppressions, and +social misery. Burke, in a moment of paradoxical exaltation, was capable +of singing the praises of "prejudice," which "renders a man's virtue his +habit." For Condorcet, on the other hand, history was the orderly +procession of the human mind, advancing through a series of well-marked +epochs (he enumerated nine) from the pastoral state to the French +Revolution, each epoch marked primarily by the shedding of some moral, +social, or theological "prejudice," which had hampered its advance. + +It is easy to criticise the naive intellectualism of such a view as +this, which ignores or thrusts into the background the economic causes +of advance and retrogression. But it is certainly not an unhistorical +view. Burke dreaded fundamental discussions which "turn men's duties +into doubts." The revolutionary school believed that all progress +depended on the daring and thoroughness of these discussions. History +for them was a continuous Socratic dialogue, in which the philosophers +of innovation were always arrayed against the sophists of authority. +They hoped everything from the leadership of the illuminated few who +gradually permeate the mass and raise it with them. Burke held that "the +individual is foolish, but the species is wise," and the "natural +aristocracy" in whom he trusted was to keep the inert mass in a +condition of stable equilibrium. + +We retain from Burke to-day the sonorous generalisations, the +epigrammatic maxims, which each of us applies in his own way. But to +Burke's contemporaries they meant only one thing--a defence of the +unreformed franchise. All his reverence for the pre-ordained order of +providence, the "divine tactic" which had made society what it was, +meant for them in bald prose that Old Sarum should have two members. +Burke had not "a doubt that the House of Commons represents perfectly +the whole commons of Great Britain." They, with no mystical view of +history to guide them, pointed out that its electors were a mere handful +of 12,000 in the whole population, and that Birmingham, Manchester, +Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford had not a Member among them. While Burke +perorated about the ways of providence, they pointed to that auctioneer +who put up for sale to the highest bidder the fee simple of the Borough +of Gatton with the power of nominating two members for ever. That +auctioneer is worth quoting: "Need I tell you, gentlemen, that this +elegant contingency is the only infallible source of fortune, titles, +and honours in this happy country? That it leads to the highest +situations in the State? And that, meandering through the tempting +sinuosities of ambition, the purchaser will find the margin strewed with +roses, and his head quickly crowned with those precious garlands that +flourish in full vigour round the fountain of honour? On this halcyon +sea, if any gentleman who has made his fortune in either of the Indies +chooses once more to embark, he may repose in perfect quiet. No +hurricanes to dread; no tormenting claims of insolent electors to +evade; no tinkers' wives to kiss.... With this elegant contingency in +his pocket, the honours of the State await his plucking, and with its +emoluments his purse will overflow." + +A reference to the elegant contingency of Gatton sufficed to deflate a +good deal of eloquence. + +Burke, indeed, believed in the pre-ordained order of the world, but he +somehow omitted the rebels. When in his sublimest periods, he appealed +to "the known march of the ordinary providence of God," and saw in +revolution and change an assault on the divine order, one sees, rigid +and forbidding, the limitations of his thinking. The man who sees in +history a divine tactic must salute the regiment in its headlong charge +no less than the regiment which stands with fixed bayonets around the +ark of the covenant. Said the Hindoo saint, who saw all things in God +and God in all things, to the soldier who was slaying him, "And Thou +also art He." The march of providence embraced 1789 as well as 1688. +Paine and Godwin, Danton and Robespierre might have answered Burke with +a reminder that they also were His children. + +The key to any understanding of the dialogue between Burke and the +Revolutionists is that each side was moved by a passion which meant +nothing to the other. Burke was hoarse with anger and fear at the +excesses in France. They were afire with an almost religious faith in +human perfectibility. Burke's is a great record of detailed reforms +achieved or advocated, but for organic change there was no place in his +system, and he indulged in no vision of human progress. "The only moral +trust with any certainty in our hands," he wrote, "is the care of our +own time." It was of to-morrow that the Revolution thought, and even of +the day after to-morrow. Nothing could shake its faith. Proscribed amid +the Terror for his moderation and independence, learning daily in the +garret where he hid of the violent deaths of friends and comrades, +witnessing, as it must have seemed to him, the ruin of his work and the +frustration of his brightest hopes, Condorcet, solitary and disguised, +sat down to write that sketch of human destinies which is, perhaps, the +most confident statement of a reasoned optimism in European literature. +He finished his _Sketch for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the +Human Mind_, left his garret, and went out to meet his death. A year +later, as if to show that the great prodigal hope could survive the +brain that conceived it, the representatives of the French people had +it circulated as a national document. + +Its thesis is that no limit can be set to the perfection of human +faculties, that the progress and perfectibility of man are independent +of any power which can arrest them, and have no term unless it be the +duration of the globe itself. The progress might be swift or slow, but +the ultimate end was sure. Twenty years before, Turgot projecting a +system of universal education in France, had promised to transform the +nation in ten years. Condorcet was less sanguine, but his perspective +was short. The indefinite advance of mankind presupposed, he argued, the +elimination of inequality (1) among peoples, and (2) among classes, and +lastly the perfection of the individual. For all this he believed that +the Revolution had already laid the foundation. Negro slavery, for +example, would end; Africa would enter on a phase of culture dependent +on settled agriculture, and the East adopt free institutions. The time +was at hand when the sun would rise only on free men, and tyrants, +slaves, and priests would live only in history. The Revolution had +proclaimed the equality of men, and the future would proceed to realise +it. Monopolies abolished, fortunes would tend to a level of equality, +and a system of insurance (Dr. Price's specific) would mitigate or +abolish poverty. Universal education would reduce the natural inequality +of talents, and break down the barriers of class, so that men, retaining +still the desire to be instructed by others, would no longer need to be +controlled by their superiors. Science had made a dizzy progress in the +past generation, but its advance must be still more rapid when general +education enables it to be cultivated by still greater numbers, and by +women as well as men. To the fear which Malthus afterwards used as the +most formidable argument against revolutionary optimism, that a denser +population would leave the means of subsistence inadequate, he opposed +intensive cultivation, synthetic chemistry, and the progress of mankind +in self-control and virtue. Human character itself will change with the +amendment of human institutions. Passion can be dominated by reflection, +and by the deliberate encouragement of gentle and altruistic sentiments. +The business of politics is to destroy the opposition between +self-interest and altruism, and to make a world in which when a man +seeks his own good, he need no longer infringe the good of others. A +great share in this moral elevation would come from the destruction of +the inequality of the sexes, which Condorcet preached in France while +Mary Wollstonecraft was its pioneer in England. That inequality has been +ruinous even to the sex which it favoured, and rests in nothing but an +abuse of force. To remove it is not merely to raise the status of women +but to increase family happiness, and to reform morals. Wars too will +end, and with them a constant menace to liberty. The ultimate dream is a +perpetual confederation of mankind. + +It would be a fascinating but too protracted study to follow this faith +in the perfectibility of mankind to its final enthusiasms of prophecy, +and to trace it to its origins in the speculations of Helvetius and +Holbach, of Priestley and Price. It was a creative impulse which made +for itself a psychology and a sociology; it rather led the thinking of +men than followed from their reasonings. They seem at every turn to +choose of two alternative views the one which would favour this +sovereign hope. Is it reason and opinion, or some innate character which +governs the actions of men? The philosophers of hope answer "opinion," +for opinion can be indefinitely changed and led from prejudice to +science. Is it climate (as Montesquieu had urged) or political +institutions which differentiate the races of men? Clearly it is +institutions, for if it were climate there would be nothing to hope from +reform. Burke opposed to all their schemes of construction and +destruction, to their generalisations and philosophisings, the +unchangeable fact of human nature. They answered (diving into Helvetius) +that human nature is itself the product of "education" or, as we should +call it, "environment." Circumstances and above all political +institutions have made man what he is. Princes, as Holbach puts it, are +gardeners who can by varying systems of cultivation alter the character +of men as they would alter the form of trees. Change the institutions +and you will change human nature itself. There seemed no limit to the +improvement which would follow if we could but discard the fetters of +prejudice and despotism. + +Wordsworth's "shades of the prison-house" which close upon the growing +boy, were an echo of this thought. Godwin's friend, Holcroft, embodied +it in a striking metaphor: "Men do not become what by nature they are +meant to be, but what society makes them. The generous feelings and +higher propensities of the soul are, as it were shrunk up, scared, +violently wrenched, and amputated, to fit us for our intercourse in the +world, something in the manner that beggars maim and mutilate their +children to make them fit for their future situation in life." + +The men of the Revolution phrased that idea each in his own way, +according as they had been influenced, primarily, by Rousseau, +Helvetius, or Condorcet. It gave to their controversy with Burke the +appearance, not so much of a dispute between rival schools, as of a +dialogue between men who spoke to each other in unknown tongues. + + * * * * * + +Burke condescended to reason with Dr. Price. But the main answer of +authority to the friends of the French Revolution, was the answer which +Burke prescribed for "infidels"--"a refutation by criminal justice." A +curious parallel movement towards extremes went on simultaneously in the +two camps. While Burke separated himself from Fox, split the Whig party, +and devoted his genius to the task of fanning the general English +dislike of the Revolution into a panic rage of anger and fear, the +progressive camp in its turn was gradually captured by the +"intellectuals," and passed from a humdrum demand for political reform +into a ferment of moral and social speculation. Societies grew up in +all the chief centres of population, always with the same programme. "An +honest Parliament. An annual Parliament. A Parliament wherein each +individual will have his representative." Of these the most active, the +most extreme, and the best organised was undoubtedly the London +Corresponding Society. + +It was founded by a Scottish boot-maker named Thomas Hardy. The sober, +limited character of the man is plain to read in his records and +pamphlets. The son of a sea-captain, who had had his education in a +village school in Perthshire where the scholars paid a penny a week, he +was a leading member of the Scots' Kirk in Covent Garden, and had drawn +his political education not at all from godless French philosophers, but +from the Protestant fanatic, Lord George Gordon, and from Dr. Price's +book on the American War. He gathered his own friends together to found +his society, and nine of them met for the first time in the "Bell" +tavern in Exeter Street in January, 1792. "They had finished their daily +labour and met there by appointment. After having their bread and cheese +and porter for supper, as usual, and their pipes afterwards, with some +conversation, on the hardness of the times and the dearness of all the +necessaries of life, which they in common with their fellow-citizens +felt to their sorrow, the business for which they had met was brought +forward--Parliamentary Reform." + +The Corresponding Society drew the bulk of its members from tradesmen, +mechanics and shopkeepers, who contributed their penny a week, and +organised itself under Hardy's methodical guidance into numerous +branches each with twenty members. It is said to have counted in the end +some 30,000 members in London alone. It was a focus of discontent and +hope which soon attracted men of more conspicuous talents and wider +experience. Horne Tooke, man about town, ex-clergyman, and philologist, +who had been at first the friend and lieutenant and then the rival and +enemy of Wilkes, was there to bridge the years between the last great +popular agitation and the new hopes of reform. He was a man cautious and +even timid in action, but there was a vanity in him which led him to say +"hanging matters" when he had an inflammable audience in front of him +within the four walls of a room. There was Tom Paine, the man who had +first dared to propose the independence of the United States, a veteran +of revolution who had served on Washington's staff, penned those +brilliant exhortations which led the American rebels to victory, and +acted as Foreign Secretary to the insurgent Congress. On the fringes of +the little inner circle of intellectuals one catches a glimpse of +William Blake the poet, and Ritson, the first teacher and theorist of +vegetarianism. Not the least interesting member of the group was Thomas +Holcroft, the inseparable friend and ally of William Godwin. Holcroft's +vivid and masterful personality stands out indeed as the most attractive +among the abler members of the circle. The son of a boot-maker, he had +earned his bread as cobbler, ostler, village schoolmaster, strolling +player and reporter. His insatiable passion for knowledge had given him +a mastery of French and German. He went in 1783 to Paris as +correspondent of the _Morning Herald_, on the modest salary of a +guinea-and-a-half a week. It was there that he acquired his familiarity +with the writings of the French political philosophers, and performed +the quaint achievement of pirating _Figaro_ for the English stage. No +printed copy was obtainable, and Holcroft contrived to commit the whole +play to memory by attending ten performances, much as Mozart had pirated +the ancient exclusive music of St. Peter's in Rome. He was at this +period a thriving literary craftsman, and the author of a series of +popular plays in which the critics of the time had just begun to note +and resent an obtrusive democratic tendency. + +Under the influence of these eager speculative spirits, the +Corresponding Society must have travelled far from its original business +of Parliamentary Reform. Here is an extract from evidence given before +the Privy Council, which relates the proceedings at one of its later +meetings: + +"The most gentlemanlike person took the chair and talked about an equal +representation of the people, and of putting an end to war. Holcroft +talked about the Powers of the Human Mind.... Mr. Holcroft talked a +great deal about Peace, of his being against any violent or coercive +means, that were usually resorted to against our fellow-creatures, urged +the more powerful operation of Philosophy and Reason to convince man of +his errors; that he would disarm his greatest enemy by these means and +oppose his Fury. He spoke also about Truth being powerful, and gave +advice to the above effect to the delegates present who all seemed to +agree, as no person opposed his arguments." + +One may doubt, however, whether the whole society was composed of +"natural Quakers," who, like Holcroft and Godwin, preached +non-resistance before Tolstoy. The dour commonsense of Hardy maintained +the theory--he vowed that it was only theory--that every citizen should +possess arms and know their use. As the Revolution went forward in +France, the agitation in England became increasingly reckless. When the +society held its anniversary dinner after the Terror, in May, 1794, at +the "Crown and Anchor" Tavern, the band played "Ca ira," the +"Carmagnole" and the "Marseillaise." The chief toasts were "the Rights +of Man," and "the Armies contending for Liberty," which was a +sufficiently clear phrase for describing the Republican armies that were +at war with England. There followed an ode composed by Sir William +Jones, a translation of the Athenian song which celebrated the deeds of +the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton; + + Verdant myrtle's branchy pride + Shall my thirsty blade entwine. + + +One may doubt whether Sir William Jones ever felt the smallest +inclination to satisfy the thirst of his blade, but there was provision +enough for more commonplace appetites. Two years before, Hardy's worthy +mechanics had supped on porter and cheese and talked of the hardness of +the times. Their movement had been captured by a group of eager, +sophisticated, literary persons, who went much farther than +Parliamentary Reform, and with the aid of claret and the subtler French +intoxicants, "turned indignant" as another Ode puts it: + + From Kings who seek in Gothic night + To hide the blaze of moral light. + Fill high the animating glass + And let the electric ruby pass. + + +It was a cheerful indignation, a festive rage. + +That dinner must have marked the height of the revolutionary tide in +England. The reaction was already rampant and vindictive, and before the +year 1794 was out it had crushed the progressive movement and postponed +for thirty-eight years the triumph of Parliamentary Reform. It requires +a strenuous exercise of the imagination to conceive the panic which +swept over England as the news of the French Terror circulated. It +fastened impartially on every class of the community, and destroyed the +emotional balance no less of Pitt and his colleagues than of the working +men who formed the Church and King mobs. Proclamations were issued to +quell insurrections which never had been planned, and the militia called +out when not a hand had been raised against the King throughout Great +Britain. So great was the fear, so deep the moral indignation that "even +respectable and honest men," (the phrase is Holcroft's) "turned spies +and informers on their friends from a sense of public duty." A mob +burned Dr. Priestley's house near Birmingham for no better reason than +because he was supposed to have attended a Reform dinner, which in fact, +he did not attend. Hardy's bookshop in Piccadilly was rushed by a mob, +and his wife, about to be confined, was injured in her efforts to +escape, and died a few hours afterwards. A hunt went on all over the +kingdom for booksellers and printers to prosecute, and when Thomas Paine +was prosecuted in his absence for publishing _The Rights of Man_, the +jury was so determined to find him guilty that they would not trouble to +hear the case for the Crown. + +Twenty years before, the French philosopher Helvetius, after an +experience of Jesuit persecution and Court disfavour in France, made a +quaint proposal for re-organising the whole discussion of moral and +political questions. The first step, he thought, was to compile a +dictionary in which all the terms required in such debates would receive +an authoritative definition. But this dictionary, he urged, must be +composed in the English language, and published first in England, for +only there was discussion free, and the press unfettered. In the +reaction over which Pitt and Dundas presided, that envied liberty was +totally eclipsed. The _Habeas Corpus_ Act was suspended; the Privy +Council sat as a sort of Star Chamber to question political suspects, +and there was even talk of importing Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries +to check an insurrection which nowhere showed its head. The frailest of +all human endowments is the sense of humour. The sense of proportion had +been eclipsed in the panic, and most of the cases which may be studied +to-day in the State trials impress the modern reader as tasteless and +cruel farces. Men were tried and sentenced never for deeds, but always +for words. For a sermon closely resembling Dr. Price's, a dissenting +minister named Winterbotham was tried at Exeter, and sentenced to four +years' imprisonment and a fine of L200. The attorney, John Frost, +returning from France, admitted in a chance conversation in a +coffee-house that he thought society could manage very well without +kings; he was imprisoned, set in the pillory and struck off the rolls. +One favourite expedient was to produce a spy who would swear that he had +heard some suspect Radical declare in a coach or a coffee-house, that he +would "as soon have the King's head off as he would tear a bit of paper" +(evidence against a group of Manchester prisoners), or that he "would +cut off the King's head as easily as he would shave himself" (case +against Thomas Hardy). The climax of really entertaining absurdity was +reached when two debtors imprisoned in the Fleet were tried and +sentenced for nailing a seditious libel to its doors. The libel was a +notice that "This house is to let," that "infamous bastilles are no +longer necessary in Europe," and that "peaceable possession" would be +secured "on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the +commencement of the first year of liberty in Great Britain." + +The farce of this panic became a tragedy when the reformers of Scotland +ventured to summon a Convention at Edinburgh to voice the demand for +shorter Parliaments and universal male suffrage. It met in October, +1793, and was attended by delegates from the London Corresponding +Society as well as from Scottish branches. Nothing was intended beyond +the holding of what we should call to-day a conference or congress. But +the word "Convention" with its reminiscence of the French revolutionary +assembly seems to have caused the Government some particular alarm. The +Convention, after some days of orderly debate, was invaded by the +magistrates and broken up. Margarot and Sinclair (the English +delegates), Skirving, Palmer and Thomas Muir, were tried before that +notorious hanging judge, whom Stevenson portrayed as Weir of Hermiston, +and sentenced to fourteen years' deportation at Botany Bay. + +Of these five, all of them young men of brilliant promise and high +courage, only one, Margarot, lived to return to England. Muir, daring, +romantic and headstrong, contributed to the history of the movement a +page of adventure which might invite the attention of a novelist. He +escaped from Botany Bay on a whaler, was wrecked on the coast of South +America, contrived to wander to the West Indies, there shipped on a +Spanish vessel for Europe, fell in with an English frigate, was wounded +in the fight that followed, and had the good fortune to find among the +officers who took him prisoner an old friend, who recognised him, and +assisted him to conceal his identity. He was landed in Spain, invited +to Paris and pensioned by the Convention, but died shortly after his +arrival. Less romantic but even finer is Sinclair's story. He obtained +bail while his comrades were tried and sentenced. He might have broken +his bail, and his friends urged him to do so, but with the certainty +that Botany Bay lay before him he none the less returned to Edinburgh, +as Horne Tooke puts it "in discharge of his faith as a private man +towards his bail, and in discharge of his duty towards an oppressed and +insulted public; he has returned not to take a fair trial, but, as he is +well persuaded, to a settled conviction and sentence." Joseph Gerrald, +another member of the same group gave the same fine example of courage, +surrendered to his bail, and was sent for fifteen years to Botany Bay. + +The ferment was more than an intellectual stirring. It brought with it a +moral elevation and a great courage that did not shrink from venturing +life and fortune for a disinterested end. The modern reader is apt to +indulge a smile when he reads in the ardent declamation of this time +professions of a love of Virtue and praises of Universal Benevolence. We +are impatient of abstractions and shy of capital letters. But it was no +abstraction which carried a man with honour to the fevers and +privations of Botany Bay, when he might have sought safety and fame in +Paris. The English reformers were resolved to brave the worst that Pitt +could do to them, and challenged the fate of their Scottish comrades. +They prepared in their turn to hold a "Convention" for Parliamentary +Reform, and showed a doubtful prudence in keeping its details secret +while the intention was boldly avowed. The counter-stroke came promptly. +Twelve of the leading members of the Corresponding Society, including +Hardy, Horne Tooke and Holcroft were arrested and sent, for the most +part to the Tower, on a charge of high treason. The records of their +preliminary examination before the Privy Council go to show that Pitt +and Dundas had allowed themselves to be persuaded by their spies that +every species of treason and folly was in preparation, from an armed +insurrection down to a plan to murder the King by blowing a poisoned +arrow from an air-gun. The Government had said that there was a +treasonable conspiracy; it had to produce the traitors. + +There was some delay in arresting Holcroft. His conduct is worth +recording because it is so typical of the naive courage, the doctrinaire +hardihood of the group. These men whom the reaction accused of +subverting morality, were in fact dervishes of principle, who rushed on +the bayonets in the name of manhood and truth and sincerity. Godwin when +he came in his systematic treatise to describe how a free people would +conduct a defensive war, declared that it would scorn to resort to a +stratagem or an ambuscade. In the same spirit Holcroft hearing that a +warrant was out against him for high treason, walked boldly into the +Chief Justice's court, and announced that he came to be put upon his +trial "that if I am a guilty man, the whole extent of my guilt may +become notorious, and if innocent that the rectitude of my principles +and conduct may be no less public." When a messenger did, in fact, go to +Holcroft's house about the same hour to arrest him, his daughters, +obedient to the same ideal of sincerity, actually invited him to take +their father's papers. + +One may doubt whether English liberties have ever run a graver danger in +modern times than at the trial of the twelve reformers. The Government +sought to overwhelm them with a mass of evidence which they lacked the +means to sift and confute. But no definite act was charged against them, +and the whole case turned on a monstrous attempt to give a wide +constructive interpretation to the law of high treason. High treason in +English law has the perfectly definite meaning of an attempt on the +King's life, or the levying of war against him. Chief Justice Eyre, in +his charge to the Grand Jury, sought to stretch it until it assumed a +Russian latitude, and would include any effort by agitation to alter the +form of government or the constitution of Parliament. The issue, before +a jury which probably had not escaped the general panic, seemed very +doubtful, and it was the general opinion that the decisive blow for +liberty was struck by William Godwin. Long years afterwards Horne Tooke, +in a dramatic scene, called Godwin to him in public, and kissed the hand +which had saved his life. + +Godwin contributed to the _Morning Chronicle_ a long letter, or more +properly, a pamphlet, in which he analysed the Chief Justice's charge +and brought to the light what really was latent in it, a claim to treat +as high treason any effort, however peaceful and orderly, to bring about +a fundamental change in our institutions. The letter shows none of +Godwin's speculative daring, and his gift of cold and dignified +eloquence is severely repressed. He wrote to attain his immediate end, +and from that standpoint his pleading was a masterpiece. A certain +deadly courtesy, a tone of quiet reasonableness made it possible for the +most prejudiced reader to follow it with assent. The argument was +irresistible, and the single touch of emotion at the end was worthy of a +great orator. A few lines depicted these men who, moved by public +spirit, had acted in good faith within the law, as it had been +universally understood in England, overwhelmed by a sudden extension of +its most terrible articles, applied to them without precedent or +warning. Should the awful sentence be read over these men, that they +should be hanged (but not until they were dead), and then, still living, +suffer the loss of their members and see their bowels torn out? The +ghastly barbarity of the whole procedure could not have been more +effectively exposed. Looking back upon this trial there is no reason to +think that the reformers exaggerated its importance. Had the Government +won its case, it must have succeeded in destroying the very possibility +of opposition or agitation in England. It was believed that no less than +three hundred signed warrants lay ready for issue on the day that Hardy +and his friends were convicted. But the stroke was too daring, the +threat too impudent. When the trial began, the prosecution lightened +its own task by dropping the charge against Holcroft and three of his +comrades. But for nine days the charge was pressed against Thomas Hardy, +and when he was acquitted a further six days was spent in the effort to +convict Horne Tooke, and four in a last vain attempt to succeed against +Thelwall. + +The popular victory checked the excesses of the reaction. As Holcroft +wrote: "The whole power of Government was directed against Thomas Hardy: +in his fate seemed involved the fate of the nation, and the verdict of +Not Guilty appeared to burst its bonds, and to have released it from +inconceivable miseries and ages of impending slavery." The reaction, +indeed, was restrained; but so also was the movement of reform. The +subsequent history of its leaders is one of unheroic failure, and of an +unpopularity which was harder to endure than danger. Windham referred to +the twelve in debate as "acquitted felons," and Holcroft was constrained +first to produce his plays under a borrowed name, and then to seek a +refuge in voluntary exile on the continent. The passions roused by the +Terror arrested the progress of the revolutionary movement in England. +The alarms and glories of the struggle with Napoleon buried it in +oblivion. + +It is this complex experience which lies behind Godwin's political +writings. The French Revolution produced its simple effects in Burke and +Tom Paine--revolt and disgust in the one, enthusiasm and hope in the +other. In Godwin the reaction is more complicated. He retained to the +last his ardent faith in progress, and the perfectibility of mankind. No +events could shake that, but it was the work of experience to reinforce +all the native individualism of his confident and self-reliant temper, +to harden into an extreme dogma that general belief in _laissez faire_ +which was the common property of most of the English progressives of his +day, and to beget in him not merely a doubt in the efficacy of violent +revolutions, but a dislike of all concerted political effort and the +whole collective work of political associations. He had felt the lash of +repression, saved one friend from the hangman, and seen others depart +for Botany Bay: he remained to the end, the uncompromising foe of every +species of governmental coercion. He had listened to Horne Tooke +perorating "hanging matters" at the Corresponding Society; he had seen +the "electric ruby" circulating at its dinners; he had witnessed the +collapse of Thomas Hardy's painstaking and methodical organisation. The +fruit of all these experiences was the first statement in European +literature of philosophic anarchism--a statement which hardly yields to +Tolstoy's in its trenchant and unflinching logic. + +"Logic" is more often a habit of consecutive and reasoned writing than +the source of a thinker's opinion. The logical writer is the man who can +succeed in displaying plausible reasons for what he believes by +instinct, or knows by experience. There is history and temperament +behind the coldest logic. The history which set Godwin against all State +action, whether undertaken in defence of order or privilege, or on +behalf of reform, is to be read in the excesses of Pitt and the +futilities of the Corresponding Society. The question of temperament +involves a subtler psychological judgment. If you feel in yourself +something less than the heroic temper which will make a militant +agitation or a violent revolution against the monstrous ascendency of +privilege and ordered force, you are lucky if you can convince yourself +that agitation is commonly mischievous, and association but a means of +combating one evil by creating another. Godwin was certainly no coward. +But he was fortunate in evolving a theory which excused him from +attempting the more dangerous exploits of civic courage. His ideal was +the Stoic virtue, the isolated strength, which can stand firm in passive +protest against oppression and wrong. He stood firm, and Pitt was +content to leave him standing. + + * * * * * + +We have seen the first bold statement of the hope which the French +Revolution kindled in Dr. Price's Old Jewry sermon. We have watched the +brave incautious effort to realise it in the plans of the Corresponding +Society. In these crowded years that began with the fall of the Bastille +and closed with the Terror, it was to enter on yet another phase, and in +this last incarnation the hope was very near despair. To men in the +early prime of life, aware of their powers and their gift of influence, +the Revolution came as a call to action. To a group of still younger +men, poets and thinkers, forming their first eager views of life in the +leisure of the Universities, it was above all a stimulus to fancy. +Godwin was their prophet, but they built upon his speculations the +superstructure of a dream that was all their own. For some years, +Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth were caught and held in the close web +of logic which Godwin gave to the world in 1793 in the first edition of +_Political Justice_. Wordsworth read and studied and continually +discussed it. Southey confessed that he "read and studied and all but +worshipped Godwin." Coleridge wrote a sonnet which he afterwards +suppressed in which he blesses his "holy guidance" and hymns Godwin +"with an ardent lay." + + For that thy voice in passion's stormy day + When wild I roamed the bleak heath of distress + Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way, + And told me that her name was Happiness. + +To us who read Godwin with many a later Utopia in our memories, his most +valuable chapters are those which give his penetrating criticisms of +existing society. To these young men the excitement was in his picture +of a free community from which laws and coercion had been eliminated, +and in which property was in a continual flux actuated by the stream of +universal benevolence. They resolved to found a community based on +Godwinian principles, and to free themselves from the cramping and +dwarfing influences of a society ruined by laws and superstitions, they +lit on the simple expedient of removing themselves beyond its reach. +They lacked the manhood and the simplicity which had turned more prosaic +natures into agitators and reformers. It is a tale which every student +of literature has delighted to read, how Coleridge and Southey, bent on +founding their Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehana, came to +Bristol to charter a ship, and while they waited, dimly aware that they +lacked funds for the adventure, anchored themselves in English homes by +marrying the Fricker sisters. + +As one of the comrades, Robert Lovell, quaintly puts it in a letter to +Holcroft, "Principle, not plan, is our object." Lovell had visited +Holcroft in gaol, and one can well understand how that near view of the +fate which awaited the reformer under Pitt, confirmed them in their idea +of crossing the Atlantic. "From the writings of William Godwin and +yourself," Lovell went on, "our minds have been illuminated; we wish our +actions to be guided by the same superior abilities." Holcroft, older +and more combative than his poet-disciples, advised the founding of a +model colony in this country. But the lure of a distant scene was too +attractive. Cottle, the friend and publisher of the Pantisocrats, has +left his account of their aims. Theirs was to be "a social colony in +which there was to be a community of property and where all that was +selfish was to be proscribed." It would realise "a state of society free +from the evils and turmoils that then agitated the world, and present +an example of the eminence to which men might arrive under the +unrestrained influence of sound principles." It would "regenerate the +whole complexion of society, and that not by establishing formal laws, +but by excluding all the little deteriorating passions, injustice, +wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking, and thereby setting an example +of human perfectibility." + +What is left of the dream to-day? Some verses in Coleridge's earlier +poems, the address to Chatterton for instance + + O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive, + Sure thou wouldst spread the canvas to the gale; + And love with us the tinkling team to drive + O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale. + +and those lines, half comical, half pathetic, in which the "sweet +harper" is assured as some requital for a hard life and a cruel death, +that the Pantisocrats will raise a "solemn cenotaph" to his memory +"Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream." Long afterwards, Coleridge +described Pantisocracy in _The Friend_ as "a plan as harmless as it was +extravagant," which had served a purpose by saving him from more +dangerous courses. "It was serviceable in securing myself and perhaps +some others from the paths of sedition. We were kept free from the +stains and impurities which might have remained upon us had we been +travelling with the crowd of less imaginative malcontents through the +dark lanes and foul by-roads of ordinary fanaticism." + +Pantisocracy was indeed a happy episode for English literature. One may +doubt whether the "Ancient Mariner" would have been written, had +Coleridge travelled with Gerrald and Sinclair along the "dark lane" that +led to Botany Bay. Nature can work strange miracles with the instinct of +self-preservation, and even for poets she has a care. The prudence which +teaches one man to be a Whig, will make of another a Utopian. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THOMAS PAINE + + +"Where Liberty is, there is my country." The sentiment has a Latin ring; +one can imagine an early Stoic as its author. It was spoken by Benjamin +Franklin, and no saying better expresses the spirit of eighteenth +century humanity. "Where is not Liberty, there is mine." The answer is +Thomas Paine's. It is the watchword of the knight errant, the marching +music that sent Lafayette to America, and Byron to Greece, the motto of +every man who prizes striving above enjoyment, honours comradeship above +patriotism, and follows an idea that no frontier can arrest. Paine was +indeed of no century, and no formula of classification can confine him. +His writing is of the age of enlightenment; his actions belong to +romance. His clear, manly style, his sturdy commonsense, the rapier play +of his epigrams, the formal, logical architecture of his thoughts, his +complacent limitations, his horror of mystery and Gothic half-lights, +his harsh contempt for all the sacred muddle of priestly traditions and +aristocratic politics, his assurance, his intellectual courage, his +humanity--all that, in its best and its worst, belongs to the century of +Voltaire and the Revolution. In his spirit of adventure, in his passion +for movement and combat, there Paine is romantic. Paine thought in prose +and acted epics. He drew horizons on paper and pursued the infinite in +deeds. + +Tom Paine was born, the son of a Quaker stay-maker, in 1737, at +Thetford, in the county of Norfolk. His parents were poor, but he owed +much, he tells us, to a good moral education and picked up "a tolerable +stock of useful learning," though he knew no language but his own. A +"Friend" he was to the end in his independence, his rationalism, and his +humanity, though he laughed when he thought of what a sad-coloured world +the Quakers would have made of the creation, if they had been consulted. +The boy craved adventure, and was prevented at seventeen from enlisting +in the crew of the privateer _Terrible_, Captain Death, only to sail +somewhat later in the _King of Prussia_, Captain Mendez. One cruise +under a licensed pirate was enough for him, and he soon settled in +London, making stays for a living and spending his leisure in the study +of astronomy. He qualified as an exciseman, acquiring in this employment +a grasp of finance and an interest in budgets of which he afterwards +made good use in his writings. Cashiered for negligence, he turned +schoolmaster, and even aspired to ordination in the Church of England. +Reinstated as a "gauger," he was eventually dismissed for writing a +pamphlet in defence of the excisemen's agitation for higher wages. He +was twice married, but his first wife died within a year of marriage, +and the second, with whom he had started a "tobacco-mill," agreed on its +failure, apparently for no definite fault on either side, to a mutual +separation. At thirty-seven, penniless, lonely, and stamped with +failure, yet conscious of powers which had found no scope in the Old +World, he emigrated in 1774 to America with a letter from Benjamin +Franklin as his passport to fortune. + +Opportunity came promptly, and Paine was presently settled in +Philadelphia as the editor of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_. From the +pages of this periodical, his admirable biographer, Mr. Moncure D. +Conway, has unearthed a series of articles which show that Paine had +somehow brought with him from England a mental equipment which ranked +him already among the moral pioneers of his generation. He advocates +international arbitration; he attacks duelling; he suggests more +rational ideas of marriage and divorce; he pleads for mercy to animals; +he demands justice for women. Above all, he assails negro slavery, and +with such mastery and fervour, that five weeks after the appearance of +his article, the first American Anti-Slavery Society was founded at +Philadelphia. The abolition of slavery was a cause for which he never +ceased to struggle, and when in later life he became the target of +religious persecutors, it was in their dual capacity of Christians and +slave-owners that men stoned him. The American colonies were now at the +parting of the ways in the struggle with the Mother Country. The revolt +had begun with a limited object, and few if any of its leaders realised +whither they were tending. Paine it was, who after the slaughter at +Lexington, abandoned all thoughts of reconciliation and was the first to +preach independence and republicanism. + +His pamphlet, _Common-Sense_ (1776), achieved a circulation which was an +event in the history of printing, and fixed in men's minds as firm +resolves what were, before he wrote, no more than fluid ideas. It spoke +to rebels and made a nation. Poor though Paine was, he poured the whole +of the immense profits which he received from the sale of his little +book into the colonial war-chest, shouldered a musket, joined +Washington's army as a private, and was soon promoted to be aide-de-camp +to General Greene. Paine's most valuable weapon, however, was still his +pen. Writing at night, after endless marches, by the light of camp fires +at a moment of general depression, when even Washington thought that the +game was "pretty well up," Paine began to write the series of pamphlets +afterwards collected under the title of _The American Crisis_. They did +for the American volunteers what Rouget de Lisle's immortal song did for +the French levies in the revolutionary wars, what Koerner's martial +ballads did for the German patriots in the Napoleonic wars. These superb +pages of exhortation were read in every camp to the disheartened men; +their courage commanded victory. Burke himself wrote nothing finer than +the opening sentences of the first "crisis," a trumpet call indeed, but +phrased by an artist who knew the science of compelling music from +brass:-- + +"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the +sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his +country; but he that stands it now, deserves the thanks of man and +woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this +consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the +triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly; it is dearness +only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper +price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an +article as freedom should not be highly rated." + +"Common-sense" Paine was now the chief of the moral forces behind the +fighting Republic, and his power of thinking boldly and stating clearly +drove it forward to its destiny under the leadership of men whom Nature +had gifted with less trenchant minds. He was in succession Foreign +Secretary to Congress and clerk to the Pennsylvania Assembly, and we +find him converting despair into triumph by the magic of self-sacrifice. +He it was who in 1780 saved the finances of the war in a moment of +despair, by starting the patriotic subscription with the gift of his own +salary, and in 1781 proved his diplomatic gift in a journey to Paris by +obtaining money-aid from the French Court. + +Paine might have settled down to enjoy his fame, after the war, on the +little property which the State of New York gave him. He loathed +inaction and escaped middle age. In 1787 he returned to England, partly +to carry his pen where the work of liberation called for it, partly to +forward his mechanical inventions. Paine, self-educated though he was, +was a capable mathematician, and he followed the progress of the applied +sciences with passion. His inventions include a long list of things +partly useful, partly whimsical, a planing machine, a crane, a smokeless +candle and a gunpowder motor. But his fame as an inventor rests on his +construction of the first iron bridge, made after his models and plans +at Wearmouth. He was received as a leader and teacher in the ardent +circle of reformers grouped round the Revolution Society and the +Corresponding Society. Others were the dreamers and theorists of +liberty. He had been at the making of a Republic, and his American +experience gave the stimulus to English Radicalism which events in +France were presently to repeat. His fame was already European, and at +the fall of the Bastille, it was to Paine that Lafayette confided its +key, when a free France sent that symbol of defeated despotism as a +present to a free America. He seemed the natural link between three +revolutions, the one which had succeeded in the New World, the other +which was transforming France, and the third which was yet to come in +England. + +Burke's _Reflections_ rang in his ears like a challenge, and he sat +promptly down in his inn to write his reply. _The Rights of Man_ is an +answer to Burke, but it is much more. The vivid pages of history in +which he explains and defends the French Revolution which Burke had +attacked and misunderstood, are only an illustration to his main +argument. He expounds the right of revolution, and blows away the cobweb +argument of legality by which his antagonist had sought to confine +posterity within the settlement of 1688. Every age and generation must +be free to act for itself. Man has no property in man, and the claim of +one generation to govern beyond the grave is of all tyrannies the most +insolent. Burke had contended for the right of the dead to govern the +living, but that which a whole nation chooses to do, it has a right to +do. The men of 1688, who surrendered their own rights and bound +themselves to obey King William and his heirs, might indeed choose to be +slaves; but that could not lessen the right of their children to be +free. Wrongs cannot have a legal descent. Here was a bold and triumphant +answer to a sophistical argument; but it served Paine only as a preface +to his exposition of the American constitution, which was "to Liberty +what a grammar is to language," and to his plea for the adoption in +England of the French charter of the Rights of Man. + +Paine felt that he had made one Republic with a pamphlet, why not +another? He had the unlimited faith of his generation in the efficacy of +argument, and experience had proved his power. As Carlyle, in his +whimsical dramatic fashion, said of him, "He can and will free all this +world; perhaps even the other." Godwin, as became the philosopher of the +movement, set his hopes on the slower working of education: to make men +wise was to make them free. Paine was the pamphleteer of the human camp. +He saw mankind as an embattled legion and believed, true man of action +that he was, that freedom could be won like victory by the impetus of a +resolute charge. He quotes the epigram of his fellow-soldier, Lafayette, +"For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and +to be free it is sufficient that she wills it." Godwin would have sent +men to school to liberty; Paine called them to her unfurled standard. +It is easy to understand the success of Paine's book, which appeared in +March, 1791. It was theory and practice in one; it was the armed logic +which had driven King George's regiments from America, the edged +argument which had razed the Bastille. It was bold reasoning, and it was +also inspired writing. Holcroft and Godwin helped to bring out _The +Rights of Man_, threatened with suppression or mutilation by the +publishers, and a panting incoherent shout of joy in a note from +Holcroft to Godwin is typical of the excitement which it caused:-- + +"I have got it--if this do not cure my cough it is a damned perverse +mule of a cough. The pamphlet--from the row--But mum--we don't sell +it--oh, no--ears and eggs--verbatim, except the addition of a short +preface, which as you have not seen, I send you my copy.--Not a single +castration (Laud be unto God and J. S. Jordan!) can I discover--Hey, for +the new Jerusalem! The Millennium! And peace and eternal beatitude be +unto the soul of Thomas Paine." + +The usual prosecutions of booksellers followed; but everywhere the new +societies of reform were circulating the book, and if it helped to send +some good men to Botany Bay, copies enough were sold to earn a sum of a +thousand pounds for the author, which, with his usual disinterestedness, +he promptly gave to the Corresponding Society. A second part appeared in +1792; and at length Pitt adopted Burke's opinion that criminal justice +was the proper argument with which to refute Tom Paine. Acting on a hint +from William Blake, who, in a vision more prosaic and veridical than was +usual with him, had seen the constables searching for his friend, Paine +escaped to France, and was convicted in his absence of high treason. + +Paine landed at Calais an outlaw, to find himself already elected its +deputy to the Convention. As in America, so in France, his was the first +voice to urge the uncompromising solution. He advocated the abolition of +the monarchy; but his was a courage that always served humanity. The +work which he did as a member, with Sieyes, Danton, Condorcet, and five +others, of the little committee named to draft the constitution, was +ephemeral. His brave pleading for the King's life was a deed that +deserves to live. He loved to think of himself as a woodman swinging an +axe against rotten institutions and dying beliefs; but he weighted no +guillotines. Paine argued against the command that we should "love our +enemies," but he would not persecute them. This knight-errant would +fling his shield over the very spies who tracked his steps. In Paris he +saved the life of one of Pitt's agents who had vilified him, and +procured the liberation of a bullying English officer who had struck him +in public. The Terror made mercy a traitor, and Paine found himself +overwhelmed in the vengeance which overtook all that was noblest in the +Revolution. He spent ten months in prison, racked with fever, and an +anecdote which seems to be authentic, tells how he escaped death by the +negligence of a jailor. This overworked official hastily chalked the +sign which meant that a prisoner was marked for next batch of the +guillotine's victims, on the inside instead of the outside of Paine's +cell-door. + +Condorcet, in hiding and awaiting death, wrote in these months his +_Sketch_ of human progress. Paine, meditating on the end that seemed +near, composed the first part of his _Age of Reason_. Paine was, like +Franklin, Jefferson and Washington, a deist; and he differed from them +only in the courage which prompted him to declare his belief. He came +from gaol a broken man, hardly able to stand, while the Convention, +returned to its sound senses, welcomed him back to his place of honour +on its benches. The record of his last years in America, whither he +returned in 1802, belongs rather to the history of persecution than to +the biography of a soldier of liberty. His work was done; and, though +his pen was still active and influential, slave-owners, ex-royalists, +and the fanatics of orthodoxy combined to embitter the end of the man +who had dared to deny the inspiration of the Bible. His book was burned +in England by the hangman. Bishops in their answers mingled grudging +concessions with personal abuse. An agent of Pitt's was hired to write a +scurrilous biography of the Government's most dreaded foe. In America, +the grandsons of the Puritan colonists who had flogged Quaker women as +witches, denied him a place on the stage-coach, lest an offended God +should strike it with lightning. + +Paine died, a lonely old man, in 1809. His personal character stands +written in his career; and it is unnecessary to-day even to mention the +libels which his biographer has finally refuted. In a generation of +brave men he was the boldest. He could rouse the passions of men, and he +could brave them. If the Royalist Burke was eloquent for a Queen, +Republican Paine risked his life for a King. No wrong found him +indifferent; and he used his pen not only for the democracy which might +reward him, but for animals, slaves and women. Poverty never left him, +yet he made fortunes with his pen, and gave them to the cause he served. +A naive vanity was his only fault as a man. It was his fate to escape +the gallows in England and the guillotine in France. He deserved them +both; in that age there was no higher praise. A better democrat never +wore the armour of the knight-errant; a better Christian never assailed +Orthodoxy. + +Neither by training nor by temperament was Paine a speculative thinker; +but his political writing has none the less an immense significance. +Godwin was a writer removed by his profoundly individual genius from the +average thought of his day. Paine agreed more nearly with the advanced +minds of his generation, and he taught the rest to agree with him. No +one since him or before him has stated the plain democratic case against +monarchy and aristocracy with half his spirit and force. Earlier writers +on these themes were timid; the moderns are bored. Paine is writing of +what he understands, and feels to be of the first importance. He cares +as much about abolishing titles as a modern reformer may feel about +nationalising land. His main theory in politics has a lucid simplicity. +Men are born as God created them, free and equal; that is the assumption +alike of natural and revealed religion. Burke, who "fears God," looks +with "awe to kings," with "duty to magistrates," and with "respect to +nobility," is but erecting a wilderness of turnpike gates between man +and his Maker. Natural rights inhere in man by reason of his existence; +civil rights are founded in natural rights and are designed to secure +and guarantee them. He gives an individual twist to the doctrine of the +social compact. Some governments arise out of the people, others over +the people. The latter are based on conquest or priestcraft, and the +former on reason. Government will be firmly based on the social compact +only when nations deliberately sit down as the Americans have done, and +the French are doing, to frame a constitution on the basis of the Rights +of Man. + +As for the English Government, it clearly arose in conquest; and to +speak of a British Constitution is playing with words. Parliament, +imperfectly and capriciously elected, is supposed to hold the common +purse in trust; but the men who vote the supplies are also those who +receive them. The national purse is the common hack on which each party +mounts in turn, in the countryman's fashion of "ride and tie." They +order these things better in France. As for our system of conducting +wars, it is all done over the heads of the people. War is with us the +art of conquering at home. Taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but +wars raised to carry on taxes. The shrewd hard-hitting blows range over +the whole surface of existing institutions. Godwin from his intellectual +eminence saw in all the follies and crimes of mankind nothing worse than +the effects of "prejudice" and the consequences of fallacious reasoning. +Paine saw more self-interest in the world than prejudice. When he came +to preach the abolition of war, first through an alliance of Britain, +America and France, and then through "a confederation of nations" and a +European Congress, he saw the obstacle in the egoism of courts and +courtiers which appear to quarrel but agree to plunder. Another seven +years, he wrote in 1792, would see the end of monarchy and aristocracy +in Europe. While they continue, with war as their trade, peace has not +the security of a day. + +Paine's writing gains rather than loses in theoretic interest, because +the warmth of his sympathies melts, as he proceeds, the icy logic of his +eighteenth century individualism. He starts where all his school +started, with a sharp antithesis between society and government. + +"Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the +former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections; the +latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages +intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the +last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing; but government +even in its best state is a necessary evil.... Government, like dress, +is the badge of our lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on +the ruins of the bowers of paradise." + +That was the familiar pessimism which led in practical politics to +_laissez faire_, and in speculation to Godwin's philosophic anarchism. +Paine himself seems for a moment to take that road. He enjoys telling us +how well the American colonies managed in the early stages of the war +without any regular form of government. He assures us that "the more +perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government." But +he had served an apprenticeship to life; looking around him at the +streets filled with beggars and the jails crowded with poor men, he +suddenly forgets that the whole purpose of government is to secure the +individual against the invasion of his rights, and straightway bursts +into a new definition:--"Civil government does not consist in +executions; but in making such provision for the instruction of youth +and the support of age as to exclude as much as possible profligacy from +the one and despair from the other. Instead of this the resources of a +country are lavished upon kings ... and the poor themselves are +compelled to support the fraud that oppresses them." + +It is amazing how much good Paine can extract from a necessary evil. He +has suddenly conceived of government as the instrument of the social +conscience. He means to use it as a means of securing a better +organisation of society. Paine was a man of action, and no mere logic +could hold him. He proceeds in a breathless chapter to evolve a +programme of social reform which, after the slumbers of a century, his +Radical successors have just begun to realise. Some hints came to him +from Condorcet, but most of these daringly novel ideas sprang from +Paine's own inventive brain, and all of them are presented by the +whilom exciseman, with a wealth of financial detail, as if he were a +Chancellor of the Exchequer addressing the first Republican Parliament +in the year One of Liberty. He would break up the poor laws, "these +instruments of civil torture." He has saved the major part of the cost +of defence by a naval alliance with the other Sea Powers, and the +abolition of capture at sea. Instead of poor relief he would give a +subsidy to the children of the very poor, and pensions to the aged. Four +pounds a year for every child under fourteen in every necessitous family +will ensure the health and instruction of the next generation. It will +cost two millions and a half, but it will banish ignorance. He would pay +the costs of compulsory education. Pensions are to be granted not of +grace but of right, as an aid to the infirm after fifty years, and a +subsidy to the aged after sixty. Maternity benefit is anticipated in a +donation of twenty shillings to every poor mother at the birth of a +child. Casual labour is to be cared for in some sort of +workhouse-factories in London. These reforms are to be financed partly +by economies and partly by a graduated income-tax, for which Paine +presents an elaborate schedule. When the poor are happy and the jails +empty, then at last may a nation boast of its constitution. In this +pregnant chapter Paine not only sketched the work of the future; he +exploded his own premises. + +The odium that still clings to Paine's theological writings comes mainly +from those who have not read them. When Mr. Roosevelt the other day +called him "a dirty little Atheist," he exposed nothing but his own +ignorance. Paine was a deist, and he wrote _The Age of Reason_ on the +threshold of a French prison, primarily to counteract the atheism which +he thought he saw at work among the Jacobins--an odd diagnosis, for +Robespierre was at least as ardent in his deism as Paine himself. He +believed in a God, Whose bounty he saw in nature; he taught the doctrine +of conditional immortality, and his quarrel with revealed religion was +chiefly that it set up for worship a God of cruelty and injustice. From +the stories of the Jewish massacres ordained by divine command, down to +the orthodox doctrine of the scheme of redemption, he saw nothing but a +history derogatory to the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty. To +believe the Old Testament we must unbelieve our faith in the moral +justice of God. It might "hurt the stubbornness of a priest" to destroy +this fiction, but it would tranquilise the consciences of millions. From +this starting-point he proceeds in the later second and third parts to a +detailed criticism designed to show that the books of the Bible were not +written by their reputed authors, that the miracles are incredible, that +the passages claimed as prophecy have been wrested from their contexts, +and that many inconsistencies are to be found in the narrative portions +of the Gospels. + +Acute and fearless though it is, this detailed argument has only an +historical interest to-day. When the violence of his persecutors had +goaded Paine into anger, he lost all sense of tact in controversy, and +lapsed occasionally into harsh vulgarities. But the anger was just, and +the zeal for mental honesty has had its reward. Paine had no sense for +the mystery and poetry of traditional religion. But what he attacked was +not presented to him as poetry. He was assailing a dogmatic orthodoxy +which had itself converted poetry into literal fact. As literal fact it +was incredible; and Paine, taking it all at the valuation of its own +professors, assailed it with a disbelief as prosaic as their belief, but +intellectually more honest. His interpretation of the Bible is +unscientific, if you will, but it is nearer to the truth of history than +the conventional belief of his day. If his polemics seem rough and +superfluous to us, it is only because his direct frontal attacks forced +on the work of Biblical criticism, and long ago compelled the +abandonment of most of the positions which he assailed. In spite of its +grave faults of taste and temper and manner, _The Age of Reason_ +performed an indispensable service to honesty and morals. It was the +bravest thing he did, for it threatened his name with an immortality of +libel. His place in history is secure at last. The neglected pioneer of +one revolution, the honoured victim of another, brave to the point of +folly, and as humane as he was brave, no man in his generation preached +republican virtue in better English, nor lived it with a finer disregard +of self. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WILLIAM GODWIN AND THE REVOLUTION + + +Tom Paine is still reviled and still admired. The name of Mary +Wollstonecraft is honoured by the growing army of free women. Both may +be read in cheap editions. William Godwin, a more powerful intellect, +and in his day a greater influence than either, is now forgotten, or +remembered only because he was the father of Shelley's wife. Yet he +blazed in the last decade of the eighteenth century, as Hazlitt has told +us, "as a sun in the firmament of reputation." "No one was more talked +of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, +justice was the theme, his name was not far off.... No work in our time +gave such a blow to the philosophical mind of the country as the +celebrated _Enquiry Concerning Political Justice_. Tom Paine was +considered for the time as a Tom Fool to him; Paley an old woman; Edmund +Burke a flashy sophist." + +William Godwin came into the world in 1756, at Wisbech, in the Fen +country, with the moral atmosphere of a dissenting home for inheritance. +His father and grandfather were Independent ministers, who taught the +metaphysical dissent of the extreme Calvinistic tradition. The quaint +ill-spelled letters of his mother reveal a strong character, a meagre +education and rigid beliefs. William was unwholesomely precocious as a +boy, pious, studious and greedy for distinction and praise. He was +brought up on the _Account of the Pious Deaths of Many Godly Children_, +and would move his school-fellows to tears by his early sermons on the +Last Judgment. At seventeen we find him, destined for the hereditary +profession, a student in the Theological College at Hoxton. His mental +development was by no means headlong, but he was a laborious reader and +an eager disputant, endowed with all the virtues save modesty. + +He emerged from College as he had entered it, a Tory in politics and a +Sandemanian in religion. The Sandemanians were super-Calvinists, and +their tenets may be summarily defined. A Calvinist held that of ten +souls nine will be damned. A Sandemanian hoped that of ten Calvinists +one may with difficulty be saved. In the Calvinist mould Godwin's mind +was formed, and if the doctrine was soon discarded, the habit of +thought characteristic of Calvinism remained with him to the end. It is +a French and not a British creed, Latin in its systematic completeness, +Latin in the logical courage with which it pursues its assumptions to +their last conclusion, Latin in its faith in deductive reasoning and its +disdain alike of experience and of sentiment. Had Godwin been bred a +Methodist or a Churchman, he could not have written _Political Justice_. +To him in these early years religion presented itself as a supernatural +despotism based on terror and coercion. Its central doctrine was eternal +punishment, and when in mature life, Godwin became a free-thinker, his +revolt was not so much the readjustment of a speculative thinker who has +reconsidered untenable dogmas, as the rebellion of a humane and liberal +mind against a system of terrorism. To some agnostics God is an +unnecessary hypothesis. To Godwin He was rather a tyrant to be deposed. +It was a view which Shelley with less provocation adopted with even +greater heat. + +Godwin's firm dogmatic creed began to crumble away during his early +experiences as a dissenting minister in country towns. He published a +forgotten volume of sermons, and his development both in politics and +theology was evidently slow. At twenty-seven, as a young pastor at +Beaconsfield, we find him a Whig and a Unitarian, who looked up to Dr. +Priestley as his master. He had now begun to study the French +philosophers, whom Hoxton had doubtless refuted, but did not read. He +was not a successful pastor, and it was as much his relative failure in +the pulpit as his slowly broadening beliefs which caused him to take to +letters for a livelihood. His long literary career begins in 1783 with +some years of prentice work in Grub Street. He wrote a successful +pamphlet in defence of the Coalition, which brought him to the notice of +the Whig chiefs, worked with enthusiasm at a _Life of Chatham_ which has +the merit of a rather heavy eloquence, contributed for seven years to +the _Annual Register_ and wrote three novels which evidently enjoyed an +ephemeral success. He lived the usual nomadic life of the young man of +letters, and differed from most of his kind chiefly by his industry, his +abstinence, and his methodical habits of study, which he never relaxed +even when he was writing busily for bread. + +We find him rising early, and reading some portion of a Greek or Latin +classic before breakfast. He acquired by this practice a literary +knowledge of the classics and used it in his later essays with an ease +and intimacy which many a scholar would envy. He wrote for three or four +hours in the morning, composing slowly and frequently recasting his +drafts. The afternoon and evening were devoted to eager converse and hot +debate with friends, and to the reading of modern books in English, +French and Italian, with not infrequent visits to the theatre. A brief +diary carefully kept with a system of signs and abbreviations in a queer +mixed jargon of English, French and Latin records his anxious use of his +time, and shows to the end of his eighty years few wasted days. If +industry was his most conspicuous virtue, he gave proof at the outset of +his life of an independence rare among poor men who have their career to +make. Sheridan, who acted as the literary agent of the Whigs, wished to +engage him as a professional pamphleteer and offered him a regular +salary. He refused to tie himself to a party, though his views at this +time were those of an orthodox and enthusiastic admirer of Fox. + +Godwin was to become the apostle of Universal Benevolence. It was a +virtue for which in later life he gave many an opportunity to his richer +friends, but if he stimulated it in others he never refused to practise +it himself. While he was still a struggling and underpaid journeyman +author, wandering from one cheap lodging to another, he burdened himself +with the care and maintenance of a distant relative, an orphaned +second-cousin, named Thomas Cooper. Cooper came to him at the age of +twelve and remained with him till he became an actor at seventeen. +Godwin had read Rousseau's _Emile_, not seldom with dissent, and all +through his life was deeply interested in the problems of education. +They furnished him with the themes of some of the best essays in his +_Enquirer_ and his _Thoughts on Man_, and young Cooper was evidently the +subject on whom he experimented. He was a difficult, proud, +high-spirited lad, and the process of tuition was clearly not as smooth +as it was conscientious. Godwin's leading thought was that the utmost +reverence is due to boys. He cared little how much he imparted of +scholastic knowledge. He aimed at arousing the intellectual curiosity of +his charge and fostering independence and self-respect. Sincerity and +plain-speaking were to govern the relation of tutor and pupil. Corporal +punishment was of course a prohibited barbarity, but it must be admitted +that in Godwin's case a violent tongue and an impatient temper more than +supplied its place. The diary shows how pathetically the tutor exhorted +himself to avoid sternness, "which can only embitter the temper," and +not to impute dulness, stupidity or intentional error. Some letters show +how he failed. Cooper complains that Godwin had called him "a foolish +wretch," "a viper" and a "tiger." Godwin replies by complimenting him on +his "sensibility," and his "independence," asks for his "confidence" in +return, and assures him that he does not expect "gratitude" (a virtue +banned in the Godwinian ethics). This essay in education can have been +only relatively successful, for Cooper seems to have felt a quite +commonplace gratitude to Godwin, and for many a year afterwards sent him +vivacious letters, which testify to the real friendship which united +them. + +Imperious and hot-tempered though he was, Godwin made friends and kept +them. Thomas Holcroft came into Godwin's life in 1786. Thanks to +Hazlitt's spirited memoir, based as it was on ample autobiographical +notes, no personality of this group stands before us so clearly limned, +and there is none more attractive. Mrs. Shelley describes him as a "man +of stern and irascible character," but he was also lovable and +affectionate. There was in his mind and will some powerful initial +force of resolve and mental independence. He thought for himself, and +yet he could assimilate the ideas of other men. He was a reasoner and a +doctrinaire; and yet he must have had in himself those untamed volcanic +emotions which we associate with the heroes of the romantic novels of +the age. He believed in the almost unlimited powers of the human mind, +and his own career, which saw his rise from stable-boy and cobbler to +dramatist, was itself a monument to the human will. Looking in their +mirrors, the progressives of that generation were tempted to think that +perfection might have been within their reach had not their youth been +stunted by the influence of Calvin and the British Constitution. +Rectitude, courage and unflinching truth were Holcroft's ideal. He +firmly believed (an idea which lay in germ in Condorcet and was for a +time adopted by Godwin) that the will guided by reason might transform +not only the human mind but the human body. Like the Christian +Scientists of to-day he asserted, as Mrs. Shelley tells us, that "death +and disease existed only through the feebleness of man's mind, that pain +also had no reality." + +He was a man of fifty when he met Godwin at thirty, and he had packed +into his half century a more various experience of men and things than +the studious and sedentary Godwin could have acquired if he had lived +the life of the Wandering Jew. Theirs was a friendship of mutual +stimulation and intimate exchange which is commoner between a man and a +woman than between two men. They met almost daily, and in spite of some +violent lovers' quarrels, their affection lasted till Holcroft's death +in 1809. It is not hard to understand their quarrels. Neither of them +had natural tact, and Godwin's sensibility was morbid. Unflinching +truthfulness, even in literary criticism, must have tried their tempers, +and the single word "demele," best translated "row," occurs often in +Godwin's diary as his note on one of their meetings. It is not easy to +decide which influenced the other more. Godwin's was the trained, +systematic, academical mind, but Holcroft added to a rich and curious +experience of life and a vein of native originality, wide reading and +something more than a mere amateur's taste for music and art. It was +Holcroft who drove Godwin out of his compromising Unitarianism into a +view which for some years he boldly described as Atheism. His religious +opinions were afterwards modified (or so he supposed) by S. T. +Coleridge; but that influence is not conspicuous in his posthumous +essay on religion, and the best label for his attitude is perhaps +Huxley's word, "Agnostic." + +As the French Revolution approached, the two friends fell under the +prevailing excitement. Godwin attended the Revolution Society's dinners, +and Holcroft was, as we have seen, a leading member of the Corresponding +Society. There is no difficulty in accounting for most of the opinions +which the two friends held in common, and which Godwin was soon to +embody in _Political Justice_. Some were common to all the group; others +lie in germ at least in the writings of the Encyclopaedists. Even +communism was anticipated by Mably, and was held in some tentative form +by many of the leading men of the Revolution. (See Kropotkin: _The Great +French Revolution_.) The puzzle is rather to account for the anarchist +tendency which seems to be wholly original in Godwin. It was a revolt +not merely against all coercive action by the State, but also against +collective action by the citizens. The root of it was probably the +extreme individualism which felt that a man surrendered too much of +himself, too much of truth and manhood in any political association. The +beginnings of this line of thought may be detected in a vivid +contemptuous account of the riotous Westminster election of 1788, in +which Holcroft had worked with the Foxites: "Scandal, pitiful, mean, +mutual scandal, never was more plentifully dispersed. Electioneering is +a trade so despicably degrading, so eternally incompatible with moral +and mental dignity that I can scarcely believe a truly great mind +capable of the dirty drudgery of such vice. I am at least certain no +mind is great while thus employed. It is the periodical reign of the +evil nature or demon." + +This, to be sure, is no more than a hint of a tendency, but it shows +that experience was already fermenting in the brain of one member at +least of the pair, and it took these alchemists no great while to distil +from it their theoretic spirit. The doings of the Corresponding Society +were destined to enlarge and confirm this experience. In the hopes, the +indignations, and the perils of the years of revolutionary excitement +Godwin had his intimate share. He was one of a small committee which +undertook the publication of Paine's _Rights of Man_, and when the +repression began, those who were struck down were his associates and in +some cases his intimates. Holcroft, as we have seen, was tried for high +treason, and Joseph Gerrald, who was sent to Botany Bay, was a friend +for whom he felt both admiration and affection. If the fate of these men +was a haunting pain to their friends, their high courage and idealistic +faith was a noble stimulus. "Human Perfectibility" had its martyrs, and +the words of Gerrald as he stood in the dock awaiting the sentence that +was to send him to his death among thieves and forgers, deserve a +respectful record: "Moral light is as irresistible by the mind as +physical by the eye. All attempts to impede its progress are vain. It +will roll rapidly along, and as well may tyrants imagine that by placing +their feet upon the earth they can stop its diurnal motion, as that they +shall be able by efforts the most virulent and pertinacious to +extinguish the light of reason and philosophy, which happily for mankind +is everywhere spreading around us." It was in this atmosphere of +enthusiasm and devotion that _Political Justice_ was written. + +The main work of Godwin's life was begun in July, 1791. He was fortunate +in securing a contract from the publisher Robinson, on generous terms +which ultimately brought him in one thousand guineas. _Political +Justice_ has been generally classed among the answers to Burke, but +Godwin's aim was in fact something more ambitious. A note in his diary +deserves to be quoted: "My original conception proceeded on a feeling of +the imperfections and errors of Montesquieu, and a desire of supplying a +less faulty work. In the just fervour of my enthusiasm I entertained the +vain imagination of "hewing a stone from the rock," which by its +inherent energy and weight, should overbear and annihilate all +opposition and place the principles of politics on an immoveable basis." + +When he came to answer his critics, he apologised for extravagances on +the plea of haste and excitement; but in fact the work was slowly and +deliberately written, and was not completed until January, 1793. Its +doctrines, since the book is not now readily accessible, will be +summarised fully and in Godwin's own phraseology in the next chapter, +but it seems proper to draw attention here to the cool yet unprovocative +courage of its writer. It is filled with "hanging matters." Pitt was, +perhaps, no more disposed to punish a man for expounding the fundamental +principles of philosophic anarchism than was the Russian autocracy in +our own day when it tolerated Tolstoy. It was not for writing _Utopia_ +that Sir Thomas More lost his head. But the book is quite unflinching in +its application of principle, and its attacks on monarchy are as +uncompromising as those for which Paine was outlawed. The preface calmly +discusses the possibility of prosecution, issues what is in effect a +quiet challenge, and concludes with the consolation that "it is the +property of truth to be fearless and to prove victorious over every +adversary." The fact was that Godwin watched the dangers of his friends +"almost with envy" (letter to Gerrald). But he held that a man who +deliberately provokes martyrdom acts immorally, since he confuses the +progress of reason by exciting destructive passions, and drives his +adversaries into evil courses. + +"For myself," he wrote, "I will never adopt any conduct for the express +purpose of being put upon my trial, but if I be ever so put, I will +consider that day as a day of triumph." Godwin escaped punishment for +his activity on behalf of Holcroft and the twelve reformers, because his +activity was successful. He escaped prosecution for _Political Justice_ +because it was a learned book, addressed to educated readers, and issued +at the astonishing price of three guineas. The propriety of prosecuting +him was considered by the Privy Council; and Pitt is said to have +dismissed the suggestion with the remark that "a three guinea book could +never do much harm among those who had not three shillings to spare." +That this three-guinea book was bought and read to the extent of no less +than four thousand copies is a tribute not merely to its vitality, but +to the eagerness of the middle-classes during the revolutionary ferment +to drink in the last words of the new philosophy. + +A new edition was soon called for, and was issued early in 1796. Much of +the book was recast and many chapters entirely rewritten, as the +consequence not so much of any material change in Godwin's views, as of +the profit he had derived from private controversies. Condorcet (though +he is never mentioned) is, if one may make a guess, the chief of the new +influences apparent in the second edition. It is more cautious, more +visibly the product of a varied experience than the first draft, but it +abandons none of his leading ideas. A third edition appeared in 1799, +toned down still further by a growing caution. These revisions +undoubtedly made the book less interesting, less vivid, less readable. +No modern edition has ever appeared, and its direct influence had become +negligible even before Godwin's death. It is harder to account for the +oblivion into which the book has fallen, than to explain its early +popularity. It is not a difficult book to read. "The young and the +fair," Godwin tells us, "did not feel deterred from consulting my +pages." His style is always clear and often eloquent. His vocabulary +seems to a modern taste overloaded with Latin words, but the +architecture of his sentences is skilful in the classical manner. He can +vary his elaborate periods with a terse, strong statement which comes +with the force of an unexpected blow. He has a knack of happy +illustration, and a way of enforcing his points by putting problems in +casuistry which have an alluring human interest. The book moved his own +generation profoundly, and even to-day his more enthusiastic passages +convey an irresistible impression of sincerity and conviction. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"POLITICAL JUSTICE" + + +The controversy which produced _Political Justice_ was a dialogue +between the future and the past. The task of speculation in England had +been, through a stagnant century, to define the conditions of political +stability, and to admire the elaborate checks and balances of the +British Constitution as though change were the only evil that threatened +mankind. For Burke, change itself was but an incident in the triumph of +continuity and conservation. For Godwin the whole life of mankind is a +race through innovation to perfection, and his main concern is to exhort +the athlete to fling aside the garments of prejudice, tradition, and +constraint, until one asks at the end how much of flesh and blood has +been torn away with the garments. If one were to attempt in a phrase to +sum up his work, the best title which one could invent for it would be +Prolegomena to all Future Progress. What in a word are the conditions of +progress? + +His attitude to mankind is by turns a pedagogue's disapprobation and a +patron's encouragement. The worst enemy of progress was the systematic +optimism of Leibnitz and Pope, which Voltaire had overthrown. There is +indeed enough of progress in the past to fire our courage and our hopes. +In moments of depression, he would admire the beautiful invention of +writing and the power of mind displayed in human speech. But the general +panorama of history exhorts us to fundamental change. In bold sweeping +rhetoric he assures us that history is little else than the record of +crime. War has diminished neither its horror nor its frequency, and man +is still the most formidable enemy to man. Despotism is still the fate +of the greatest part of mankind. Penal laws by the terror of punishment +hold a numerous class in abject penury. Robbery and fraud are none the +less continual, and the poor are tempted for ever to violence against +the more fortunate. One person in seven comes in England on the poor +rates. Can the poor conceive of society as a combination to protect +every man in his rights and secure him the means of existence? Is it not +rather for them a conspiracy to engross its advantages for the favoured +few? Luxury insults them; admiration is the exclusive property of the +rich, and contempt the constant lacquey of poverty. Nowhere is a man +valued for what he is. Legislation aggravates the natural inequality of +man. A house of landlords sets to work to deprive the poor of the little +commonage of nature which remained to them, and its bias stands revealed +when we recollect that in England (as Paine had pointed out) while taxes +on land produce half a million less than they did a century ago, taxes +on articles of general consumption produce thirteen millions more. +Robbery is a capital offence because the poor alone are tempted to it. +Among the poor alone is all combination forbidden. Godwin was often an +incautious rhetorician. He painted the present in colours of such +unrelieved gloom, that it is hard to see in it the possibility of a +brighter future. Mankind seems hopeless, and he has to prove it +perfectible. + +Are these evils then the necessary condition of society? Godwin answers +that question as the French school, and in particular Helvetius, had +done, by a preliminary assault on the assumptions of a reactionary +philosophy. He proposes to exhort the human will to embark with a +conscious and social resolve on the adventure of perfection. He must +first demonstrate that the will is sovereign. Man is the creature of +necessity, and the nexus of cause and effect governs the moral world +like the physical. We are the product of our conditions. But among +conditions some are within the power of the will to change and others +are not. Montesquieu had insisted that it is climate which ultimately +differentiates the races of mankind. Climate is clearly a despotism +which we can never hope to reform away. Another school has taught that +men come into the world with innate ideas and a predetermined character. +Others again would dispute that man is in his actions a reasonable +being, and would represent him as the toy of passion, a creature to whom +it is useless to present an argument drawn from his own advantage. The +first task of the progressive philosopher is to clear away these +preliminary obstacles. Man is the creature of conditions, but primarily +of those conditions which he may hope to modify--education, religion, +social prejudice and above all government. He is also in the last resort +a being whose conduct is governed by his opinions. Admit these premises +and the way is clear towards perfection. It is a problem which in some +form and in some dialect confronts every generation of reformers. We are +the creatures of our own environment, but in some degree we are +ourselves a force which can modify that environment. We inherit a past +which weighs upon us and obsesses us, but in some degree each generation +is born anew. Godwin used the new psychology against the old +superstition of innate ideas. A modern thinker in his place would +advance Weissmann's biological theory that the acquired modifications of +an organism are not inherited, as an answer to the pessimism which bases +itself upon heredity. + +Godwin starts boldly with the thesis that "the characters of men +originate in their external circumstances." He brushes aside innate +ideas or instincts or even ante-natal impressions. Accidents in the womb +may have a certain effect, and every man has a certain disposition at +birth. But the multiplicity of later experiences wears out these early +impressions. Godwin, in all this, reproduces the current fallacy of his +generation. Impressions and experiences were for them something +external, flung upon the surface of the mind. They were just beginning +to realise that the mind works when it perceives. Change a nobleman's +child at birth with a ploughman's, and each will grow up quite naturally +in his new circumstances. Exercise makes the muscles; education, +argument, and the exchange of opinion the mind. "It is impression that +makes the man, and compared with the empire of impression, the mere +differences of animal structure are inexpressibly unimportant and +powerless." Change continues through life; everything mental and +physical is in flux; why suppose that only in the propensities of the +new-born infant is there something permanent and inflexible? Helvetius +had been Godwin's chief precursor in this opinion. He had gone so far as +to declare that men are at birth equal, some raw human stuff which +"education," in the broad sense of the word, proceeds to modify in the +long schooling from the cradle to the grave. Men differ in genius, he +would assert, by education and experience, not by natural organisation. +The original acuteness of the senses has little to do with the +development of talent. The new psychology had swept "faculties" away. +Interest is the main factor in the development of perception and +attention. The scarcity of attention is the true cause of the scarcity +of genius, and the chief means of promoting it are emulation and the +love of glory. + +Godwin is too cautious to accept this ultra-revolutionary statement of +the potential equality of men without some reserves. But the idea +inspires him as it inspired all the vital thought of his day. It set +humane physicians at the height of the Terror to work on discovering a +method by which even defective and idiot children might be raised by +"education" to the normal stature of the human mind. It fired Godwin +himself with a zeal for education. "Folly," said Helvetius, "is +factitious." "Nature," said Godwin, "never made a dunce." The failures +of education are due primarily to the teacher's error in substituting +compulsion for persuasion and despotism for encouragement. The +excellences and defects of the human character are not due to occult +causes beyond the reach of ingenuity to modify or correct, nor are false +views the offspring of an irresistible destiny. Our conventional schools +are the slaughterhouses of mind; but of all the external influences +which build up character and opinion, the chief are political. It is +Godwin's favourite theme, and he carries it even further than Holbach +and Helvetius had done. From this influence there is no escape, for it +infects the teacher no less than the taught. Equality will make men +frank, ingenuous and intrepid, but a great disparity of ranks renders +men cold, irresolute, timid and cautious. However lofty the morality of +the teacher, the mind of the child is continually corrupted by seeing, +in the society around him, wealth honoured, poverty contemned, intrepid +virtue proscribed and servility encouraged. From the influence of social +and political institutions there is no escape: "They poison our minds +before we can resist or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the +barbarous directors of Eastern seraglios they deprive us of our +virility, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle. So +false is the opinion that has too generally prevailed that politics is +an affair with which ordinary men have little concern." + +Here Godwin is introducing into English thinking an idea originally +French. English writers from Locke to Paine had spoken of government as +something purely negative, so little important that only when a man saw +his property threatened or his shores invaded, was he forced to +recollect that he had a country. Godwin saw its influence everywhere, +insinuating itself into our personal dispositions and insensibly +communicating its spirit to our private transactions. The idea in his +hands made for hope. Reform, or better still, abolish governments, and +to what heights of virtue might not men aspire? We need not say with +Rousseau that men are naturally virtuous. The child, as Helvetius +delighted to point out, will do that for a coral or a doll which he will +do at a mature age for a title or a sceptre. Men are rather the +infinitely malleable, variable stuff on which education and persuasion +can play. + +The first essential dogma of perfectibility, the first presupposition of +progress is, then, that men's characters depend on external +circumstances. The second dogma, the second condition of hope is that +the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions. It is an +orthodox Socratic position, but Godwin was not a student of Plato. He +laid down this dogma as the necessary basis of any reform by persuasion. +There is much virtue in the word "voluntary." In so far as actions are +voluntary, the doctrine is self-evident. A voluntary action is +accompanied by foresight, and the idea of certain consequences is its +motive. A judgment "this is good" or "this is desirable," has preceded +the action, and it originates therefore in an opinion however fugitive. +In moments of passion my attention is so engrossed by a particular view +of the subject that I forget considerations by which I am commonly +guided. Even in battles between reason and sense, he holds, the +contending forces assume a rational form. It is opinion contending with +opinion and judgment with judgment. At this point the modern reader will +become sceptical. These internal struggles assume a rational form only +when self-consciousness reviews them--that is to say when they are over. +In point of fact, Godwin argues, sheer sensuality has a smaller empire +over us than we commonly suppose. Strip the feast of its social +pleasures, and the commerce of the sexes of all its intellectual and +emotional allurements, and who would be overcome? + +One need not follow Godwin minutely in his handling of what is after all +a commonplace of academic philosophy. He was concerned to insist that +men's voluntary actions originate in opinion, that he might secure a +fulcrum for the leverage of argument and persuasion. Vice is error, and +error can always be corrected. "Show me in the clearest and most +unambiguous manner that a certain mode of proceeding is most reasonable +in itself, or most conducive to my interest, and I shall infallibly +pursue that mode, so long as the views you suggested to me continue +present to my mind." The practical problem is therefore to make +ourselves and our fellows perfectly conscious of our motives, and always +prepared to render a reason for our actions. The perfection of human +character is to approach as nearly as possible to the absolutely +voluntary state, to act always, in other words, from a clear and +comprehensive survey of the consequences which we desire to produce. + +The incautious reader may be invited to pause at this point, for in this +premise lies already the whole of philosophic anarchism. You have +admitted that voluntary action is rational. You have conceded that all +action _ought_ to be voluntary. The silent assumption is that by +education and effort it _can_ be made so. One may doubt whether in the +sense required by Godwin's argument any human action ever is or can be +absolutely "voluntary," rational or self-conscious. To attain it, we +should have to reason naked in a desert with algebraic symbols. To use +words is to think in step, and to beg our question. But Godwin is well +aware that most men rarely reason. He is here framing an ideal, without +realising its remoteness. The mischief of his faith in logic as a force, +was that it led him to ignore the aesthetic and emotional influences, by +which the mass of men can best be led to a virtuous ideal. Shelley, who +was a thorough Platonist, supplements, as we shall see (p. 234), this +characteristic defect in his master's teaching. The main conclusions +follow rapidly. Sound reasoning and truth when adequately communicated +must always be victorious over error. Truth, then, is omnipotent, and +the vices and moral weaknesses of man are not invincible. Man, in short, +is perfectible, or in other words, susceptible of perpetual improvement. +These sentiments have to the modern ear a platitudinous ring. So far +from being platitudes, they are explosives capable of destroying the +whole fabric of government. For if truth is omnipotent, why trust to +laws? If men will obey argument, why use constraint? + +But let us move slowly towards this extreme conclusion. If reason +appears to-day to play but a feeble part in society, and exerts only a +limited empire over the actions of men, it is because unlettered +ignorance, social habits and the positive institutions of government +stand in the way. Where the masses of mankind are sunk in brutal +ignorance, one need not wonder that argument and persuasion have but a +small influence with them. Truth indeed is rarely recondite or difficult +to communicate. Godwin might have quoted Helvetius: "It is with genius +as with an astronomer; he sees a new star and forthwith all can see it." +Nor need we fear the objection that by introducing an intellectual +element into virtue, we have removed it beyond the reach of simple men. +A virtuous action, indeed, must be good both in intention and in +tendency. Godwin was like Helvetius and Priestley, a Utilitarian in +ethics, and defined duty as that mode of action on the part of the +individual which constitutes the best possible application of his +capacity to the general benefit, in every situation that presents +itself. One may be mistaken as to what will contribute to the general +benefit, as Sir Everard Digby was, for example, when he thought it his +duty to blow up King James and the Parliament. But the simple man need +be at no loss. An earnest desire will in some degree generate capacity. +There Godwin opened a profoundly interesting and stimulating line of +thought. The mind is formed not by its innate powers, but by its +governing desires. As love brings eloquence to the suitor, so if I do +but ardently desire to serve my kind, I shall find out a way, and while +I study a plan shall find that my faculties have been exercised and +increased. Moreover, in the struggle after virtue I am not alone. + +Burke made the first of the virtues prudence. Godwin would have given +sincerity that place. To him and his circle the chief business of +social converse was by argument and exhortation to strengthen the habit +of virtue. There was something to be said for the practice of auricular +confession; but how much better would it be if every man were to make +the world his confessional and the human species the keeper of his +conscience. The practice of sincerity would give to our conversation a +Roman boldness and fervour. The frank distribution of praise and blame +is the most potent incentive to virtue. Were we but bold and impartial +in our judgments, vice would be universally deserted and virtue +everywhere practised. Our cowardice in censure and correction is the +chief reason of the perpetuation of abuses. If every man would tell all +the truth he knew, it is impossible to predict how short would be the +reign of usurpation and folly. Let our motive be philanthropy, and we +need not fear ruggedness or brutality, disdain or superiority, since we +aim at the interest of him we correct, and not at the triumph of the +corrector. In an aside Godwin demands the abolition of social +conventions which offend sincerity. If I must deny myself to a visitor, +I should scorn the polite lie that I am "not at home." + +It is a consequence also of this doctrine, that there should be no +prosecutions for libel, even in private matters. Truth depends on the +free shock of opinions, and the unrestrained discussion of private +character is almost as important as freedom in speculative enquiry. "If +the truth were universally told of men's dispositions and actions, +gibbets and wheels might be dismissed from the face of the earth. The +knave unmasked would be obliged to turn honest in his own defence. Nay, +no man would have time to turn a knave. Truth would follow him in his +first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the +commencement of his career." It is shameful for a good man to retort on +a slander, "I will have recourse to the only means that are congenial to +guilt: I will compel you to be silent." Freedom in this matter, as in +all others, will engender activity and fortitude; positive institution +(Godwin's term for law and constraint) makes the mind torpid and +lethargic. It is hardly necessary to reproduce Godwin's vigorous +arguments for unfettered freedom in political and speculative +discussion, against censorships and prosecutions for religious and +political opinions. Even were we secure from the possibility of mistake, +mischief and not good would accrue from the attempt to impose our +infallible opinions upon our neighbours. Men deserve approbation only in +so far as they are independent in their opinions and free in their +actions. + +Equally clear is it that the establishment of religion and all systems +of tests must be abolished. They make for hypocrisy, check advance in +speculation, and teach us to estimate a disinterested sincerity at a +cheap rate. We need not fear disorder as a consequence of complete +liberty of speech. "Arguments alone will not have the power, unassisted +by the sense or the recollection of oppression or treachery to hurry the +people into excesses. Excesses are never the offspring of speculative +reason, are never the offspring of misrepresentation only, but of power +endeavouring to stifle reason, and to traverse the commonsense of +mankind." + +A more original deduction from Godwin's demand for the unlimited freedom +of opinion, was that he objected vehemently to any system of national +education. Condorcet had drawn up a marvellously complete project for +universal compulsory education, with full liberty indeed for the +teachers, whose technical competence alone the State would guarantee, +and with a scheme of free scholarships, an educational "ladder" more +generous than anything which has yet been realised in fact. Godwin +objects that State-regulated institutions will stereotype knowledge and +make for an undesirable permanence and uniformity in opinion. They +diffuse what is known and forget what remains to be known. They erect a +system of authority and separate a tenet from the evidence on which it +rests, so that beliefs cease to be perceptions and become prejudices. No +Government is to be trusted with the dangerous power to create and +regulate opinions through its schools. Such a power is, indeed, more +dangerous than that of an Established Church, and would be used to +strengthen tyranny and perpetuate faulty institutions. + +Godwin, needless to say, takes, as did Condorcet, the side of frankness +in the controversy which was a test of democratic faith in this +generation--whether "political imposture" is allowable, and whether a +statesman should encourage the diffusion of "salutary prejudices" among +the unlearned, the poor and women. This was indeed the main eighteenth +century defence for monarchy and aristocracy. Kings and governors are +not wiser than other men, but it is useful that they should be thought +so. Such imposture, Godwin argued, is as futile as the parallel use by +religion of the pains and penalties of the afterworld. It is the sober +who are demoralised by it, and not the lawless who are deterred. To +terrify men is a strange way of rendering them judicious, fearless and +happy. It is to leave men indolent and unbraced by truth. He objects +even to the trappings and ceremonies which are used to render +magistrates outwardly venerable and awe-inspiring, so that they may +impress the irrational imagination. These means may be used as easily to +support injustice as to render justice acceptable. They divide men into +two classes; those who may reason, and those who must take everything on +trust. This is to degrade them both. The masses are kept in perpetual +vibration between rebellious discontent and infatuated credulity. And +can we suppose that the practice of concealment and hypocrisy will make +no breaches in the character of the governing class? + +The general effect of any meddling of authority with opinion is that the +mind is robbed of its genuine employment. Such a system produces beings +wanting in independence, and in that intrepid perseverance and calm +self-approbation which grow from independence. Such beings are the mere +dwarfs and mockeries of men. + +Godwin was at issue here as much with Rousseau as with Burke, but his +trust in the people, it should be explained, was based rather on faith +in what they might become, than on admiration for what they were. + +That all government is an evil, though doubtless a necessary evil, was +the typical opinion of the individualistic eighteenth century. It would +not long have survived such proposals as Paine's scheme of old age +pensions and Condorcet's project of national education. When men have +perceived that an evil can be turned to good account, they are already +on the road which will lead them to discard their premises. But Godwin +was quite unaffected by this new Liberalism. No positive good was to be +hoped from government, and much positive evil would flow from it at the +best. In his absolute individualism he went further. The whole idea of +government was radically wrong. For him the individual was tightly +enclosed in his own skin, and any constraint was an infringement of his +personality. He would have poured scorn on the half-mystical conception +of a social organism. Nor did it occur to him that a man might +voluntarily subject himself to government, losing none of his own +autonomy in the act, from a persuasion that government is on the whole +a benefit, and that submission, even when his own views are thwarted, is +a free man's duty within certain limits, accepted gladly for the sake of +preserving an institution which commonly works well. He did not see the +institution working well; he did not believe in the benefits; he was +convinced that more than all the advantages of the best of governments +could be obtained from the free operation of opinion in an unorganised +community. + +His main point is lucidly simple. It was an application of the Whig and +Protestant doctrine of the right of private judgment. "If in any +instance I am made the mechanical instrument of absolute violence, in +that instance I fall under a pure state of external slavery." Nor is the +case much better, if instead of waiting for the actual application of +coercion, I act in obedience to authority from the hope and fear of the +State's rewards and punishments. For virtue has ceased, and I am acting +from self-interest. It is a triviality to distinguish, as Whig thinkers +do, between matters of conscience (in which the State should not meddle) +and my conduct in the civil concerns of daily life (which the State +should regulate). What sort of moralist can he be, who makes no +conscience of what he does in his daily intercourse with other men? "I +have deeply reflected upon the nature of virtue, and am convinced that a +certain proceeding is incumbent on me. But the hangman supported by an +Act of Parliament assures me that I am mistaken. If I yield my opinion +to his dictum, my action becomes modified, and my character also.... +Countries exposed to the perpetual interference of decrees instead of +arguments, exhibit within their boundaries the mere phantoms of men." + +The root of the whole matter is that brute force is an offence against +reason, and an unnecessary offence, if in fact men are guided by opinion +and will yield to argument. "The case of punishment is the case of you +and me differing in opinion, and your telling me that you must be right +since you have a more brawny arm." + +If I must obey, it is better and less demoralising to yield an external +submission so as to escape penalty or constraint, than to yield to +authority from a general confidence which enslaves the mind. Comply but +criticise. Obey but beware of reverence. If I surrender my conscience to +another man's keeping, I annihilate my individuality as a man, and +become the ready tool of him among my neighbours who shall excel in +imposture and artifice. I put an end moreover to the happy collision of +understandings upon which the hopes of human improvement depend. +Governments depend upon the unlimited confidence of their subjects, and +confidence rests upon ignorance. + +Government (has not Burke said so?) is the perpetual enemy of change, +and prompts us to seek the public welfare not in alteration and +improvement, but in a timid reverence for the decisions of our +ancestors, as if it were the nature of the human mind always to +degenerate and never to advance. Godwin thought with John Bright, "We +stand on the shoulders of our forefathers--and see further." + +In proportion as weakness and ignorance shall diminish, the basis of +government will also decay. That will be its true euthanasia. + +There is indeed nothing to be said for government save that for a time, +and within jealously drawn limits, it may be a fatal and indispensable +necessity. A just government cannot be founded on force: for force has +no affinity with justice. It cannot be based upon the will of God; we +have no revelation that recommends one form of government rather than +another. As little can it be based upon contract. Who were the parties +to the pretended social contract? For whom did they consent, for +themselves or for their descendants, and to how great a variety of +propositions? Have I assented or my ancestors for me, to the laws of +England in fifty volumes folio, and to all that shall hereafter be added +to them? In a few contemptuous pages Godwin buries the social contract. +Men when they digest the articles of a contract are not empowered to +create rights, but only to declare what was previously right. But the +doctrine of the natural rights of man fares no better at his hands. +There is no such thing as a positive right to do as we list. One way of +acting in every emergency is reasonable, and the other is not. One way +will benefit mankind, and the other will not. It is a pestilent doctrine +and a denial of all virtue, to say that we have a right to do what we +will with our own. Everything we possess has a destination prescribed to +it by the immutable voice of reason and justice. + +Duties and rights are correlative. As it cannot be the duty of men or +societies to do anything to the detriment of human happiness, so it +appears with equal evidence that they cannot have the right to do so. +There cannot be a more absurd proposition than that which affirms the +right of doing wrong. The voice of the people is not the voice of God, +nor does universal consent or a majority vote convert wrong into right. +It is absurd to say that any set of people has a right to set up any +form of government it chooses, or any sect to establish any superstition +however detestable. All this would have delighted Burke, but Godwin +stands firmly in his path by asserting what he calls the one negative +right of man. It is in a word, the right to exercise virtue, the right +to a region of choice, a sphere of discretion, which his neighbours must +not infringe save by censure and remonstrance. When I am constrained, I +cease to be a person, and become a thing. "I ought to exercise my +talents for the benefit of others, but the exercise must be the fruit of +my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service." + +Government is an evil, and the business of human advancement is to +dispense with it as rapidly as may be. In the period of transition +Godwin had but a secondary interest, and his sketch of it is slight. He +dismisses in turn despotism, aristocracy, the "mixed monarchy" of the +Whigs, and the president with kingly powers of some American thinkers. +His pages on these subjects are vigorous, well-reasoned, and pointed in +their satire. It required much courage to write them, but they do not +contain his original contribution to political theory. What is most +characteristic in his line of argument is his insistence on the moral +corruption that monarchy and aristocracy involve. The whole standard of +moral values is subverted. To achieve ostentation becomes the first +object of desire. Disinterested virtue is first suspected and then +viewed with incredulity. Luxury meanwhile distorts our whole attitude to +our fellows, and in every effort to excel and shine we wrong the +labouring millions. Aristocracy involves general degradation, and can +survive only amid general ignorance. "To make men serfs and villeins it +is indispensably necessary to make them brutes.... A servant who has +been taught to write and read, ceases to be any longer a passive +machine." + +From the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy Godwin, and indeed the +whole revolutionary school, expected the cessation of war. War and +conquest elevate the few at the expense of the rest, and cannot benefit +the whole community. Democracies have no business with war save to repel +an invasion of their territory. He thought of patriotism and love of +country much as did Dr. Price. They are (as Herve has argued in our own +day) specious illusions invented to render the multitude the blind +instruments of crooked designs. We must not be lured into pursuing the +general wealth, prosperity or glory of the society to which we belong. +Society is an abstraction, an "ideal existence," and is not on its own +account entitled to the smallest regard. Let us not be led away into +rendering services to society for which no individual man is the better. +Godwin is scornful of wars to maintain the balance of power, or to +protect our fellow-countrymen abroad. Some proportion must be observed +between the evil of which we complain and the evil which the proposed +remedy inevitably includes. War may be defensible in support of the +liberty of an oppressed people, but let us wait (here he is clearly +censuring the practice of the French Republic) until the oppressed +people rises. Do not interfere to force it to be free, and do not forget +the resources of pacific persuasion. As to foreign possessions there is +little to be said. Do without them. Let colonies attend to their own +defence; no State would wish to have colonies if free trade were +universal. Liberty is equally good for every race of men, and democracy, +since it is founded on reason, a universal form of government. There +follow some naive prescriptions for conducting democratic wars. +Sincerity forbids ambuscades and secresy. Never invade, nor assume the +offensive. A citizen militia must replace standing armies. Training and +discipline are of little value; the ardour of a free people will supply +their place. + +Godwin's leading idea when he comes to sketch a shadowy constitution is +an extreme dislike of overgrown national States. Political speculation +in his day idealised the city republic of antiquity. Helvetius, hoping +to get rid as far as possible of government, had advocated a system of +federated commonwealths, each so small that public opinion and the fear +of shame would act powerfully within it. He would have divided France +into thirty republics, each returning four deputies to a federal +council. The Girondins cherished the same idea, and lost their heads for +it. Tolstoy, going back to the village community as the only possible +scene of a natural and virtuous life, exhibits the same tendency. + +For Godwin the true unit of society is the parish. Neighbours best +understand each others' concerns, and in a limited area there is no room +for ambition to unfold itself. Great talents will have their sphere +outside this little circle in the work of moulding opinion. Within the +parish public opinion is supreme, and acts through juries, which may at +first be obliged to exert some degree of violence in dealing with +offenders:--"But this necessity does not arise out of the nature of man, +but out of the institutions by which he has already been corrupted. Man +is not originally vicious. He would not ... refuse to be convinced by +the expostulations that are addressed to him, had he not been accustomed +to regard them as hypocritical, and to conceive that while his +neighbour, his parent and his political governor pretended to be +actuated by a pure regard to his interest or pleasure, they were in +reality, at the expense of his, promoting their own.... Render the plain +dictates of justice level to every capacity ... and the whole species +will become reasonable and virtuous. It will then be sufficient for +juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, without +assuming the prerogative of dictating that adjustment. It will then be +sufficient for them to invite offenders to forsake their errors.... +Where the empire of reason was so universally acknowledged, the offender +would either readily yield to the expostulations of authority, or if he +resisted, though suffering no personal molestation, he would feel so +weary under the unequivocal disapprobation and the observant eye of +public judgment as willingly to remove to a society more congenial to +his errors." The picture is not so Utopian as it sounds. It is a very +fair sketch of the social structure of a Macedonian village community +under Turkish rule, with the massacres left out. + +For the rest Godwin was reluctantly prepared to admit the wisdom of +instituting a single chamber National Assembly, to manage the common +affairs of the parishes, to arrange their disputes and to provide for +national defence. But it should suffice for it to meet for one day +annually or thereabouts. Like the juries it would at first issue +commands, but would in time find it sufficient to publish invitations +backed by arguments. Godwin, who is quite prepared to idealise his +district juries, pours forth an unstinted contempt upon Parliaments and +their procedure. They make a show of unanimity where none exists. The +prospect of a vote destroys the intellectual value of debate; the will +of one man really dominates, and the existence of party frustrates +persuasion. The whole is based upon "that intolerable insult upon all +reason and justice, the deciding upon truth by the casting up of +numbers." He omits to tell us whether he would allow his juries to +vote. Fortunately legislation is unnecessary: "The inhabitants of a +small parish living with some degree of that simplicity which best +corresponds with the real nature and wants of a human being, would soon +be led to suspect that general laws were unnecessary and would adjudge +the causes that came before them not according to certain axioms +previously written, but according to the circumstances and demand of +each particular cause." + +Godwin had a clear mental picture of the gradual decay of authority +towards the close of the period of transition; his vision of the earlier +stages is less definite. He set his faith on the rapid working of +enquiry and persuasion, but he does not explain in detail how, for +example, we are to rid ourselves of kings. He once met the Prince +Regent, but it is not recorded that he talked to him of virtue and +equality, as the early Quakers talked to the man Charles Stuart. He is +chiefly concerned to warn his revolutionary friends against abrupt +changes. There must be a general desire for change, a conviction of the +understanding among the masses, before any change is wise. When a whole +nation, or even an unquestionable majority of a nation, is resolved on +change, no government, even with a standing army behind it, can stand +against it. Every reformer imagines that the country is with him. What +folly! Even when the majority seems resolved, what is the quality of +their resolution? They do, perhaps, sincerely dislike some specific tax. +But do they dislike the vice and meanness that grow out of tyranny, and +pant for the liberal and ingenuous virtue that would be fostered in +their own minds by better conditions? It is a disaster when the +unillumined masses are instigated to violent revolution. Revolutions are +always crude, bloody, uncertain and inimical to tolerance, independence, +and intellectual inquiry. They are a detestable persecution when a +minority promotes them. If they must occur, at least postpone them as +long as possible. External freedom is worthless without the magnanimity, +firmness and energy that should attend it. But if a man have these +things, there is little left for him to desire. He cannot be degraded, +nor become useless and unhappy. Let us not be in haste to overthrow the +usurped powers of the world. Make men wise, and by that very operation +you make them free. It is unfortunate that men are so eager to strike +and have so little constancy to reason. We should desire neither violent +change nor the stagnation that inflames and produces revolutions. Our +prayer to governments should be, "Do not give us too soon; do not give +us too much; but act under the incessant influence of a disposition to +give us something." + +These are the reflections of a man who wrote amid the Terror. He had +seen the Corresponding Society at work, and the experience made him more +than sceptical of any form of association in politics, and led him into +a curiously biassed argument, rhetorical in form, forensic in substance. +Temporary combinations may be necessary in a time of turmoil, or to +secure some single limited end, such as the redress of a wrong done to +an individual. Where their scope is general and their duration long +continued, they foster declamation, cabal, party spirit and tumult. They +are frequented by the artful, the intemperate, the acrimonious, and +avoided by the sober, the sceptical, the contemplative citizen. They +foster a fallacious uniformity of opinion and render the mind quiescent +and stationary. Truth disclaims the alliance of marshalled numbers. The +conditions most favourable to reasoned enquiry and calm persuasion are +to be found in small and friendly circles. The moral beauty of the +spectacle offered by these groups of friends united to pursue truth and +foster virtue, will render it contagious. So the craggy steep of science +will be levelled and knowledge rendered accessible to all. + +The conception of the State which Godwin sought to supplant was itself +limited and negative. Government was little else in his day than a means +for internal defence against criminals and for external defence against +aggression. For the rest, it helped landlords to enclose commons, kept +down wages by poor relief and in a muddle-headed way interfered with the +freedom of trade. But its central activity was the repression of crime, +and for Godwin's system the test question was his handling of the +problem of crime and punishment. He was no Platonist, but not for the +first time we discover him in a familiar Socratic position. "Do you +punish a man," asked Socrates, "to make him better or to make him +worse?" Godwin starts by rejecting the traditional conception of +punishment. The word means the infliction of evil upon a vicious being, +not merely because the public advantage demands it, but because there is +a certain fitness and propriety in making suffering the accompaniment of +vice, quite apart from any benefit that may be in the result. No +adherent of the doctrine of necessity in morals can justify that +attitude. The assassin could no more avoid the murder he committed than +could the dagger. Justice opposes any suffering, which is not attended +by benefit. Resentment against vice will not excuse useless torture. We +must banish the conception of desert. To punish for what is past and +irrecoverable must be ranked among the most baleful conceptions of +barbarism. Xerxes was not more unreasonable when he lashed the waves of +the sea, than that man would be who inflicted suffering on his fellow +from a view to the past and not from a view to the future. + +Excluding all idea of punishment in the proper sense of the word, it +remains only to consider such coercion as is used against persons +convicted of injurious action in the past, for the purpose of preventing +future mischief. Godwin now invites us to consider the futility of +coercion as a means of reforming, or as he would say, "enlightening the +understanding" of a man who has erred. Our aim is to bring him to the +acceptance of our conception of duty. Assuming that we possess more of +eternal justice than he, do we shrink from setting our wit against his? +Instead of acting as his preceptor we become his tyrant. Coercion first +annihilates the understanding of its victim, and then of him who adopts +it. Dressed in the supine prerogatives of a master, he is excused from +cultivating the faculties of a man. Coercion begins by producing pain, +by violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to +be impressed. It includes a tacit confession of imbecility. + +With some hesitation Godwin allows the use of force to restrain a man +found in actual violence. We may not have time to reason with him. But +even for self-defence there are other resources. "The powers of the mind +are yet unfathomed." He tells the story of Marius, who overawed the +soldier sent into his cell to execute him, with the words, "Wretch, have +you the temerity to kill Marius?" Were we all accustomed to place an +intrepid confidence in the unaided energy of the intellect, to despise +force in others and to refuse to employ it ourselves, who shall say how +far the species might be improved? But punitive coercion deals only with +a man whose violence is over. The only rational excuse for it is to +restrain a man from further violence which he will presumably commit. +Godwin condemns capital punishment as excessive, since restraint can be +attained without it, and corporal chastisement as an offence against the +dignity of the human mind. Let there be nothing in the state of +transition worse than simple imprisonment. Godwin, however, dissents +vehemently from Howard's invention of solitary confinement, designed to +shield the prisoner from the contamination of his fellow criminals. Man +is a social animal and virtue depends on social relations. As a +preliminary to acquiring it is he to be shut out from the society of his +fellows? How shall he exercise benevolence or justice in his cell? Will +his heart become softened or expand who breathes the atmosphere of a +dungeon? Solitary confinement is the bitterest torment that human +ingenuity can inflict. The least objectionable method of depriving a +criminal of the power to harm society is banishment or transportation. +Expose him to the stimulus of necessity in an unsettled country. New +conditions make new minds. But the whole attempt to apply law breaks +down. You must heap edict on edict, and to make your laws fit your +cases, must either for ever wrest them or make new ones. Law does not +end uncertainty, and it debilitates the mind. So long as men are +habituated to look to foreign guidance and external rules for +direction, so long the vigour of their minds will sleep. + +If Fenelon, saint and philosopher, with an incompleted masterpiece in +his pocket, and Fenelon's chambermaid, were both in danger of burning to +death in the archiepiscopal palace at Cambrai, and if I could save only +one of them, which ought I to save? It is a fascinating problem in +casuistry, and Godwin with his usual decision of mind, has no doubt +about the solution. He would save Fenelon as the more valuable life, and +above all Fenelon's manuscript, and the maid, he is quite sure, would +wish to give her life for his. Something (the modern reader will object) +might be urged on the other side. Just because he was a saint, it might +be argued that he was the fitter of the two to face the great adventure, +and one may be sure that he himself would have thought so. A philosopher +who gives his life for a kitten will have advanced the Kingdom of +Heaven. The chambermaid, moreover, may have in her a potentiality of +love and happiness which are worth many a masterpiece of French prose. +But Godwin has not yet exhausted his moral problem. How, if the maid +were my mother, wife or benefactress? Once more he gives his unflinching +answer. Justice still requires of me in the interests of mankind to +save the more valuable life. "What magic is there in the pronoun 'my' to +overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?" My mother may be a fool, a +liar, or a thief. Of what consequence then, is it that she is "mine"? +Gratitude ought not to blind me to my duty, though she have suckled me +and nursed me. The benevolence of a benefactor ought indeed to be +esteemed, but not because it benefited me. A benefactor ought to be +esteemed as much by another as by me, solely because he benefited a +human being. Gratitude, in short, has no place in justice or virtue, and +reason declines to recognise the private affections. + +Such, crudely stated, is Godwin's famous doctrine of "universal +benevolence." The virtuous man is like Swift's Houyhnhnms, noble +quadrupeds, wholly governed by reason, who cared for strangers as well +as for the nearest neighbour, and showed the same affection for their +neighbour's offspring as for their own. The centre of Godwin's moral +teaching was yet another Socratic thought. Politics are "the proper +vehicle of a liberal morality," and morals concern our relation to the +whole body of mankind. To realise justice is our prime concern as +rational beings, and society is nothing but embodied justice. Justice +deals with beings capable of pleasure and pain. Here we are partakers of +a common nature with like faculties for suffering or enjoyment. +"Justice," then, "is that impartial treatment of every man in matters +that relate to his happiness, which is measured solely by a +consideration of the properties of the receiver and the capacity of him +who gives." Every man with whom I am in contact is a sentient being, and +one should be as much to me as another, save indeed where equity +corrects equality, by suggesting to me that one individual may be of +more value than another, because of his greater power to benefit +mankind. Justice exacts from us the application of our talents, time, +and resources with the single object of producing the greatest sum of +benefit to sentient beings. There is no limit to what I am bound to do +for the general weal. I hold my person and property both in trust on +behalf of mankind. A man who needs L10 has an absolute claim on me, if I +have it, unless it can be shown that the money could be more +beneficially applied. Every shilling I possess is irrevocably assigned +by some claim of eternal justice. Every article of property, it follows, +should belong to him in whose hands it will be of most benefit, and the +instrument of the greatest happiness. + +It is the love of distinction which attends wealth in corrupt societies +that explains the desire for luxury. We desire not the direct pleasure +to be derived from excessive possessions, but the consideration which is +attached to it. Our very clothes are an appeal to the goodwill of our +neighbours, and a refuge from their contempt. Society would be +transformed if the distinction were reversed, if admiration were no +longer rendered to the luxurious and avaricious and were accorded only +to talent and virtue. Let not the necessity of rewarding virtue be +suggested as a justification for the inequalities of fortune. Shall we +say, to a virtuous man: "If you show yourself deserving, you shall have +the essence of a hundred times more food than you can eat, and a hundred +times more clothes than you can wear. You shall have a patent for taking +away from others the means of a happy and respectable existence, and for +consuming them in riotous and unmeaning extravagance." Is this the +reward that ought to be offered to virtue, or that virtue should stoop +to take? Godwin is at his best on this theme of luxury: "Every man may +calculate in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament he +annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to +slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual +hardships, deplorable ignorance and brutal insensibility, that he may be +supplied with these luxuries. It is a gross imposition that men are +accustomed to put upon themselves, when they talk of the property +bequeathed to them by their ancestors. The property is produced by the +daily labour of men who are now in existence. All that the ancestors +bequeathed to them was a mouldy patent which they show as a title to +extort from their neighbours what the labour of those neighbours has +produced." + +It is a flagrant immorality that one man should have the power to +dispose of the produce of another man's toil, yet to maintain this power +is the main concern of police and legislation. Morality recognises two +degrees of property, (1) things which will produce the greatest benefit, +if attributed to me, in brief the necessities of life, my food, clothes, +furniture and apartment; (2) the empire which every man may claim over +the produce of his own industry, even over that part of it which ought +not to be used and appropriated by himself. Every man is a steward. But +subject to censure and remonstrance, he must be free to dispose of his +property as his own understanding shall dictate. The ideal is equality, +and all society should be what Coleridge called a Pantisocracy. It is +wrong for any one to enjoy anything, unless something similar is +accessible to all, and wrong to produce luxuries until the elementary +wants of all are satisfied. But it would be futile and wrong to attempt +to equalise property by positive enactment. It would be useless until +men are virtuous, and unnecessary when they are so. The moment +accumulation and monopoly are regarded by any society as dishonourable +and mischievous, the revolution in opinion will ensure that comforts +shall tend to a level. + +Godwin objects to the plans put forward in France during the Revolution +for interfering with bequests and inheritance. He would, however, check +the incentives to accumulation by abolishing the feudal system, +primogeniture, titles and entail. Property is sacred--that good men may +be free to give it away. Reform public opinion, and a man engaged in +amassing wealth would soon hide his treasures as carefully as he now +displays them. The first step is to rob wealth of its distinction. +Wealth is acquired to-day in over-reaching our neighbours, and spent in +insulting them. Establish equality on a firm basis of rational opinion, +and you cut off for ever the great occasion of crime, remove the +constant spectacle of injustice with all its attendant demoralisation, +and liberate genius now immersed in sordid cares. + +"In a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where +all shared alike the bounties of nature, the sentiments of oppression, +servility and fraud would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of +selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little +store, or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each +would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. +No man would be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would have no +subject of contention, and of consequence philanthropy would resume the +empire which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her +perpetual anxiety about corporal support, and freed to expatiate in the +field of thought, which is congenial to her. Each would assist the +enquiries of all." + +Unnecessary tasks absorb most of our labour to-day. In the ideal +community, Godwin reckons that half an hour's toil from every man daily +will suffice to produce the necessities of life. He modified this +sanguine estimate in a later essay (_The Enquirer_) to two hours. He +dismisses all objections based on the sloth or selfishness of human +nature, by the simple answer that this happy state of things will not be +realised until human nature has been reformed. Need individuality +suffer? It need fear only the restraint imposed by candid public +opinion. That will not be irksome, because it will be frank. We shrink +from it to-day, only because it takes the form of clandestine scandal +and backbiting. Godwin contemplates no Spartan plan of common labour or +common meals. "Everything understood by the term co-operation is in some +sense an evil." To be sure, it may be indispensable in order to cut a +canal or navigate a ship. But mechanical invention will gradually make +it unnecessary. The Spartans used slaves. We shall make machines our +helots. Indeed, so odious is co-operation to a free mind, that Godwin +marvels that men can consent to play music in concert, or can demean +themselves to execute another man's compositions, while to act a part in +a play amounts almost to an offence against sincerity. Such +extravagances as this passage are amongst the most precious things in +_Political Justice_. Godwin was a fanatic of logic who warns us against +his individualist premises by pressing them to a fantastic conclusion. + +The sketch of the ideal community concludes with a demolition of the +family. Cohabitation, he argued, is in itself an evil. It melts opinions +to a common mould, and destroys the fortitude of the individual. The +wishes of two people who live together can never wholly coincide. Hence +follow thwartings of the will, bickering and misery. No man is always +cheerful and kind. We manage to correct a stranger with urbanity and +good humour. Only when the intercourse is too close and unremitted do we +degenerate into surliness and invective. In an earlier chapter Godwin +had formulated a general objection to all promises, which reminds us of +Tolstoy's sermons from the same individualistic standpoint on the text, +"Swear not at all." Every conceivable mode of action has its tendency to +benefit or injure mankind. I am bound in duty to one course of action in +every emergency--the course most conducive to the general welfare. Why, +then, should I bind myself by a promise? If my promise contradicts my +duty it is immoral, if it agrees with it, it teaches me to do that from +a precarious and temporary motive which ought to be done from its +intrinsic recommendations. By promising we bind ourselves to learn +nothing from time, to make no use of knowledge to be acquired. Promises +depose us from a full use of our understanding, and are to be tolerated +only in the trivial engagements of our day-to-day existence. It follows +that marriage is an evil, for it is at once the closest form of +cohabitation, and the rashest of all promises. Two thoughtless and +romantic people, met in youth under circumstances full of delusion, have +bound themselves, not by reason but by contract, to make the best, when +they discover their deception, of an irretrievable mistake. Its maxim +is, "If you have made a mistake, cherish it." So long as this +institution survives, "philanthropy will be crossed in a thousand ways, +and the still augmenting stream of abuse continue to flow." + +Godwin has little fear of lust or license. Men will, on the whole, +continue to prefer one partner, and friendship will refine the grossness +of sense. There are worse evils than open and avowed inconstancy--the +loathsome combination of deceitful intrigue with the selfish monopoly +of property. That a child should know its father is no great matter, for +I ought not in reason to prefer one human being to another because he is +"mine." The mother will care for the child with the spontaneous help of +her neighbours. As to the business of supplying children with food and +clothing, "these would easily find their true level and spontaneously +flow from the quarter in which they abounded to the quarter that was +deficient." There must be no barter or exchange, but only giving from +pure benevolence without the prospect of reciprocal advantage. + +The picture of this easy-going Utopia, in which something will always +turn up for nobody's child, concludes with two sections which exhibit in +nice juxtaposition the extravagance and the prudence of Godwin. We may +look forward to great physical changes. We shall acquire an empire over +our bodies, and may succeed in making even our reflex notions conscious. +We must get rid of sleep, one of the most conspicuous infirmities of the +human frame. Life can be prolonged by intellect. We are sick and we die +because in a certain sense we consent to suffer these accidents. When +the limit of population is reached, men will refuse to propagate +themselves further. Society will be a people of men, and not of +children, adult, veteran, experienced; and truth will no longer have to +recommence her career at the end of thirty years. Meanwhile let the +friends of justice avoid violence, eschew massacres, and remember that +prudent handling will win even rich men for the cause of human +perfection. + +So ends _Political Justice_, the strangest amalgam in our literature of +caution with enthusiasm, of visions with experience, of French logic +with English tactlessness, a book which only genius could have made so +foolish and so wise. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GODWIN AND THE REACTION + + +_Political Justice_ brought its author instant fame. Society was for a +moment intimidated by the boldness of the attack. The world was in a +generous mood, and men did not yet resent Godwin's flattering suggestion +that they were demigods who disguised their own greatness. He had +assailed all the accepted dogmas and venerable institutions of +contemporary civilisation, from monarchy to marriage, but it was only +after several years that society recovered its breath, and turned to +rend him. He became an oracle in an ever-widening circle of friends, and +was naively pleased to find, when he went into the country, that even in +remote villages his name was known. He was everywhere received as a +sage, and some years passed before he discovered how much of this +deference was a polite disguise for the vulgar curiosity that attends a +sudden celebrity. Prosperity was a wholesome stimulus. He was "exalted +in spirits," and became for a time (he tells us) "more of a talker than +I was before, or have been since." + +In this mood he wrote the one book which has lived as a popular +possession, and held its place among the classics which are frequently +reprinted. _Caleb Williams_ (published in 1794) is incomparably the best +of his novels, and the one great work of fiction in our language which +owes its existence to the fruitful union of the revolutionary and +romantic movements. It spoke to its own day as Hugo's _Les Miserables_ +and Tolstoy's _Resurrection_ spoke to later generations. It is as its +preface tells us, "a general review of the modes of domestic and +unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man." It +conveys in the form of an eventful personal history the essence of the +criticism against society, which had inspired _Political Justice_. +Godwin's imagination was haunted by a persistent nightmare, in which a +lonely individual finds arrayed against him all the prejudices of +society, all the forms of convention, all the forces of law. They hurl +themselves upon him in a pitiless pursuit, and wherever he flees, the +pervading corruptions, the ingrained cowardices of over-governed mankind +beset his feet like gins and pitfalls. It was a hereditary nightmare, +and with a less pedestrian imagination, his daughter, Mary Shelley, used +the same theme of a remorseless pursuit in _Frankenstein_. + +Caleb Williams, a promising lad of humble birth but good parts, is +broken at the outset of his career, in the tremendous clash between two +formidable characters, who represent, each in his own way, the +corruptions of aristocracy. Mr. Tyrrel is a brutal English squire, a +coarse and domineering bully, whom birth and wealth arm with the power +to crush his dependents. Mr. Falkland personifies the spirit of chivalry +at its best and its worst. All his native humanity and acquired polish +is in the end turned to cruelty by the influence of a worship of honour +and reputation which make him "the fool of fame." As the absorbing story +unfolds itself, we realise (if indeed we are not too much enthralled by +the plot to notice the moral) that all the institutions of society and +law are nicely adjusted to give the moral errors of the great their +utmost scope. Society is a vast sounding-board which echoes the first +whispers of their private folly, until it swells into a deafening chorus +of cruelty and wrong. There are vivid scenes in a prison which give life +to Godwin's reasoned criticisms of our penal methods. There is a band +of outlaws whose rude natural virtues remind us, by contrast with the +corruption of all the officers of the law, how much less demoralising it +is to revolt against a crazy system of coercion than to become its tool. +To describe the book in greater detail would be to destroy the pleasure +of the reader. It is a forensic novel. It sets out to frame an +indictment of society, and a novelist who imposes this task on himself +must in the end create an impression of improbability by the partiality +with which he selects his material. But there is fire enough in the +telling, and interest enough in the plot to silence our criticisms while +we read. _Caleb Williams_ is a capital story; it is also a living and +humane book, which conveys with rare power and reasoned emotion the +revolt of a generous mind against the oppressions of feudalism and the +stupidities of the criminal law. + +Three years later (1797) Godwin once more restated the main positions of +_Political Justice_. _The Enquirer_ is a volume of essays, which range +easily over a great variety of subjects from education to English style. +His opinions have neither advanced nor receded, and the mood is still +one of assurance, enthusiasm, and hope. The only noteworthy change is in +the style. _Political Justice_ belongs to the generation of Gibbon, +eloquent, elaborate and periodic at its best; heavy and slightly verbose +at its worst. With _The Enquirer_ we are just entering the generation of +Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. The language is simpler and more flexible, the +construction of the sentences more varied, the mood more vivacious, and +the tone more conversational. The best things in the book belong to that +social psychology, the observation of men in classes and professions, in +which this age excelled. There is an outspoken attack on the clergy, as +a class of men who have vowed themselves to study without enquiry, who +must reason for ever towards a conclusion fixed by authority, whose very +survival depends on the perennial stationariness of their understanding. +Another essay attempts a vivacious criticism of "common honesty," the +moral standard of the average decent citizen, a code of negative virtues +and moral mediocrity which is content to avoid the obvious unsocial sins +and concerns itself but little to enforce positive benevolence. The +reader who would meet Godwin at his best should turn to the essay _On +Servants_. Starting from the universal reluctance of the upper and +middle classes to allow their children to associate closely with +servants, he enlarges the confession of the systematic degradation of a +class which this separation involves, into a condemnation of our whole +social structure. + + * * * * * + +The year 1797 marks the culmination of Godwin's career, and it would +have been well for his fame if it had been its end. He had just passed +his fortieth year; he had made the most notable contribution to English +political thought since the appearance of the _Wealth of Nations_; he +had won the gratitude and respect of his friends by his intervention in +the trial of the Twelve Reformers. He was famous, prosperous, popular, +and his good fortune brought to his calm temperament the stimulus of +excitement and high spirits which it needed. There came to him in this +year the crown of a noble love. It was in the winter of 1791 that he +first met Mary Wollstonecraft, the one woman of genius who belonged to +the English revolutionary circle. He was not impressed, thought that she +talked too much, and in his diary spelled her name incorrectly. + +In the interval between 1791 and 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft was to write +one of the books which belong to the spiritual foundations of the next +century, to taste fame and detraction, to know the joys of love and +maternity, and to experience a misery and wrong which made life itself +an unendurable shame. A later chapter will attempt an estimate of the +ideas and personality of this brilliant and courageous woman. A few +sentences must suffice here to recall the bare facts of her life +history. Born in 1759, the child of a drunken and disreputable father, +she had struggled with indomitable energy, first as a teacher and then +as a translator and literary "hack," to keep herself and help her still +more unfortunate sisters. In 1792 she published _A Vindication of the +Rights of Woman_, a plea for the human dignity of her sex and for its +claim to education. At the end of this year she went to Paris as much to +see the Revolution as to perfect herself in French. She there met a +clever and interesting American, one Gilbert Imlay, a traveller of some +little note, a soldier in the War of Independence, and now a speculative +merchant. He lived with her, and in documents acknowledged her as his +wife, though neither felt the need of a binding ceremony. A baby, Fanny, +was born, but Imlay's business imposed long separations. He gradually +tired of the woman who had honoured him too highly, and entered on more +than one intrigue. Mary Wollstonecraft attempted in despair to drown +herself in the Thames, was saved and nursed back to life and courage by +devoted friends. She again took up her pen to gain a livelihood, and for +the sake of her child's future, gradually returned to the literary +circle which valued her, not merely for her genius and originality, but +also for her beauty, her vivacity, and her charm, for her daring and +independence, and her warm, impulsive, affectionate heart. + +Godwin met her again while she was bruised and lonely and +disillusionised with mankind. Her charming volume of travel sketches +(_Letters from Norway, 1796_) had made, as it well might, a deep +impression on his taste. He was, what Imlay was not, her intellectual +equal, and his character deserved her respect. He has left in the little +book which he published to vindicate her memory, a delicate sketch of +their mutual love: "The partiality we conceived for each other was in +that mode which I have always considered as the purest and most refined +style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would +have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was +before and who was after. One sex did not take the priority which +long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that +delicacy which is so severely imposed. I am not conscious that either +party can assume to have been the agent or the patient, the toil +spreader or the prey in the affair. When in the course of things, the +disclosure came, there was nothing in a manner for either party to +disclose to the other.... There was no period of throes and resolute +explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting into love." + +The two lovers, in strict obedience to the principles of _Political +Justice_, made their home, at first with no legal union, in a little +house in the Polygon, Somers Town, then the extreme limit of London, +separated from the suburban village of Camden Town by open fields and +green pastures. A few doors away Godwin had his study, where he spent +most of his industrious day, often breakfasted and sometimes slept. Both +partners of this daringly unconventional union had their own particular +friends and retained their separate places in society. Some quaint notes +have survived, which passed between them, borrowing books or making +appointments. "Did I not see you, friend Godwin," runs one of these, "at +the theatre last night? I thought I met a smile, but you went out +without looking round. We expect you at half-past four." It was the +coming of a child which induced them to waive their theories and face +for its sake a repugnant compliance with custom. They were married in +Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797, and the insignificant fact was +communicated only gradually, and with laboured apologies for the +inconsistency, to their friends. + +Southey, who met them in this month, has left a lively portrait: "Of all +the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay's countenance is the +best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression +somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display--an +expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary +Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and ... +they are the most meaning I ever saw.... As for Godwin himself he has +large noble eyes and a _nose_--oh, most abominable nose. Language is not +vituperatious enough to describe the effect of its downward elongation." +Godwin, if one may trust the portrait by Northcote, had impressive if +not exactly handsome features. The head is shapely, the brow ample, the +nose decidedly too long, the shaven lips and chin finely chiselled. The +whole suggestion is of a character self-absorbed and contemplative. He +was short and sturdy in build, and in his sober dress and grave +deportments, suggested rather the dissenting preacher than the prophet +of philosophic anarchism. He was not a ready debater or a fluent talker. +His genius was not spontaneous or intuitive. It was rather an elaborate +effort of the will, which deliberately used the fruits of his +accumulative study and incessant activity of mind. He resembled, says +Hazlitt, who admired and liked him, "an eight-day clock that must be +wound up long before it can strike. He is ready only on reflection: +dangerous only at the rebound. He gathers himself up, and strains every +nerve and faculty with deliberate aim to some heroic and dazzling +achievement of intellect; but he must make a career before he flings +himself armed upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed." + +No two minds could have presented a greater contrast. Had Mary +Wollstonecraft lived they must have moulded each other into something +finer than Nature had made of either. The year of married life was +ideally happy, and the strange experiment in reconciling individualism +with love apparently succeeded. Mrs. Godwin, for all her revolutionary +independence, leaned affectionately on her husband, and he, in spite of +his rather overgrown self-esteem, regarded her with reverence and pride. +She was quick in her affections and resentments, but looking back many +years later Godwin declares that they were "as happy as is permitted to +human beings." "It must be remembered, however, that I honoured her +intellectual powers and the nobleness and generosity of her +propensities; mere tenderness would not have been adequate to produce +the happiness we experienced." + +Godwin's novels suggest that, on the whole, he shared her views about +women, though in a later essay (on "Friendship," in _Thoughts on Man_), +there are some passages which suggest a less perfect understanding. But +he never used his pen to carry on her work, and the emancipation of +women had to await its philosopher in John Stuart Mill. The happy +marriage ended abruptly and tragically. On August 30, 1797, was born the +child Mary, who was to become Shelley's wife, and carry on in a second +generation her parents' tradition of fearless love and revolutionary +hope. Ten days after the birth, the mother died in spite of all that the +devotion of her husband and the skill of his medical friends could do +to save her. A few broken-hearted letters are left to record Godwin's +agony of mind. + + * * * * * + +With the death of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, ended all that was happy +and stimulating in Godwin's career. It was for him the year of private +disaster, and from it he dated also the triumph of the reaction in +England. The stimulus of the revolutionary period was withdrawn. He +lived no longer among ardent spirits who would brave everything and do +anything for human perfectibility. Some were in Botany Bay, and others, +like the indomitable Holcroft, were absorbed in the struggle to live, +with the handicap of political persecution against them. Godwin, indeed, +never fell into despair over the ruin of his political hopes. Like +Beethoven he revered Napoleon, at all events until he assumed the title +of Emperor, and would console himself with the conviction that this +"auspicious and beneficent genius" had "without violence to the +principles of the French Revolution ... suspended their morbid +activity," while preserving "all the great points" of its doctrine. But +while all England hung on the event of the titanic struggle against +this "beneficent genius," what was a philanthropist to do? The world was +rattling back into barbarism, and the generation which emerged from the +long nightmare of war, famine, and repression, was incomparably less +advanced in its thinking, narrower and timider in its whole habit of +mind than the men who were young in 1789. There was nothing to do, and a +philosopher whose only weapon was argument, kept silence when none would +listen. Of what use to talk of "peace and the powers of the human mind," +while all England was gloating over the brutal cartoons of Gillray, and +trying on the volunteer uniforms, in which it hoped to repel Napoleon's +invasion? We need not wonder that Godwin's output of philosophic writing +practically ceased with the eighteenth century. He was henceforth a man +without a purpose, who wrote for bread and renounced the exercise of his +greater powers. + +The end of Godwin's active apostolic life is clearly marked in a +pamphlet which he issued in 1801 ("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 +[Malthus] of the _Essay on Population_ and others"). It is a masterly +piece of writing. Coleridge scribbled in the copy that now lies on the +shelves of the British Museum this tribute to its author: "I remember +few passages in ancient or modern authors that contain more just +philosophy in appropriate, chaste or beautiful diction than the fine +following pages. They reflect equal honour on Godwin's head and heart. +Though I did it in the zenith of his reputation, yet I feel remorse even +to have only spoken unkindly of such a man.--S. T. C." + +Godwin tells how the reaction burst over him, and he dates it from 1797: +"After having for four years heard little else than the voice of +commendation, I was at length attacked from every side, and in a style +which defied all moderation and decency.... The cry spread like a +general infection, and I have been told that not even a petty novel for +boarding-school misses now ventures to aspire to favour unless it +contains some expression of dislike or abhorrence to the new +philosophy." Some of the attacks were scurrilous and all of them +proceeded on the common assumption of the defenders of authority in all +ages and nations, that the man who would innovate in morals is himself +immoral. + +He goes on to sketch the present case of the revolutionary party: "The +societies have perished, or where they have not, have shrunk to a +skeleton; the days of democratical declamation are no more; even the +starving labourer in the alehouse is become the champion of +aristocracy.... Jacobinism was destroyed; its party as a party was +extinguished; its tenets were involved in almost universal unpopularity +and odium; they were deserted by almost every man high or low in the +island of Great Britain." Even the young Pantisocrats had gone over to +the enemy, and Wordsworth, grave and disillusionised, tried to forget +that he had ever exhorted his fellow-students to burn their books and +"read Godwin on Necessity." The defection of Dr. Parr and Mackintosh was +symptomatic. Both had been Godwin's personal friends, and both of them +had hailed the new philosophy. No one remembers them to-day, but they +were in their time intellectual oracles. The scholar Parr was called by +flatterers the Whig Johnson, and Mackintosh enjoyed in Whig society a +reputation as a brilliant talker, and an encyclopaedic mind which reminds +us of Macaulay's later fame. They had both to make their peace with the +world and to bury their compromised past; the easiest way was to fall +upon Godwin. + +Malthus was a more worthy antagonist, though Godwin did not yet perceive +how formidable his attack in reality was. To the picture of human +perfection he opposed the nightmare of an over-populated planet, and +combated universal benevolence by teaching that even charity is an +economic sin. English society cares little either for Utopias or for +science. But it welcomes science with rapture when it destroys Utopias. +If Godwin had pricked men's consciences, Malthus brought the balm. +Altruism was exposed at length for the thing it was, an error in the +last degree unscientific and uneconomic. The rickety arithmetic of +Malthusianism was used against the revolutionary hope, exactly as a +travestied version of Darwinianism was used in our own day against +Socialism. Godwin preserved his dignity in this controversy and made +concessions to his critics with a rare candour. But while he abandons +none of his fundamental doctrines, one feels that he will never fight +again. + +Only once in later years did Godwin the philosopher break his silence, +and then it was to attempt in 1820 an elaborate but far from impressive +answer to Malthus. The history of that controversy has been brilliantly +told by Hazlitt. It seems to-day too distant to be worth reviving. Our +modern pessimists write their jeremiads not about the future +over-population of the planet, but about the declining birth-rate. That +elaborate civilisations shows a decline in fertility is a fact now so +well recognised, that we feel no difficulty in conceding to Godwin that +the reasonable beings of his ideal community might be trusted to show +some degree of self-control. + +Godwin possessed two of the cardinal virtues of a thinker, courage and +candour. No fear of ridicule deterred him from pushing his premises to +their last conclusion; no false shame restrained him in a controversy +from recanting an error. He discarded the wilder developments of his +theory of "universal benevolence," and gave it in the end a form which +has ceased to be paradoxical. When he wrote _Political Justice_ he was a +celibate student who had escaped much of the formative experience of a +normal life. As a husband and a father he revised his creed, and devoted +no small part of his later literary activity to the work of preaching +the claims of those "private affections" which he had scouted as an +elderly youth of forty. The re-adjustment in his theory was so simple, +that only a great philosopher could have failed to make it sooner. +Justice requires me to use all my powers to contribute to the sum of +human benefit. But as regards opportunity, I am not equally situated +towards all my fellows. By devoting myself more particularly to wife or +child with an exclusive affection which is not in the abstract +altogether reasonable, I may do more for the general good than I could +achieve by a severely impartial benevolence. + +He developed this view first in his _Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft_, +then in the preface to _St. Leon_, and finally in the pamphlet which +answered Mackintosh and Dr. Parr. The man who would be "the best moral +economist of his time" will use much of it to seek "the advantage and +content of those with whom he has most frequent intercourse," and this +not merely from calculation, but from affection. "I ought not only in +ordinary cases to provide for my wife and children, my brothers and +relations before I provide for strangers, but it would be well that my +doing so should arise from the operation of those private and domestic +affections by which through all ages of the world the conduct of mankind +has been excited and directed." + +The recantation is sufficiently frank. The family, dissipated in +_Political Justice_ by the explosive charities of "universal +benevolence," is now happily re-united. Godwin maintains, however, that +his moral theory and his political superstructure stands intact, and the +claim is not unreasonable. He retains his criterion of justice and +utility, though he has seen better how to apply it. The duty of +universal benevolence is still paramount; the end of contributing to the +general good still sovereign, and a reasoned virtue is still to be +recommended in preference to instinctive goodness, even where their +results are commonly the same. "The crown of a virtuous character +consists in a very frequent and very energetic recollection of the +criterion by which all his actions are to be tried.... The person who +has been well instructed and accomplished in the great schools of human +experience has passions and affections like other men. But he is aware +that all these affections tend to excess, and must be taught each to +know its order and its sphere. He therefore continually holds in mind +the principles by which their boundaries are fixed." + +What Godwin means is something elementary, and for that reason of the +first importance. Let a man love his wife above other women, but +"universal benevolence" will forbid him to exploit other women in order +to surround her with luxury. Let him love his sons, but virtue will +forbid him to accumulate a fortune for them by the sweated labour of +poor men's children. Let him love his fellow-countrymen, but reason +forbids him to seek their good by enslaving other races and waging +aggressive wars. Godwin, in short, no longer denies the beauty and duty +(to use Burke's phrase) of loving "the little platoon to which I +belong," but he urges that these domestic affections are in little +danger of neglect. Men learned to love kith and kin, neighbours and +comrades, while still in the savage state. The characteristic of a +civilised morality, the necessary accompaniment of all the varied and +extended relationships which modern existence has brought with it, must +be a new and emphatic stress on my duty to the stranger, to the unknown +producer with whom I stand in an economic relationship, and to the +foreigner beyond my shores. "Let us endeavour to elevate philanthropy +into a passion, secure that occasions enough will arise to drag us down +from an enthusiastic eminence. A virtuous man will teach himself to +recollect the principle of universal benevolence as often as pious men +repeat their prayers." + +If the central tendencies of Godwin's teaching survive these later +modifications, it is none the less true that some of his theoretic +foundations have been shaken in the work of reconstruction. The isolated +individual shut up in his own animal skin and communicating with his +fellows through the antennae of his logical processes, has vanished away. +Allow him to extend his personality through the private affections, and +he has ceased to be the abstract unit of individualism. Godwin should +have revised not only his doctrine of the family, but his hatred of +co-operation. There is still something to be learned from the view of +his school that the human mind, as it begins to absorb the collective +experience of the race, is an infinitely variable spiritual stuff, an +intellectual protoplasm. They stated the view with a rash emphasis, +until one is forced to ask whether a mind which is originally nothing at +all, can absorb, or as psychologists say, "apperceive" anything +whatever. Nothing comes out of nothing, and nothing can be added to +nothing. + +Godwin and his school set out to show that the human mind is not +necessarily fettered for all time by the prejudices and institutions in +which it has clothed itself. When he had done stripping us, it was a +nice question whether even our nakedness remained. He treated our +prejudices and our effete institutions as though they were something +external to us, which had come out of nowhere and could be flung into +the void from whence they came. When you have called opinion a +prejudice, or traced an institution to false reasoning, you have, after +all, only exhibited an interesting zoological fact about human beings. +We are exactly the sort of creature which evolves such prejudices. +Godwin in unwary moments would talk as though aristocracy and positive +law had come to us from without, by a sort of diabolic revelation. This, +however, is not a criticism which destroys the value of his thinking. +His positions required restatement in terms of the idea of development. +If he did not anticipate the notion of evolution, he was the apostle of +the idea of progress. We may still retain from his reasonings the +hopeful conclusion that the human mind is a raw material capable of +almost unlimited variation, and, therefore, of some advance towards +"perfection." We owe an inestimable debt to the school which proclaimed +this belief in enthusiastic paradoxes. + +Godwin's influence as a thinker permeated the older generation of +"philosophic radicals" in England. The oddest fact about it is that it +had apparently no part in founding the later philosophic anarchism of +the Continent. None of its leaders seem to have read him; and _Political +Justice_ was not translated into German until long after it had ceased +to be read in England. Its really astonishing blindness to the +importance of the economic factor in social changes must have hastened +its decline. Godwin writes as though he had never seen a factory nor +heard of capital. In all his writing about crime and punishment, full as +it is of insight, sympathy and good sense, it is odd that a mind so +fertile nowhere anticipated the modern doctrine of the connection +between moral and physical degeneracy. He saw in crime only error, where +we see anaemia: he would have cured it with syllogisms, where we should +administer proteids. His entire psychology, both social and individual, +is vitiated by a naive and headstrong intellectualism. Life is rather a +battle between narrow interests and the social affections than a debate +between sound and fallacious reasoning. He saw among mankind only +sophists and philosophers, where we see predatory egoists and their +starved and stunted victims. But we have advanced far enough on our own +lines of thinking to derive a new stimulus from Godwin's one-sided +intellectualism. Our danger to-day is that we may succumb to an economic +and physiological determinism. We are obsessed by financiers and +bacilli; it is salutary that our attention should be directed from time +to time to the older bogeys of the revolution, to kings and priests, +authority and superstition, to prejudice and political subjection. "The +greatest part of the people of Europe," wrote Helvetius, "honour virtue +in speculation; this is an effect of their education. They despise it in +practice; that is an effect of the form of their governments." We think +that we have got beyond that epigram to-day. But have we quite exhausted +its meaning? + +Precisely because of its revolutionary _naivete_, its unscientific +innocence, there is in Godwin's democratic anarchism a stimulus +peculiarly tonic to the modern mind. No man has developed more firmly +the ideal of universal enlightenment, which has escaped feudalism, only +to be threatened by the sociological expert. No writer is better fitted +to remind us that society and government are not the same thing, and +that the State must not be confounded with the social organism. No +moralist has written a more eloquent page on the evil of coercion and +the unreason of force. _Political Justice_ is often an imposing system. +It is sometimes an instructive fallacy. It is always an inspiring +sermon. Godwin hoped to "make it a work from the perusal of which no man +should rise without being strengthened in habits of sincerity, fortitude +and justice." There he succeeded. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GODWIN AND SHELLEY + + +In a letter written in 1811 Shelley records how he suddenly heard with +"inconceivable emotion" that Godwin was still alive. He "had enrolled +his name on the list of the honourable dead." Godwin, to quote Hazlitt's +rather cruel phrase, had "sunk below the horizon," in his later years, +and enjoyed "the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality." Serene +unfortunately it was not. With a lonely home and two little girls to +care for, Godwin thought once more of marriage. Twice his wooing was +unsuccessful, and the philosopher who believed that reason was +omnipotent, tried in vain in long, elaborate letters to argue two ladies +into love. His second wife came unsought. As he sat one day at his +window in the Polygon, a handsome widow spoke to him from the +neighbouring balcony, with these arresting words, "Is it possible that I +behold the immortal Godwin?" They were married before the close of the +year (1801). + +Mrs. Clairmont was a strange successor to Mary Wollstonecraft. She was a +vulgar and worldly woman, thoroughly feminine, and rather inclined to +boast of her total ignorance of philosophy. A kindly and loyal wife she +may have been, but she was jealous of Godwin's friends, and would tell +petty lies to keep them apart from him. She brought with her two +children of a former marriage--Charles (who was unhappy in this strange +home and went early abroad) and Jane. On this clever, pretty and +mercurial daughter all her partiality was lavished; and the unhappy +girl, pampered by a philistine mother in a revolutionary atmosphere, was +at the age of seventeen seduced by Byron, and became the mother of the +fairy child, Allegra. The second Mrs. Godwin was the stepmother of +convention, and treated both Fanny Imlay and Mary Godwin with consistent +unkindness. It was the fate of the gentle, melancholy and lovable Fanny +to take her own life at the age of twenty-two (1816). The destiny of +these children, all gifted with what the age called sensibility, has +served as the text of many a sermon against "the new philosophy." No +one, however, can read the documents which this strange household left +behind, without feeling that the parent of the disaster in their lives +was not their philosophic father, but this commonplace "womanly woman," +who flattered, intrigued, and lied. In 1803, there was born of this +second marriage, a son, William, who inherited something of his father's +ability. He became a journalist, and died at the early age of +twenty-nine, after publishing a novel of some promise, _Transfusion_, +steeped in the same romantic fancies which colour Mary Shelley's more +famous _Frankenstein_. + +With the cares of this family on his shoulders Godwin began to form the +habit of applying to his wealthy friends for aid. In judging this part +of his conduct, one must bear in mind both his own doctrine about +property, and the practice of the age. Godwin was a communist, and so, +in some degree, were most of his friends. When he applied to Wedgwood, +the philosophic potter of Etruria, or to Ritson, the vegetarian, or in +later years to Shelley for money, he was simply giving virtue its +occasion, and assisting property to find its level. He practised what he +preached, and he would himself give with a generosity which seemed +prodigal, to his own relatives, to promising young men, and even to +total strangers. He supported one disciple at Cambridge, as he had +educated Cooper in his younger days. It was the prevailing theory of +the age that men of genius have the right to call on society in the +persons of its wealthier members for support. Helvetius, himself a rich +man, had maintained this view. Southey and Coleridge acted on it. Dr. +Priestley, universally respected both for his character and his talents, +received large gifts from friends, admirers, members of his congregation +and aristocratic patrons. To Godwin, profoundly individualistic as he +was, a post in the civil service, or even a professorship, would have +seemed a more degrading form of charity than this private benevolence. + +Partly to mend his fortunes, partly to furnish himself with an +occupation when his mind refused original work, Godwin in 1805 turned +publisher. It was a disastrous inspiration, due apparently to his wife, +who believed herself to possess a talent for business. The firm was +established in Skinner Street, Holborn, and specialised in school books +and children's tales. They were well-printed, and well-illustrated, and +Godwin, writing under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin, to avoid the +odium which had now overtaken his own name, compiled a series of +histories with his usual industry and conscientious finish. Through +years darkened with misfortune and clouded by failing health, he worked +hard at the business of publishing. His capital was never adequate, +though his friends and admirers twice came to his aid with public +subscriptions. In 1822 he was evicted for arrears of rent, and in 1825 +the unlucky venture came to an end. + +These years were crowded with literary work, for neither "Baldwin" nor +Godwin allowed their common pen to idle. Two elaborate historical works +enjoyed and deserved a great reputation in their day, though subsequent +research has rendered them obsolete--a _Life of Geoffrey Chaucer_ (1803) +and a _History of the Commonwealth of England from its Commencement to +the Restoration of Charles II._ (1824-8). It is not easy for modern +taste to do justice to Godwin's novels; but on them his contemporary +fame chiefly rested, and publishers paid for them high though +diminishing prices. They all belong to the romantic movement; some have +a supernatural basis, and most of them discover a too obvious didactic +purpose. _St. Leon_ (1799), almost as popular in its day as _Caleb +Williams_, mingles a romance of the elixir of life and the philosopher's +stone with an ardent recommendation of those family affections which +_Political Justice_ had depreciated. _Fleetwood_ (1805) makes war on +debauchery with sincere and impressive dulness. _Mandeville_ (1817), +_Cloudesley_ (1830) and _Deloraine_ (1833) are dead beyond the reach of +curiosity, yet the Radical critics of his day, including Hazlitt, tried +hard to convince themselves that Godwin was a greater novelist than the +Tory, Scott. It remains to mention Godwin's two attempts to conquer the +theatre with _Antonio_ (1800) and _Faulkener_ (1807). Neither play +lived, and _Antonio_, written in a sort of journalese, cut up into blank +verse lines, was too frigid to survive the first night. Godwin's +disappointment would be comical if it were not painful. He regarded +these deplorable tragedies as the flower of his genius. + +Through these years of misfortune and eclipse, the friendships which +Godwin could still retain were his chief consolation. The published +letters of Coleridge and Lamb make a charming record of their intimacy. +Whimsical and affectionate in their tone, they are an unconscious +tribute as much to the man who received them as to the men who wrote +them. Conservative critics have talked of Godwin's "coldness" because he +could reason. But the abiding and generous regard of such a nature as +Charles Lamb's is answer enough to these summary valuations. But +Godwin's most characteristic relationship was with the young men who +sought him out as an inspiration. He would write them long letters of +advice, encouragement, and criticism, and despite his own poverty, would +often relieve their distresses. The most interesting of them was an +adventurous young Scot named Arnot who travelled on foot through the +greater part of Europe during the Napoleonic wars. The tragedy which +seemed always to pursue Godwin's intimates drove another of them, +Patrickson, to suicide while an undergraduate at Cambridge. Bulwer +Lytton, the last of these admiring young men, left a note on Godwin's +conversational powers in his extreme old age, which assures us that he +was "well worth hearing," even amid the brilliance of Lamb, Hunt, and +Hazlitt, and could display "a grim jocularity of sarcasm." + +One of these relationships has become historical, and has coloured the +whole modern judgment of Godwin. It would be no exaggeration to say that +Godwin formed Shelley's mind, and that _Prometheus Unbound_ and _Hellas_ +were the greatest of Godwin's works. That debt is too often forgotten, +while literary gossip loves to remind us that it was repaid in cheques +and _post-obits_. The intellectual relationship will be discussed in a +later chapter; the bare facts of the personal connection must be told +here. _Political Justice_ took Shelley's mind captive while he was still +at Eton, much as it had obsessed Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth. The +influence with him was permanent; and _Queen Mab_ is nothing but Godwin +in verse, with prose notes which quote or summarise him. A +correspondence began in 1811, and the pupil met the master late in 1812, +and again in 1813. They talked as usual of virtue and human +perfectibility; and as the intimacy grew, Shelley, whose chief +employment at this time was to discover and relieve genius in distress, +began to place his present resources and future prospects at Godwin's +disposal. It was not an unnatural relationship to arise between a +grateful disciple, heir to a great fortune, and a philosopher, aged, +neglected, and sinking under the burden of debt. + +Shelley's romantic runaway match with Harriet Westbrook had meanwhile +entered on the period of misery and disillusion. She had lost her early +love of books and ideas, had taken to hats and ostentation, and had +become so harsh to him that he welcomed absence. It is certain that he +believed her to be also in the vulgar sense of the word unfaithful. At +this crisis, when the separation seemed already morally complete, he met +Mary Godwin, who had been absent from home during most of his earlier +visits. She was a young girl of seventeen, eager for knowledge and +experience, and as her father described her, "singularly bold, somewhat +imperious and active of mind," and "very pretty." They rapidly fell in +love. Godwin's conduct was all that the most conventional morality could +have required of him. His theoretical views of marriage were still +unorthodox; he held at least that "the institution might with advantage +admit of certain modifications." But nine years before in the preface to +_Fleetwood_ he had protested that he was "the last man to recommend a +pitiful attempt by scattered examples to renovate the face of society." +He seems, indeed, to have forgotten his own happy experiment with Mary +Wollstonecraft, and protests with a vigour hardly to be expected from so +stout an individualist against the idea, that "each man for himself +should supersede and trample upon the institutions of the country in +which he lives. A thousand things might be found excellent and salutary +if brought into general practice, which would in some cases appear +ridiculous and in others attended with tragical consequences if +prematurely acted upon by a solitary individual." + +On this view he acted. He forbade Shelley his house, and tried to make a +reconciliation between him and Harriet. On July 28, 1814, Mary secretly +left her father's house, joined her lover, and began with him her life +of ideal intimacy and devotion. Godwin felt and expressed the utmost +disapproval, and for two years refused to meet Shelley, until at the +close of 1816, after the suicide of the unhappy Harriet, he stood at his +daughter's side as a witness to her marriage. His public conduct was +correct. In private he continued to accept money from the erring +disciple whom he refused to meet, and salved his elderly conscience by +insisting that the cheques should be drawn in another name. There Godwin +touched the lowest depths of his moral degeneration. Let us remember, +however, that even Shelley, who saw the worst of Godwin, would never +speak of him with total condemnation. "Added years," he wrote near the +end of his life, "only add to my admiration of his intellectual powers, +and even the moral resources of his character." In the poetical epistle +to Maria Gisborne, he wrote of + + "That which was Godwin--greater none than he + Though fallen, and fallen on evil times, to stand + Among the spirits of our age and land + Before the dread tribunal of To-come + The foremost, while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb." + + +The end came to the old man amid comparative peace and serenity. He +accepted a sinecure from the Whigs, and became a Yeoman Usher of the +Exchequer, with a small stipend and chambers in New Palace Yard. It was +a tribute as much to his harmlessness as to his merit. The work of his +last years shows little decay in his intellectual powers. _His Thoughts +on Man_ (1831) collects his fugitive essays. They are varied in subject, +suave, easy and conversational in manner, more polished in style than +those of the _Enquirer_, if a good deal thinner in matter. They avoid +political themes, but the idea of human perfectibility none the less +pervades the book with an unaggressive presence, a cold and wintry sun. +One curious trait of his more cautious and conservative later mind is +worth noting. When he wrote _Political Justice_, the horizons of science +were unlimited, the vistas of discovery endless. Now he questions even +the mathematical data of astronomy, talks of the limitations of our +faculties, and applauds a positive attitude that refrains from +conjecture. His last years were spent in writing a book in which he +ventured at length to state his views upon religion. Like Helvetius he +perceived the advantages which an unpopular philosopher may derive from +posthumous publication. Freed at last from the vulgar worries of debt +and the tragical burden of personal ties, the fighting ended which had +never brought him the joy of combat, the material struggle over which +had issued in defeat, he became again the thing that was himself, a +luminous intelligence, a humane thinker. + +With eighty years of life behind him, and doubting whether the curtain +of death concealed a secret, Godwin tranquilly faced extinction in +April, 1836. + + * * * * * + +"To do my part to free the human mind from slavery," that in his own +words was the main object of Godwin's life. The task was not fully +discharged with the writing of _Political Justice_. He could never +forget the terror and gloom of his own early years, and, like all the +thinkers of the revolution, he coupled superstition with despotism and +priests with kings as the arch-enemies of human liberty. The terrors of +eternal punishment, the firmly riveted chains of Calvinistic logic, had +fettered his own growing mind in youth; and to the end he thought of +traditional religion as the chief of those factitious things which +prevent mankind from reaching the full stature to which nature destined +it. Paine had attempted this work from a similar standpoint, but Godwin, +with his trained speculative mind, and his ideal of courtesy and +persuasiveness in argument, thought meanly (as a private letter shows) +of his friend's polemics. It was an unlucky timidity which caused Mrs. +Shelley to suppress her father's religious essays when the manuscript +was bequeathed to her for publication on his death. When, at length, +they appeared in 1873 (_Essays never before Published_), the work which +they sought to accomplish had been done by other pens. They possess none +the less an historical interest; some fine pages will always be worth +reading for their humane impulse and their manly eloquence; they help us +to understand the influence which Godwin's ideas, conveyed in personal +intercourse, exerted on the author of _Prometheus Unbound_. There is +little in them which a candid believer would resent to-day. Most of the +dogmas which Godwin assailed have long since crumbled away through the +sapping of a humaner morality and a more historical interpretation of +the Bible. + +The book opens with a protest against the theory and practice of +salutary delusions; and Godwin once more pours his scorn upon those who +would cherish their own private freedom, while preserving popular +superstitions, "that the lower ranks may be kept in order." The +foundation of all improvement is that "the whole community should run +the generous race for intellectual and moral superiority." Godwin would +preserve some portion of the religious sense, for we can reach sobriety +and humility only by realising "how frail and insignificant a part we +constitute of the great whole." But the fundamental tenets of dogmatic +Christianity are far, he argues, from being salutary delusions. At the +basis alike of Protestantism and Catholicism, he sees the doctrine of +eternal punishment; and with an iteration that was not superfluous in +his own day, he denounces its cruel and demoralising effects. It saps +the character where it is really believed, and renders the mind which +receives it servile and pusillanimous. The case is no better when it is +neither sincerely believed nor boldly rejected. Such an attitude, which +is, he thinks, that of most professing believers, makes for +insincerity, and for an indifference to all honest thought and +speculation. The man who dare neither believe nor disbelieve is debarred +from thinking at all. + +Worst of all, this doctrine of endless torment and arbitrary election +involves a blasphemous denial of the goodness of God. "To say all, then, +in a word, since it must finally be told, the God of the Christians is a +tyrant." He quotes the delightfully naive reflection of Plutarch, who +held that it was better to deny God than to calumniate Him, "for I had +rather it should be said of me, that there was never such a man as +Plutarch, than that it should be said that Plutarch was ill-natured, +arbitrary, capricious, cruel, and inexorable." A survey of Church +History brings out what Godwin calls "the mixed character of +Christianity, its horrors and its graces." In much of what has come down +to us from the Old Testament he sees the inevitable effects of +anthropomorphism, when the religion of a barbarous age is reduced to +writing, and handed down as the effect of inspiration. He cannot +sufficiently admire the beauty of Christ's teaching of a perfect +disinterestedness and self-denial--a doctrine in his own terminology of +"universal benevolence." But the disciples lived in a preternatural +atmosphere, continually busied with the four Last Things, death, +judgment, heaven, and hell; and they distorted the beauty of the +Christian morality by introducing an other-worldliness, to which the +ancients had been strangers. From this came the despotism of the Church +based on the everlasting burnings and the keys, and something of the +spirit of St. Dominic and the Inquisition can be traced, he thinks, even +to the earliest period of Christianity. The Gospel sermons do not always +realise the Godwinian ideal of rational persuasion. + +Godwin's own view is in the main what we should call agnostic: "I do not +consider my faculties adequate to pronouncing upon the cause of all +things. I am contented to take the phenomena as I behold them, without +pretending to erect an hypothesis under the idea of making all things +easy. I do not rest my globe of earth upon an elephant [a reference to +the Indian myth], and the elephant upon a tortoise. I am content to take +my globe of earth simply, in other words to observe the objects which +present themselves to my senses, without undertaking to find out a cause +why they are what they are." + +With cautious steps, he will, however, go a little further than this. +He regards with reverence and awe "that principle, whatever it is, which +acts everywhere around me." But he will not slide into anthropomorphism, +nor give to this Supreme Thing, which recalls Shelley's Demogorgon, the +shape of a man. "The principle is not intellect; its ways are not our +ways." If there is no particular Providence, there is none the less a +tendency in nature which seconds our strivings, guarantees the work of +reason, and "in the vast sum of instances, works for good, and operates +beneficially for us." The position reminds us of Matthew Arnold's +definition of God as "the stream of tendency by which all things strive +to fulfil the law of their being." "We have here," writes Godwin, "a +secure alliance, a friend that so far as the system of things extends +will never desert us, unhearing, inaccessible to importunity, +uncapricious, without passions, without favour, affection, or +partiality, that maketh its sun to rise on the evil and the good, and +its rain to descend on the just and the unjust." + +Amid the dim but rosy mist of this vague faith the old man went out to +explore the unknown. A bolder and more rebellious thought was his real +legacy to his age. It is the central impulse of the whole revolutionary +school: "We know what we are: we know not what we might have been. But +surely we should have been greater than we are but for this disadvantage +[dogmatic religion, and particularly the doctrine of eternal +punishment]. It is as if we took some minute poison with everything that +was intended to nourish us. It is, we will suppose, of so mitigated a +quality as never to have had the power to kill. But it may nevertheless +stunt our growth, infuse a palsy into every one of our articulations, +and insensibly change us from giants of mind which we might have been +into a people of dwarfs." + +Let us write Godwin's epitaph in his own Roman language. He stood erect +and independent. He spoke what he deemed to be truth. He did his part to +purge the veins of men of the subtle poisons which dwarf them. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT + + +When women, standing at length beyond the last of the gates and walls +that have barred their road to freedom, measure their debt to history, +there will be little to claim their gratitude before the close of the +eighteenth century. The Protestant Reformation on the whole depressed +their status, and even among its more speculative sects the Quakers +stood alone in preaching the equality of the sexes. The English Whigs +ignored the existence of women. It was left for the French thinkers who +laid the foundations of the Revolution to formulate a view of society +and human nature which, as it were, insisted on its own application to +women. The idea of women's emancipation was alive among their +principles. One can name its parents, and one marvels not at all that it +seized this mind and the other, but that any mind among the professors +of the "new philosophy" contrived to escape it. The central thought, +which inspired the gospel of perfectibility has a meaning for men which +an enlightened mind can grasp, but it tells the plain obvious fact about +women. + +When Holcroft compares the influence of laws and institutions upon men +to the action of beggars who mutilate their children, when Godwin talks +of the subtle poisons of dogma and custom, which cause mankind to grow +up a race of dwarfs when they should be giants, they seem to be using +metaphors which describe nothing so well as the effect of an artificial +education and a tradition of subjection upon women. One by one the +thinkers of this generation were unconsciously laying down the premises +which the women's movement needed. At the end of all their arguments for +liberty and perfectibility, we seem to hear to-day a chorus of women's +voices which points the application to themselves. There was little hope +for women while the opinion prevailed that minds come into the world +with their qualities innate and their limitations fixed by nature. If +that were the case, then the undeniable fact that women were +intellectually and morally dependent and inferior must be accepted as +their inevitable destiny. Helvetius, all unconscious of what he did, was +the hope-bringer, when he insisted that mind is the creation of +education and experience. When he urged that the very inequality of +men's talents is itself factitious and the result of more or less good +fortune in the occasions which provoke a mind to activity, who could +fail to enquire whether the accepted inferiority of women were so +natural and so necessary as the whole world assumed? + +This school of thought revelled in social psychology. It studied in turn +the soldier, the priest and the courtier, and shewed how each of these +has a secondary character, a professional mind, a class morality +impressed and imposed upon him by his education and employment. Looking +down from the vantage ground of their philosophic salon upon their +contemporaries in French society who owed their fortunes and reputations +to the favour of an absolute court, Helvetius and his friends framed +their general theory of the demoralisation which despotism brings about +in the human character. They studied the natural history of the human +parasite who flourished under the Bourbons. They need not have travelled +to Versailles to find him. The domestic subjection of wives to husbands, +the education of girls in a specialised morality, the fetters of custom +and fashion, the experience of economic dependence, the denial of every +noble stimulus to thought and action--these causes, more potent and more +universal than any which work at Court, were making a sex condemned to +an artificial inferiority, an induced parasitism. Thinkers who had +discarded the notion that human minds come into the world with an innate +character and with their limitations already predestined, were ripe to +draw the conclusion. The Revolution believed that men by taking thought +might add many cubits to their mental stature. To think in these terms +was to prepare oneself to see that the "lovely follies" the "amiable +weaknesses" of the "fair sex" were in their turn nothing innate, but the +fostered characteristics of a class bred in subjection, the trading +habits of a profession which had bent all its faculties to the art of +pleasing. Reformers who sought to raise the peasant, the negro, and even +the courtier to his full stature as a man, were inevitably led to +consider the case of their own wives and daughters. They were not the +men to be arrested by the distinction which has been recently invented. +Democracy, we are told, is concerned with the removal not of natural, +but of artificial inequalities. Their bias was to regard all +inequalities as artificial. Looking forward to the goal of human +perfection, they were prompt to realise that every advance would be +insecure, and the final hope a delusion, if on their road they should +leave half mankind behind them. + +It requires a vigorous exercise of the historical imagination to realise +the conditions which society imposed upon women in the eighteenth +century. If Godwin and Paine had reflected closely on the position of +women, they might have been led to modify their exaggerated antithesis +between society and government. Government, indeed, imposed a barbarous +code of laws upon women. It was a trifle that they were excluded from +political power. The law treated a wife as the chattel of her husband, +denied her the disposal of her own property, even when it was the +produce of her own labour, sanctioned his use of violence to her person, +and refused (as indeed it still in part does) to recognise her rights as +a parent. But the state of the law reflected only too faithfully the +opinions of society, and these opinions in their turn formed the minds +of women. Civilised people amuse themselves to-day by detecting how much +of the old prejudices still lurk in a shamefaced half-consciousness in +the minds of modern men. There was no need in the eighteenth century for +any fine analysis to detect the naive belief that women exist only as +auxiliary beings to contribute to the comfort and to flatter the +self-esteem of men. The belief was avowed and accepted as the +unquestioned basis of human society. Good men proclaimed it, and the +cleverest women dared not question it. + +For the crudest statement of it we need not go to men who defended +despotism and convention in other departments of life. The most +repulsive of all definitions of the principle of sex-subjection is to be +found in Rousseau:--"The education of women should always be relative to +that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem +them, to educate us when young, to take care of us when grown up, to +advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are +the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in +their infancy." When the men of the eighteenth century said this, they +meant it, and they accepted not only its plain meaning, but its remotest +logical consequences. It was a denial of the humanity and personality of +women. A slave is a human being, whom the law deprives of his right to +sell his labour. A woman had to learn that her subjection affected not +only her relations to men, but her attitude to nature and to God. The +subtle poison ran in her veins when she prayed and when she studied. +Subject in her body, she was enslaved in mind and soul as well. Milton +saw the husband as a priest intervening between a woman and her God:-- + + He for God only, she for God in him. + +Even on her knees a woman did not escape the consciousness of sex, and a +manual of morality written by a learned divine (Dr. Fordyce) assured her +that a "fine woman" never "strikes so deeply" as when a man sees her +bent in prayer. She was encouraged to pray that she might be seen of +men--men who scrutinised her with the eyes of desire. It is a woman, +herself something of a "blue-stocking," who has left us the most +pathetic statement of the intellectual fetters which her sex accepted. +Women, says Mrs. Barbauld, "must often be content to know that a thing +is so, without understanding the proof." They "cannot investigate; they +may remember." She warns the girls whom she is addressing that if they +will steal knowledge, they must learn, like the Spartan youths, to hide +their furtive gains. "The thefts of knowledge in our sex are only +connived at while carefully concealed, and if displayed punished with +disgrace." + +Religion was sullied; knowledge was closed; but above all the sentiment +of the day perverted morals. Here, too, everything was relative to men, +and men demanded a sensitive weakness, a shrinking timidity. Courage, +honour, truth, sincerity, independence--these were items in a male +ideal. They were to a woman as unnecessary, nay, as harmful in the +marriage market as a sturdy frame and well-knit muscles. Dean Swift, a +sharp satirist, but a good friend of women, comments on the prevailing +view. "There is one infirmity," he writes in his illuminating _Letter to +a very young lady on her marriage_, "which is generally allowed you, I +mean that of cowardice," and he goes on to express what was in his day +the wholly unorthodox view that "the same virtues equally become both +sexes." There he was singular. The business of a woman was to cultivate +those virtues most conducive to her prosperity in the one avocation open +to her. That avocation was marriage, and the virtues were those which +her prospective employer, the average over-sexed male, anxious at all +points to feel his superiority, would desire in a subject wife. +Submission was the first of them, and submission became the foundation +of female virtue. Lord Kames, a forgotten but once popular Scottish +philosopher, put the point quite fairly (the quotation, together with +that from Mrs. Barbauld, is to be found in Mr. Lyon Blease's valuable +book on _The Emancipation of Englishwomen_): "Women, destined by nature +to be obedient, ought to be disciplined early to bear wrongs without +murmuring.... This is essential to the female sex, for ever subjected to +the authority of a single person." + +The rest of morality was summed up in the precepts of the art of +pleasing. Chastity had, of course, its incidental place; it enhances the +pride of possession. The art of pleasing was in practice a kind of +furtive conquest by stratagems and wiles, by tears and blushes, in which +the woman, by an assumed passivity, learned to excite the passions of +the male. Rousseau owed much of his popularity to his artistic statement +of this position:--"If woman be formed to please and to be subjected to +man, it is her place, doubtless, to render herself agreeable to him.... +The violence of his desires depends on her charms; it is by means of +these that she should urge him to the exertion of those powers which +nature hath given him. The most successful method of exciting them is to +render such exertion necessary by resistance; as in that case self-love +is added to desire, and the one triumphs in the victory which the other +is obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various modes of attack and +defence between the sexes; the boldness of one sex and the timidity of +the other; and in a word, that bashfulness and modesty, with which +nature hath armed the weak in order to subdue the strong." + +The "soft," the "fair," the "gentle sex" learned its lesson with only +too much docility. It grew up stunted to meet the prevailing demand. It +acquired weakness, feigned ignorance, and emulated folly as sedulously +as men will labour to make at least a show of strength, good sense, and +knowledge. It adapted itself only too successfully to the economic +conditions in which it found itself. Men accepted its flatteries and +returned them with contempt. "Women," wrote that dictator of morals and +manners, Lord Chesterfield, "are only children of a larger growth.... A +man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and +flatters them, as he does a sprightly, forward child." The men of that +century valued women only as playthings. They forgot that he is the +child who wants the toy. + +The first protests against this morality of degradation came, as one +would expect, from men. Demoralising as it was for men, it did at least +leave them the free use of their minds. Enquiry, reflection, scepticism, +unsuitable if not immodest in a woman, were the rights of a manly +intellect. Defoe and Swift uttered an unheeded protest in England, but +neither of them carried the subject far. There are some good critical +remarks in Helvetius about women's education; but the first man in that +century who seemed to realise the importance and scope of what several +dimly felt, was Baron Holbach, whose materialism was so peculiarly +shocking to our forefathers. A chapter "On Women" in his _Systeme +Social_ (1774) opens thus: "In all the countries of the world the lot of +women is to submit to tyranny. The savage makes a slave of his mate, and +carries his contempt for her to the point of cruelty. For the jealous +and voluptuous Asiatic, women are but the sensual instruments of his +secret pleasures.... Does the European, in spite of the apparent +deference which he affects towards women, really treat them with more +respect? While we refuse them a sensible education, while we feed their +minds with tedium and trifles, while we allow them to busy themselves +only with playthings and fashions and adornments, while we seek to +inspire them only with the taste for frivolous accomplishments, do we +not show our real contempt, while we mask it with a show of deference +and respect?" + +Holbach was a rash and rather superficial metaphysician, but the +warm-hearted and honest pages which follow this opening inspire a deep +respect for the man. He talks of the absurdities of women's education; +draws a bitter picture of a woman's fate in a loveless marriage of +convenience; remarks that esteem is necessary for a happy marriage, but +asks sadly how one is to esteem a mind which has emerged from a +schooling in folly; assails the practice of gallantry, and the +fashionable conjugal infidelities of his day; writes with real +indignation of the dangers to which working-class girls are exposed; +proposes to punish seduction as a crime no less cruel than murder, and +concludes by confessing that he would like to adopt Plato's opinion that +women should share with men in the tasks of government, but dreads the +effects which would flow from the admission of the corrupt ladies of his +day to power. + +Twenty years later this promising beginning bore fruit in the mature and +reasoned pleading of Condorcet for the reform of women's education. +There was no subject on which this noble constructive mind insisted with +such continual emphasis. His feminism (to use an ugly modern word), was +an integral part of his thinking. He remembered women when he wrote of +public affairs as naturally as most men forget them. He deserves in the +gratitude of women a place at least as distinguished as John Stuart +Mill's. The best and fullest statement of his position is to be found in +the report and draft Bill on national education (Sur l'Instruction +Publique), which he prepared for the Revolutionary Convention in 1792 +(see also p. 109). He maintains boldly that the system of national +education should be the same for women as for men. He specially insists +that they should be admitted to the study of the natural sciences (these +were days when it was held that a woman would lose her modesty if she +studied botany), and thinks that they would render useful services to +science, even if they did not attain the first rank. They ought to be +educated for many reasons. They must be able to teach their children. If +they remain ignorant, the curse of inequality will be introduced into +the family, and mothers will be regarded by their sons with contempt. +Nor will men retain their intellectual interests, unless they can share +them with women. Lastly, women have the same natural right to knowledge +and enlightenment as men. The education should be given in common, and +this will powerfully further the interests of morality. The separation +of the sexes in youth really proceeds from the fear of unequal +marriages, in other words, from avarice and pride. It would be dangerous +for a democratic community to allow the spirit of social inequality to +survive among women, with the consequence that it could never be +extirpated among men. Condorcet was not a brilliant writer, but the +humanity and generosity of his thought finds a powerful and reasoned +expression in his sober and somewhat laboured sentences. + +So far a good and enlightened man might go. The substance of all that +need be said against the harem with the door ajar, in which the +eighteenth century had confined the mind if not the body, of women, is +to be found in Holbach and Condorcet. But they wrote from outside. They +were the wise spectators who saw the consequences of the degradation of +women, but did not intimately know its cause. Mary Wollstonecraft's +_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ (1792) is perhaps the most original +book of its century, not because its daring ideas were altogether new, +but because in its pages for the first time a woman was attempting to +use her own mind. Her ideas, as we have seen, were not absolutely new. +They were latent in all the thinking of the revolutionary period. They +had been foreshadowed by Holbach (whom she may have read), by Paine +(whom she had occasionally met), and by Condorcet (whose chief +contribution to the question, written in the same year as her +_Vindication_, she obviously had not read). What was absolutely new in +the world's history was that for the first time a woman dared to sit +down to write a book which was not an echo of men's thinking, nor an +attempt to do rather well what some man had done a little better, but a +first exploration of the problems of society and morals from a +standpoint which recognised humanity without ignoring sex. She showed +her genius not so much in writing the book, which is, indeed, a faulty +though an intensely vital performance, as in thinking out its position +for herself. + +She had her predecessors, but she owed to them little, if anything. +There was not enough in them to have formed her mind, if she had come to +their pages unemancipated. She freed herself from mental slavery, and +the utmost which she can have derived from the two or three men who +professed the same generous opinions, was the satisfaction of +encouragement or confirmation. She owed to others only the powerful +stimulus which the Revolution gave to all bold and progressive thought. +The vitality of her ideas sprang from her own experience. She had +received rather less than was customary of the slipshod superficial +education permitted to girls of the middle classes in her day. With this +nearly useless equipment, she had found herself compelled to struggle +with the world not merely to gain a living, but to rescue a luckless +family from a load of embarrassments and misfortunes. Her father was a +drunkard, idle, improvident, moody and brutal, and as a girl she had +often protected her mother from his violence. A sister had married a +profligate husband, and Mary rescued her from a miserable home, in which +she had been driven to temporary insanity. The sisters had attempted to +live by conducting a suburban school for girls; a brief experience as a +governess in a fashionable family had been even more formative. + +When at length she took to writing and translating educational books, +with the encouragement of a kindly publisher, she was practising under +the stimulus of necessity the doctrine of economic independence, which +became one of the foundations of her teaching. It is the pressure of +economic necessity which in this generation and the last has forced +women into a campaign for freedom and opportunity. What the growth of +the industrial system has done for women in the mass, a hard experience +did for Mary Wollstonecraft. In her own person or through her sisters +she had felt in an aggravated form most of the wrongs to which women +were peculiarly exposed. She had seen the reverse of the shield of +chivalry, and known the domestic tyrannies of a sheltered home. + +The miracle was that Mary Wollstonecraft's mind was never distorted by +bitterness, nor her faith in mankind destroyed by cynicism. Her +personality lives for us still in her own books and in the records of +her friends. Opie's vivid painting hangs in the National Portrait +Gallery to confirm what Godwin tells us of her beauty in his pathetic +_Memoir_ and to remind us of Southey's admiration for her eyes. Godwin +writes of "that smile of bewitching tenderness ... which won, both heart +and soul, the affection of almost every one that beheld it." She was, he +tells us, "in the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her +manners"; and indeed her letters and her books present her to us as a +woman who had courage and independence precisely because she was so +normal, so healthy in mind and body, so richly endowed with a generous +vitality. If she won the hearts of all who knew her, it was because her +own affections were warm and true. She was a good sister, a good +daughter, a passionate lover, an affectionate friend, a devoted and +tender mother. + +She was too real a human being to be misled by the impartialities of +universal benevolence. "Few," she wrote, "have had much affection for +mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, +and even the domestic brutes whom they first played with." That eloquent +trait, her love of animals and her hatred of cruelty, helps to define +her character. She was, says Godwin, "a worshipper of domestic life," +and, for all her proud independence, in love with love. In Godwin's prim +phraseology, she "set a great value on a mutual affection between +persons of an opposite sex, and regarded it as the principal solace of +human life." Indeed, in the _Letters to Imlay_, which appeared after her +death, it is not so much the strength and independence of her final +attitude which impresses us, as her readiness to forgive, her +reluctance to resent his neglect, her affection which could survive so +many proofs of the man's unworthiness. The strongest passion in her +generous nature was maternal tenderness. It won her the enduring love of +the children whom she taught as a governess. It caused her mind to be +busied with the problem of education as its chief preoccupation. It +informs her whole view of the rights and duties of women in her +_Vindication_. It inspired the charming fragment entitled _Lessons for +Little Fanny_, which is one of the most graceful expressions in English +prose of the physical tenderness of a mother's love. If she despised the +artificial sensibility which in her day was admired and cultivated by +women, it was because her own emotions were natural and strong. Her +intellect, which no regular discipline had formed, impressed the +laborious and studious Godwin by its quickness and its flashes of sudden +insight--its "intuitive perception of intellectual beauty." + +The _Vindication_ is certainly among the most remarkable books that have +come down to us from that opulent age. It has in abundance most of the +faults that a book can have. It was hastily written in six weeks. It is +ill-arranged, full of repetitions, full of digressions, and almost +without a regular plan. Its style is unformed, sometimes rhetorical, +sometimes familiar. But with all these faults, it teems with apt +phrases, telling passages, vigorous sentences which sum up in a few +convincing lines the substance of its message. It lacks the neatness, +the athletic movement of Paine's English. It has nothing of the +learning, the formidable argumentative compulsion of Godwin's writing. +But it is sold to-day in cheap editions, while Godwin survives only on +the dustier shelves of old libraries. Its passion and sincerity have +kept it alive. It is the cry of an experience too real, too authentic, +to allow of any meandering down the by-ways of fanciful speculation. It +said with its solitary voice the thing which the main army of thinking +women is saying to-day. There is scarcely a passage of its central +doctrine which the modern leaders of the women's movement would +repudiate or qualify; and there is little if anything which they would +wish to add to it. Writers like Olive Schreiner, Miss Cicely Hamilton, +and Mrs. Gilman have, indeed, a background of historical knowledge, an +evolutionary view of society, a sense of the working of economic causes +which Mary Wollstonecraft did not possess and could not in her age have +acquired, even if she had been what she was not, a woman of learning. +But she has anticipated all their main positions, and formulated the +ideal which the modern movement is struggling to complete. Her book is +dated in every chapter. It is as much a page torn from the journals of +the French Revolution as Paine's _Rights of Man_ or Condorcet's +_Sketch_. And yet it seems, as they do not, a modern book. + +The chief merit of the _Vindication_ is its clear perception that +everything in the future of women depends on the revision of the +attitude of men towards women and of women towards themselves. The rare +men who saw this, from Holbach and Condorcet to Mill, were philosophers. +Mary Wollstonecraft had no pretensions to philosophy. A brilliant +courage gave her in its stead her range and breadth of vision. It would +have been so much easier to write a treatise on education, a plea for +the reform of marriage, or even an argument for the admission of women +to political rights. To the last of these themes she alludes only in a +single sentence: "I may excite laughter, by dropping a hint, which I +mean to pursue, some future time, for I really think that women ought +to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without +having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of +government." She had the insight to perceive that the first task of the +pioneer was to raise the whole broad issue of the subjection of her sex. +She begins by linking her argument with a splendid imprudence to the +revolutionary movement. It had proclaimed the supremacy of reason, and +based freedom on natural right. Why was it that the new Constitution +ignored women? With a fresh simplicity, she appeals to the French +Convention in the name of its own abstract principles, as modern women +appeal (with more experience of the limitations of male logic) to +English Liberalism. But she knew very well what was the enormous +despotism of interest and prejudice that she was attacking. The +sensualist and the tyrant were for her interchangeable terms, and with +great skill she enlists on her side the new passion for liberty. "All +tyrants want to crush reason, from the weak king to the weak father." +She demands the enlightenment of women, as the reformers demanded that +of the masses: "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there +will be an end to blind obedience; but as blind obedience is ever +sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they +endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want +slaves, and the latter a plaything." + +With a shrewd if instinctive insight into social psychology, she traces +to the unenlightened self-interest of the dominant sex the code of +morals which has been imposed upon women. Rousseau supplies her with the +perfect and finished statement of all that she opposed. He and his like +had given a sex to virtue. She takes her stand on a broad human +morality. "Freedom must strengthen the reason of woman until she +comprehend her duty." Against the perverted sex-morality which treated +woman in religion, in ethics, in manners as a being relative only to +men, she directs the whole of her argument. It is "vain to expect virtue +from women, till they are in some degree independent of men." + +"Females have been insulated, as it were, and while they have been +stripped of the virtue that should clothe humanity, they have been +decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short-lived +tyranny.... Their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion instead +of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in +absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of character. Liberty is the +mother of virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, +and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they +must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in +nature.... Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they +are human duties.... If marriage be the cement of society, mankind +should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the +sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship, nor will women ever +fulfil the peculiar duties of their sex, till they become enlightened +citizens, till they become free by being enabled to earn their own +subsistence, independent of men; in the same manner, I mean, to prevent +misconstruction, as one man is independent of another. Nay, marriage +will never be held sacred till women, by being brought up with men, are +prepared to be their companions rather than their mistresses." + +It is a brave but singularly balanced view of human life and society. +There is in it no trace of the dogmatic individualism that distorts the +speculations of Godwin and clogs the more practical thinking of Paine. +It is, indeed, a protest against the exaggeration of sex, which +instilled in women "the desire of being always women." It flouts that +external morality of reputation, which would have a woman always "seem +to be this and that," because her whole status in the world depended on +the opinion which men held of her. It demands in words which anticipate +Ibsen's _Doll's House_, that a woman shall be herself and lead her own +life. But "her own life" was for Mary Wollstonecraft a social life. The +ideal is the perfect companionship of men and women, and the preparation +of men and women, by an equal practice of modesty and chastity, and an +equal advance in education, to be the parents of their children. She is +ready indeed to rest her whole case for the education of women upon the +duties of maternity. "Whatever tends to incapacitate the maternal +character takes woman out of her sphere." The education which she +demanded was the co-education of men and women in common schools. She +attacked the dual standard of sexual morality with a brave plainness of +speech. She demanded the opening of suitable trades and professions to +women. She exposed the whole system which compels women to "live by +their charm." But a less destructive reformer never set out to +overthrow conventions. For her the duty always underlies the right, and +the development of the self-reliant individual is a preparation for the +life of fellowship. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SHELLEY + + +If it were possible to blot out from our mind its memory of the Bible +and of Protestant theology, and with that mind of artificial vacancy to +read _Paradise Lost_ and _Samson Agonistes_, how strange and great and +mad would the genius of Milton appear. We should wonder at his creative +mythological imagination, but we should marvel past all comprehending at +his conceptions of the divine order, and the destiny of man. To attempt +to understand Shelley without the aid of Godwin is a task hardly more +promising than it would be to read Milton without the Bible. + +The parallel is so close that one is tempted to pursue it further, for +there is between these two poets a close sympathy amid glaring +contrasts. Each admitted in spite of his passion for an ideal world an +absorbing concern in human affairs, and a vehement interest in the +contemporary struggle for liberty. If the one was a Republican Puritan +and the other an anarchical atheist, the dress which their passion for +liberty assumed was the uniform of the day. Neither was an original +thinker. Each steeped himself in the classics. But more important even +than the classics in the influences which moulded their minds, were the +dogmatic systems to which they attached themselves. It is not the power +of novel and pioneer thought which distinguishes a philosophical from a +purely sensuous mind. Shelley no more innovated or created in +metaphysics or politics than did Milton. But each had, with his gift of +imagery, and his power of musical speech, an intellectual view of the +universe. The name of Milton suggests to us eloquent rhythms and images +which pose like Grecian sculpture. But Milton's world was the world as +the grave, gowned men saw it who composed the Westminster Confession. +The name of Shelley rings like the dying fall of a song, or floats +before our eyes amid the faery shapes of wind-tossed clouds. But +Shelley's world was the world of the utilitarian Godwin and the +mathematical Condorcet. The supremacy of an intellectual vision is not a +common characteristic among poets, but it raises Milton and Shelley to +the choir in which Dante and Goethe are leaders. For Keats beauty was +truth, and that was all he cared to know. Coleridge, indeed, was a +metaphysician of some pretensions, but the "honey dew" on which he fed +when he wrote _Christabel_ and _Kubla Khan_ was not the _Critique of +Pure Reason_. But to Shelley _Political Justice_ was the veritable "milk +of paradise." We must drink of it ourselves if we would share his +banquet. Godwin in short explains Shelley, and it is equally true that +Shelley is the indispensable commentary to Godwin. For all that was +living and human in the philosopher he finds imaginative expression. His +mind was a selective soil, in which only good seed could germinate. The +flowers wear the colour of life and emotion. In the clear light of his +verse, gleaming in their passionate hues, they display for us their +values. Some of them, the bees of a working hive will consent to +fertilise; from others they will turn decidedly away. Shelley is +Godwin's fertile garden. From another standpoint he is the desert which +Godwin laid waste. + +It is, indeed, the commonplace of criticism to insist on the reality +which the ideal world possessed for Shelley. Other poets have +illustrated thought by sensuous imagery. To Shelley, thought alone was +the essential thing. A good impulse, a dream, an idea, were for him +what a Centaur or a Pegasus were for common fancy. He sees in +_Prometheus Unbound_ a spirit who + + Speeded hither on the sigh + Of one who gave an enemy + His plank, then plunged aside to die. + +Another spirit rides on a sage's "dream with plumes of flame"; and a +third tells how a poet + + Will watch from dawn to gloom + The lake-reflected sun illume, + The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, + Nor heed, nor see, what things they be; + But from these create he can + Forms more real than living man, + Nurslings of immortality. + +How naturally from Shelley's imagination flowed the lines about Keats:-- + + All he had loved and moulded into thought + From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound + Lamented Adonais. + + +This was no rhetoric, no affectation of fancy. Shelley saw the immortal +shapes of "Desires and Adorations" lamenting over the bier of the mortal +Keats, because for him an idea or a passion was incomparably more real +and more comprehensible than the things of flesh and earth, of whose +existence the senses persuade us. To such a mind philosophy was not a +distant world to be entered with diffident and halting feet, ever ready +to retreat at the first alarm of commonsense. It was his daily +habitation. He lived in it, and guided himself by its intellectual +compass among the perils and wonders of life, as naturally as other men +feel their way by touch. This ardent, sensitive, emotional nature, with +all its gift of lyrical speech and passionate feeling, was in fact the +ideal man of the Godwinian conception, who lives by reason and obeys +principles. Three men in modern times have achieved a certain fame by +their rigid obedience to "rational" conceptions of conduct--Thomas Day, +who wrote _Sandford and Merton_, Bentham, and Herbert Spencer. But the +erratic, fanciful Shelley was as much the enthusiastic slave of reason, +as any of these three; and he seemed erratic only because to be +perfectly rational is in this world the wildest form of eccentricity. He +came upon _Political Justice_ while he was still a school-boy at Eton; +and his diaries show that there hardly passed a year of his life in +which he omitted to re-read it. Its phraseology colours his prose; his +mind was built upon it, as Milton's was upon the Bible. We hardly +require his own confession to assure us of the debt. "The name of +Godwin," he wrote in 1812, "has been used to excite in me feelings of +reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him a +luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him. From the +earliest period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently +desired to share on the footing of intimacy that intellect which I have +delighted to contemplate in its emanations. Considering then, these +feelings, you will not be surprised at the inconceivable emotions with +which I learnt your existence and your dwelling. I had enrolled your +name in the list of the honourable dead. I had felt regret that the +glory of your being had passed from this earth of ours. It is not so. +You still live, and I firmly believe are still planning the welfare of +human kind." + +The enthusiastic youth was to learn that his master's preoccupation was +with concerns more sordid and more pressing than the welfare of human +kind; but if close personal intercourse brought some disillusionment +regarding Godwin's private character, it only deepened his intellectual +influence, and confirmed Shelley's lifelong adhesion to his system. No +contemporary thinker ever contested Godwin's empire over Shelley's +mind; and if in later years Plato claimed an ever-growing share in his +thoughts, we must remember that in several of his fundamental tenets +Godwin was a Platonist without knowing it. It is only in his purely +personal utterances, in the lyrics which rendered a mood or an +impression, or in such fancies as the _Witch of Atlas_, that Shelley can +escape from the obsession of _Political Justice_. The voice of Godwin +does not disturb us in _The Skylark_, and it is silenced by the violent +passions of _The Cenci_. But in all the more formal and graver +utterances of Shelley's genius, from _Queen Mab_ to _Hellas_, it +supplies the theme and Shelley writes the variations. _Queen Mab_, +indeed, is nothing but a fervent lad's attempt to state in verse the +burden of Godwin's prose. Some passages in it (notably the lines about +commerce) are a mere paraphrase or summary of pages from _The Enquirer_ +or _Political Justice_. In the _Revolt of Islam_, and still more in +_Prometheus Unbound_, Shelley's imagination is becoming its own master. +The variations are more important, more subtle, more beautiful than the +theme; but still the theme is there, a precise and definite dogma for +fancy to embroider. It is only in _Hellas_ that Shelley's power of +narrative (in Hassan's story), his irrepressible lyrical gift, and his +passion which at length could speak in its own idiom, combine to make a +masterpiece which owes to Godwin only some general ideas. If the +transcript became less literal, it was not that the influence had waned. +It was rather that Shelley was gaining the full mastery of his own +native powers of expression. In these poems he assumes or preaches all +Godwin's characteristic doctrines, perfectibility, non-resistance, +anarchism, communism, the power of reason and the superiority of +persuasion over force, universal benevolence, and the ascription of +moral evil to the desolating influence of "positive institution." + +The general agreement is so obvious that one need hardly illustrate it. +What is more curious is the habit which Shelley acquired of reproducing +even the minor opinions or illustrations which had struck him in his +continual reading of Godwin. When Mammon advises Swellfoot the Tyrant to +refresh himself with + + A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook + Such as is served at the Great King's second table. + The price and pains which its ingredients cost + Might have maintained some dozen families + A winter or two--not more. + +he is simply making an ironical paraphrase from Godwin. The fine scene +in Canto XI. of the _Revolt of Islam_, in which Laon, confronting the +tyrant on his throne, quells by a look and a word a henchman who was +about to stab him, is a too brief rendering of Godwin's reflections on +the story of Marius and the Executioner (see p. 128). + + And one more daring, raised his steel anew + To pierce the stranger: "What hast thou to do + With me, poor wretch?"--calm, solemn and severe + That voice unstrung his sinews, and he threw + His dagger on the ground, and pale with fear, + Sate silently. + + +The pages of Shelley are littered with such reminiscences. + +Matthew Arnold said of Shelley that he was "a beautiful and ineffectual +angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain." One is tempted to +retort that to be beautiful is in itself to escape futility, and to +people a void with angels is to be far from ineffectual. But the +metaphor is more striking as phrase-making than as criticism. The world +into which the angel fell, wide-eyed, indignant, and surprised, was not +a void. It was a nightmare composed of all the things which to common +mortals are usual, normal, inevitable--oppressions and wars, follies and +crimes, kings and priests, hangmen and inquisitors, poverty and luxury. +If he beat his wings in this cage of horrors, it was with the rage and +terror of a bird which belongs to the free air. Shelley, Matthew Arnold +held, was not quite sane. Sanity is a capacity for becoming accustomed +to the monstrous. Not time nor grey hairs could bring that kind of +sanity to Shelley's clear-sighted madness. If he must be compared to an +angel, Mr. Wells has drawn him for us. He was the angel whom a country +clergyman shot in mistake for a buzzard, in that graceful satire, _The +Wonderful Visit_. Brought to earth by this mischance, he saw our follies +and our crimes without the dulling influence of custom. Satirists have +loved to imagine such a being. Voltaire drew him with as much wit as +insight in _L'Ingenu_--the American savage who landed in France, and +made the amazing discovery of civilisation. Shelley had not dropped from +the clouds nor voyaged from the backwoods, but he seems always to be +discovering civilisation with a fresh wonder and an insatiable +indignation. + +One may doubt whether a saint has ever lived more selfless, more devoted +to the beauty of virtue; but one quality Shelley lacked which is +commonly counted a virtue. He had none of that imaginative sympathy +which can make its own the motives and desires of other men. +Self-interest, intolerance and greed he understood as little as common +men understand heroism and devotion. He had no mean powers of +observation. He saw the world as it was, and perhaps he rather +exaggerated than minimised its ugliness. But it never struck him that +its follies and crimes were human failings and the outcome of anything +that is natural in the species. The doctrines of perfectibility and +universal benevolence clothed themselves for him in the Godwinian +phraseology, but they were the instinctive beliefs of his temperament. +So sure was he of his own goodness, so natural was it with him to love +and to be brave, that he unhesitatingly ascribed all the evil of the +world to the working of some force which was unnatural, accidental, +anti-human. If he had grown up a mediaeval Christian, he would have found +no difficulty in blaming the Devil. The belief was in his heart; the +formula was Godwin's. For the wonder, the miracle of all this unnatural, +incomprehensible evil in the world, he found a complete explanation in +the doctrine that "positive institutions" have poisoned and distorted +the natural good in man. After a gloomy picture in _Queen Mab_ of all +the oppressions which are done under the sun, he suddenly breaks away to +absolve nature: + + Nature!--No! + Kings, priests and statesmen blast the human flower + Even in its tender bud; their influence darts + Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins + Of desolate society.... + Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man + Inherits vice and misery, when force + And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe + Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good. + + +It is a stimulating doctrine, for if humanity had only to rid itself of +kings and priests, the journey to perfection would be at once brief and +eventful. As a sociological theory it is unluckily unsatisfying. There +is, after all, nothing more natural than a king. He is a zoological +fact, with his parallel in every herd of prairie dogs. Nor is there +anything much more human than the tendency to convention which gives to +institutions their rigidity. If force and imposture have had a share in +the making of kings and priests, it is equally true that they are the +creation of the servility and superstition of the mass of men. The +eighteenth century chose to forget that man is a gregarious animal. +Oppression and priestcraft are the transitory forms in which the flock +has sought to cement its union. But the modern world is steeped in the +lore of anthropology; there is little need to bring its heavy guns to +bear upon the slender fabric of Shelley's dream. _Queen Mab_ was a +boy's precocious effort, and in later verses Shelley put the case for +his view of evil in a more persuasive form. He is now less concerned to +declare that it is unnatural, than to insist that it flows from defects +in men which are not inherent or irremovable. The view is stated with +pessimistic malice by a Fury in _Prometheus Unbound_ after a vision of +slaughter. + + FURY. + + Blood thou can'st see, and fire; and can'st hear groans. + Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind. + + + PROMETHEUS. + + Worse? + + + FURY. + + In each human heart terror survives + The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear, + All that they would disdain to think were true: + Hypocrisy and custom make their minds + The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. + They dare not devise good for man's estate, + And yet they know not that they do not dare. + The good want power, but to weep barren tears. + The powerful goodness want--worse need for them. + The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom. + And all best things are thus confused to ill. + Many are strong and rich, and would be just, + But live among their suffering fellow-men + As if none felt; they know not what they do. + + +Shelley so separated the good and evil in the world, that he was +presently vexed as acutely as any theist with the problem of accounting +for evil. Paine felt no difficulty in his sharp, positive mind. He +traced all the wrongs of society to the egoism of priests and kings; +and, since he did not assume the fundamental goodness of human nature, +it troubled none of his theories to accept the crude primitive fact of +self-interest. What Shelley would really have said in answer to a +question about the origin of evil, if we had found him in a prosaic +mood, it is hard to guess, and the speculation does not interest us. +Shelley's prose opinions were of no importance. What we do trace in his +poetry is a tendency, half conscious, uttering itself only in figures +and parables, to read the riddle of the universe as a struggle between +two hostile principles. In the world of prose he called himself an +atheist. He rejoiced in the name, and used it primarily as a challenge +to intolerance. "It is a good word of abuse to stop discussion," he said +once to his friend Trelawny, "a painted devil to frighten the foolish, a +threat to intimidate the wise and good. I used it to express my +abhorrence of superstition. I took up the word as a knight takes up a +gauntlet in defiance of injustice." + +Shelley was an atheist because Christians used the name of God to +sanctify persecution. That was really his ultimate emotional reason. His +mythology, when he came to paint the world in myths, was Manichean. His +creed was an ardent dualism, in which a God and an anti-God contend and +make history. But in his mood of revolt it suited him to confuse the +names and the symbols. The snake is everywhere in his poems the +incarnation of good, and if we ask why, there is probably no other +reason than that the Hebrew mythology against which he revolted, had +taken it as the symbol of evil. The legitimate Gods in his Pantheon are +always in the wrong. He belongs to the cosmic party of opposition, and +the Jupiter of his _Prometheus_ is morally a temporarily omnipotent +devil. Like Godwin he felt that the God of orthodoxy was a "tyrant," and +he revolted against Him, because he condemned the world which He had +made. + +The whole point of view, as it concerns Christian theology, is stated +with a bitter clearness, in the speech of Ahasuerus in _Queen Mab_. The +first Canto of the _Revolt of Islam_ puts the position of dualism +without reserve: + + Know, then, that from the depths of ages old + Two Powers o'er mortal things dominion hold, + Ruling the world with a divided lot, + Immortal, all-pervading, manifold, + Twin Genii, equal Gods--when life and thought + Sprang forth, they burst the womb of inessential Nought. + +The good principle was the Morning Star (as though to remind us of +Lucifer) until his enemy changed him to the form of a snake. The +anti-God, whom men worship blindly as God, holds sway over our world. +Terror, madness, crime, and pain are his creation, and Asia in +_Prometheus_ cries aloud-- + + Utter his name: a world pining in pain + Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down. + + +In the sublime mythology of _Prometheus_ the war of God and anti-God is +seen visibly, making the horrors of history. As Jupiter's Furies rend +the heart of the merciful Titan chained to his rock on Caucasus, murders +and crucifixions are enacted in the world below. The mythical cruelties +in the clouds are the shadows of man's sufferings below; and they are +also the cause. A mystical parallelism links the drama in Heaven with +the tragedy on earth; we suffer from the malignity of the World's Ruler, +and triumph by the endurance of Man's Saviour. + +Nothing could be more absurd than to call Shelley a Pantheist. Pantheism +is the creed of conservatism and resignation. Shelley felt the world as +struggle and revolt, and like all the poets, he used Heaven as the vast +canvas on which to paint with a demonic brush an heroic idealisation of +what he saw below. It would be interesting to know whether any human +heart, however stout and rebellious, when once it saw the cosmic process +as struggle, has ever been able to think of the issue as uncertain. +Certainly for Shelley there was never a doubt about the final triumph of +good. Godwin qualified his agnosticism by supposing that there was a +tendency in things (he would not call it spiritual, or endow it with +mind) which somehow cooperates with us and assures the victory of life +(see p. 184). One seems to meet this vague principle, this reverend +Thing, in Shelley's Demogorgon, the shapeless, awful negation which +overthrows the maleficent Jupiter, and with his fall inaugurates the +golden age. The strange name of Demogorgon has probably its origin in +the clerical error of some mediaeval copyist, fumbling with the scholia +of an anonymous grammarian. One can conceive that it appealed to +Shelley's wayward fancy because it suggested none of the traditional +theologies; and certainly it has a mysterious and venerable sound. +Shelley can describe It only as Godwin describes his principle by a +series of negatives. + + I see a mighty darkness + Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom + Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, + Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb, + Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is + A living spirit. + + +It is the eternal =X= which the human spirit always assumes when it is at +a loss to balance its equations. Demogorgon is, because if It were not, +our strivings would be a battle in the mist, with no clear trumpet-note +that promised triumph. Shelley, turning amid his singing to the +supremest of all creative work, the making of a mythology, invents his +God very much as those detested impostors, the primitive priests, had +done. He gives Humanity a friendly Power as they had endowed their tribe +with a god of battles. Humanity at grips with chaos is curiously like a +nigger clan in the bush. It needs a fetish of victory. But a poet's +mythology is to be judged by its fruits. A faith is worth the cathedral +it builds. A myth is worth the poem it inspires. + +If Shelley's ultimate view of reality is vague, a thing to be shadowed +in myths and hinted in symbols, there is nothing indefinite in his view +of the destinies of mankind. Here he marched behind Godwin, and Godwin +hated vagueness. His intellect had assimilated all the steps in the +argument for perfectibility. It emerges in places in its most dogmatic +form. Institutions make us what we are, and to free us from their +shackles is to liberate virtue and unleash genius. He pauses midway in +the preface to _Prometheus_ to assure us that, if England were divided +into forty republics, each would produce philosophers and poets as great +and numerous as those of Athens. The road to perfection, however, is not +through revolution, but by the gradual extirpation of error. When he +writes in prose, he expresses himself with all the rather affected +intellectualism of the Godwinian psychology. "Revenge and retaliation," +he remarks in the preface to _The Cenci_ "are pernicious _mistakes_." +But temperament counts for something even in a disciple so devout as +Shelley. He had an intellectual view of the world; but, when once the +rhythm of his musical verse had excited his mind to be itself, the force +and simplicity of his emotion transfuse and transform these +abstractions. Godwin's "universal benevolence" was with him an ardent +affectionate love for his kind. Godwin's cold precept that it was the +duty of an illuminated understanding to contribute towards the progress +of enquiry, by arguing about perfection and the powers of the mind in +select circles of friends who meet for debate, but never (virtue +forbids) for action, became for him a zealous missionary call. + +One smiles, with his irreverent yet admiring biographers, at the early +escapades of the married boy--the visit to Dublin at the height of the +agitation for Catholic emancipation, the printing of his Address to the +Irish Nation, and his trick of scattering it by flinging copies from his +balcony at passers-by, his quaint attempts to persuade grave Catholic +noblemen that what they ought really to desire was a total and rapid +transformation of the whole fabric of society, his efforts to found an +association for the moral regeneration of mankind, and his elfish +amusement of launching the truth upon the waters in the form of +pamphlets sealed up in bottles. Shelley at this age perpetrated "rags" +upon the universe, much as commonplace youths make hay of their fellows' +rooms. It is amusing to read the solemn letters in which Godwin, +complacently accepting the post of mentor, tells Shelley that he is +much too young to reform the world, urges him to acquire a vicarious +maturity by reading history, and refers him to _Political Justice +passim_ for the arguments which demonstrate the error of any attempt to +improve mankind by forming political associations. + +It is questionable how far the world has to thank Godwin for dissuading +ardent young men from any practical effort to realise their ideals. It +is just conceivable that, if the generation which hailed him as prophet +had been stimulated by him to do something more than fold its hands in +an almost superstitious veneration for the Slow Approach of Truth, there +might have arisen under educated leaders some movement less class-bound +than Whig Reform, less limited than the Corn Law agitation, and more +intelligent than Chartism. But, if politics lost by Godwin's quietism, +literature gained. It was Godwin's mission in life to save poets from +Botany Bay; he rescued Shelley, as he had rescued Southey and Coleridge. +It was by scattering his pity and his sympathy on every living creature +around him, and squandering his fortune and his expectations in charity, +while he dodged the duns and lived on bread and tea, that Shelley +followed in action the principles of universal benevolence. Godwin +omitted the beasts; but Shelley, practising vegetarianism and buying +crayfish in order to return them to the river, realised the "boast" of +the poet in _Alastor_:-- + + If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast + I consciously have injured, but still loved + And cherished these my kindred-- + + +We hear of his gifts of blankets to the poor lace-makers at Marlow, and +meet him stumbling home barefoot in mid-winter because he had given his +boots to a poor woman. + +Perhaps the most characteristic picture of this aspect of Shelley is +Leigh Hunt's anecdote of a scene on Hampstead Heath. Finding a poor +woman in a fit on the top of the Heath, Shelley carries her in his arms +to the lighted door of the nearest house, and begs for shelter. The +householder slams it in his face, with an "impostors swarm everywhere," +and a "Sir, your conduct is extraordinary." + +"Sir," cried Shelley, "I am sorry to say that _your_ conduct is not +extraordinary.... It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the +patience of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes in +this country (which is very probable), recollect what I tell you. You +will have your house, that you refuse to put this miserable woman into, +burnt over your head." + +It must have been about this very time that the law of England (quite +content to regard the owner of the closed door as a virtuous citizen) +decided that the Shelley who carried this poor stranger into shelter, +fetched a doctor, and out of his own poverty relieved her direr need, +was unfit to bring up his own children. + +If Shelley allowed himself to be persuaded by Godwin to abandon his +missionary adventures, he pursued the ideal in his poems. Whether by +Platonic influence, or by the instinct of his own temperament, he moves +half-consciously from the Godwinian notion that mankind are to be +reasoned into perfection. The contemplation of beauty is with him the +first stage in the progress towards reasoned virtue. "My purpose," he +writes in the preface to _Prometheus_, "has been ... to familiarise ... +poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware +that, until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and +endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the +highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, +although they would bear the harvest of his happiness." It was for want +of virtue, as Mary Wollstonecraft reflected, writing sadly after the +Terror, that the French Revolution had failed. The lesson of all the +horrors of oppression and reaction which Shelley described, the comfort +of all the listening spirits who watch from their mental eyries the slow +progress of mankind to perfection, the example of martyred +patriots--these tend always to the moral which Demogorgon sums up at the +end of the unflagging, unearthly beauties of the last triumphant act of +_Prometheus Unbound_: + + To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; + To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; + To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; + To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates + From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; + Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; + This like thy glory, Titan! is to be + Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; + This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. + + +To suffer, to forgive, to love, but above all, to defy--that was for +Shelley the whole duty of man. + +In two peculiarities, which he constantly emphasised, Shelley's view of +progress differed at once from Godwin's conception, and from the notion +of a slow evolutionary growth which the men of to-day consider +historical he traced the impulse which is to lead mankind to perfection, +to the magnetic leading of chosen and consecrated spirits. He saw the +process of change not as a slow evolution (as moderns do), nor yet as +the deliberate discarding of error at the bidding of rational argument +(as Godwin did), but rather as a sudden emotional conversion. The +missionary is always the light-bringer. "Some eminent in virtue shall +start up," he prophesies in _Queen Mab_. The _Revolt of Islam_, so +puzzling to the uninitiated reader by the wilful inversions of its +mythology, and its history which seems to belong to no conceivable race +of men, becomes, when one grasps its underlying ideas, a luminous epic +of revolutionary faith, precious if only because it is told in that +elaborately musical Spenserian stanza which no poet before or after +Shelley has handled with such easy mastery. Their mission to free their +countrymen comes to Laon and Cythna while they are still children, +brooding over the slavery of modern Greece amid the ruins of a free +past. They dream neither of teaching nor of fighting. They are the +winged children of Justice and Truth, whose mere words can scatter the +thrones of the oppressor, and trample the last altar in the dust. It is +enough to speak the name of Liberty in a ship at sea, and all the coasts +around it will thrill with the rumour of her name. In one moving, +eloquent harangue, Cythna converts the sailors of the ship, laden with +slaves and the gains of commerce, into the pioneers of her army. She +paints to them the misery of their own lot, and then appeals to the +central article of revolutionary faith: + + This need not be; ye might arise and will + That gold should lose its power and thrones their glory. + That love which none may bind be free to fill + The world like light; and evil faith, grown hoary + With crime, be quenched and die. + + +"Ye might arise and will"--it was the inevitable corollary of the facile +analysis which traced all the woes of mankind not to "nature," but to +kings, priests, and institutions. Shelley's missionaries of liberty +preach to a nation of slaves, as the apostles of the Salvation Army +preach in the slums to creatures reared in degradation, the same +mesmeric appeal. Conversion is a psychological possibility, and the +history of revolutions teaches its limitations and its power as +instructively as the history of religion. It breaks down not because men +are incapable of the sudden effort that can "arise and will," but +rather because to render its effects permanent, it must proceed to +regiment the converts in organised associations, which speedily develop +all the evils that have ruined the despotism it set out to overthrow. + +The interest of this revolutionary epic lies largely in the marriage of +Godwin's ideas with Mary Wollstonecraft's, which in the second +generation bears its full imaginative fruit. The most eloquent verses +are those which describe Cythna's leadership of the women in the +national revolt, and enforce the theme "Can man be free, if woman be a +slave?" Not less characteristic is the Godwinian abhorrence of violence, +and the Godwinian trust in the magic of courageous passivity. Laon finds +the revolutionary hosts about to slaughter their vanquished oppressors, +and persuades them to mercy and fraternity with the appeal. + + O wherefore should ill ever flow from ill + And pain still keener pain for ever breed. + + +He pardons and spares the tyrant himself; and Cythna shames the slaves +who are sent to bind her, until they weep in a sudden perception of the +beauty of virtue and courage. When the reaction breaks at length upon +the victorious liberators, they stand passive to be hewn down, as +Shelley, in the _Masque of Anarchy_, written after Peterloo, advised +the English reformers to do. + + With folded arms and steady eyes, + And little fear and less surprise, + Look upon them as they slay, + Till their rage has died away. + + Then they will return with shame + To the place from which they came, + And the blood thus shed will speak + In hot blushes on their cheek. + + +The simple stanzas might have been written by Blake. There is something +in the primitive Christianity of this aggressive Atheist which breathes +the childlike innocence of the Kingdom of Heaven. Shelley dreamed of "a +nation made free by love." With a strange mystical insight, he stepped +beyond the range of the Godwinian ethics, when he conceived of his +humane missionaries as victims who offer themselves a living sacrifice +for the redemption of mankind. Prometheus chained to his rock, because +he loved and defied, by some inscrutable magic of destiny, brings at +last by his calm endurance the consummation of the Golden Age. Laon +walks voluntarily on to the pile which the Spanish inquisitor had heaped +for him; and Cythna flings herself upon the flames in a last +affirmation of the power of self-sacrifice and the beauty of +comradeship. + +Thrice Shelley essayed to paint the state of perfection which mankind +might attain, when once it should "arise and will." The first of the +three pictures is the most literally Godwinian. It is the boyish sketch +of _Queen Mab_, with pantisocracy faithfully touched in, and Godwin's +speculations on the improvement of the human frame suggested in a few +pregnant lines. One does not feel that Shelley's mind is even yet its +own master in the firmer and maturer picture which concludes the third +act of _Prometheus Unbound_. He is still repeating a lesson, and it +calls forth less than the full powers of his imagination. The picture of +perfection itself is cold, negative, and mediocre. The real genius of +the poet breaks forth only when he allows himself in the fourth act to +sing the rapture of the happy spirits who "bear Time to his tomb in +eternity," while they circle in lyrical joy around the liberated earth. +There sings Shelley. The picture itself is a faithful illustration +etched with a skilful needle to adorn the last chapter of _Political +Justice_. Evil is once more and always something factitious and +unessential. The Spirit of the Earth sees the "ugly human shapes and +visages" which men had worn in the old bad days float away through the +air like chaff on the wind. They were no more than masks. Thrones are +kingless, and forthwith men walk in upright equality, neither fawning +nor trembling. Republican sincerity informs their speech: + + None talked that common false cold hollow talk + Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes. + +Women are "changed to all they dared not be," and "speak the wisdom once +they could not think." "Thrones, altars, judgment-seats and prisons," +and all the "tomes of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance" cumber the +ground like the unnoticed ruins of a barbaric past. + + The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains + Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man + Equal, unclassed, tribeless and nationless + Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king + Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man + Passionless. + + +The story ends there, and if we do not so much as wait for the assurance +that man passionless, tribeless, and nationless lived happily ever +afterwards, it is because we are unable to feel even this faint interest +in his destiny. There is something amiss with an ideal which is +constrained to express itself in negatives. What should be the climax of +a triumphant argument becomes its refutation. To reduce ourselves to +this abstract quintessential man might be euthanasia. It would not be +paradise. + +The third of Shelley's visions of perfection is the climax of _Hellas_. +One feels in attempting to make about _Hellas_ any statement in bald +prose, the same sense of baffled incompetence that a modest mind +experiences in attempting to describe music. One reads what the critics +have written about Beethoven's Heroic Symphony, to close the page +wondering that men with ears should have dared to write it. The +insistent rhythm beats in your blood, the absorbing melodies obsess your +brain, and you turn away realising that emotion, when it can find a +channel of sense, has a power which defies the analytic understanding. +_Hellas_, in a sense, is absolute poetry, as the "Eroica" is absolute +music. Ponder a few lines in one of the choruses which seem to convey a +definite idea, and against your will the elaborate rhythms and rhymes +will carry you along, until thought ceases and only the music and the +picture hold your imagination. + +And yet Shelley meant something as certainly as Beethoven did. Nowhere +is his genius so realistic, so closely in touch with contemporary fact, +yet nowhere does he soar so easily into his own ideal world. He +conceived it while Mavrocordato, about to start to fight for the +liberation of Greece, was paying daily visits to Shelley's circle at +Pisa. The events in Turkey, now awful, now hopeful, were before him as +crude facts in the newspaper. The historians of classical Greece were +his continual study. As he steeped himself in Plato, a world of ideal +forms opened before him in a timeless heaven as real as history, as +actual as the newspapers. _Hellas_ is the vision of a mind which touches +fact through sense, but makes of sense the gate and avenue into an +immortal world of thought. Past and present and future are fused in one +glowing symphony. The Sultan is no more real than Xerxes, and the golden +consummation glitters with a splendour as dazzling and as present as the +Age of Pericles. For Shelley, this denial of time had become a conscious +doctrine. Berkeley and Plato had become for him in his later years +influences as intimate as Godwin. Again and again in his later poems, he +turns from the cruelties and disappointments of the world, from death +and decay and failure, no longer with revolt and anger, but with a +serene contempt. Thought is the only reality; time with its appearance +of mortality is the dream and the illusion. Says Ahasuerus in _Hellas_: + + The future and the past are idle shadows + Of thought's eternal flight. + +The moral rings out at the end of "The Sensitive Plant" with an almost +conversational simplicity; + + Death itself must be, + Like all the rest, a mockery. + +Most eloquent of all are the familiar lines in _Adonais_: + + 'Tis we who lost in stormy visions keep + With phantoms an unprofitable strife, + +and again: + + The One remains, the many change and pass. + Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly; + Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, + Stains the white radiance of eternity. + + +In all the musical and visionary glory of _Hellas_ we seem to hear a +subtle dialogue. It never reaches a conclusion. It never issues in a +dogma. The oracle is dumb, and the end of it all is rather like a +prayer. At one moment Shelley toys with the dreary sublimity of the +Stoic notion of world-cycles. The world in the Stoic cosmogony followed +its destined course, until at last the elemental fire consumed it in the +secular blaze, which became for mediaeval Christianity the _Dies irae_. +And then once more it rose from the conflagration to repeat its own +history again, and yet again, and for ever with an ineluctable fidelity. +That nightmare haunts Shelley in _Hellas_: + + Worlds on worlds are rolling ever + From creation to decay, + Like the bubbles on a river, + Sparkling, bursting, borne away. + +The thought returns to him in the final chorus like the "motto" of a +symphony; and he sings it in a triumphant major key: + + The world's great age begins anew, + The golden years return, + The earth doth like a snake renew + Her winter weeds outworn. + Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam + Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. + + +He is filled with the afflatus of prophecy, and there flow from his +lips, as if in improvisation, surely the most limpid, the most +spontaneous stanzas in our language: + + A brighter Hellas rears its mountains + From waves serener far. + +He sings happily and, as it were, incautiously of Tempe and Argo, of +Orpheus and Ulysses, and then the jarring note of fear is heard: + + O write no more the tale of Troy + If earth Death's scroll must be, + Nor mix with Laian rage the joy + Which dawns upon the free. + + +He has turned from the empty abstraction of the Godwinian vision of +perfection. He dissolves empires and faiths, it is true. But his +imagination calls for action and movement. The New Philosophy had driven +history out of the picture. This lyrical vision restores it, whole, +complete, and literal. The wealth of the concrete takes its revenge upon +the victim of abstraction. The men of his golden age are no longer +tribeless and nationless. They are Greeks. He has peopled his future; +but, as the picture hardens into detail, he seems to shrink from it. +That other earlier theme of his symphony recurs. His chorus had sung: + + Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind. + The foul cubs like their parents are, + Their den is in their guilty mind, + And conscience feeds them with despair. + +Some end there must be to the _perpetuum mobile_ of wrong and revenge. +And yet it seems to be in human affairs the very principle of motion. +He ends with a cry and a prayer, and a clouded vision. The infinity of +evil must be stayed, but what if its cessation means extinction? + + O cease! must hate and death return? + Cease! must men kill and die? + Cease! Drain not to its dregs the urn + Of bitter prophecy. + The world is weary of the past + O might it die, or rest at last. + + +Never were there simpler verses in a great song. But he were a bold man +who would pretend to know quite certainly what they mean. Shelley is not +sure whether his vision of perfection will be embodied in the earth. For +a moment he seems to hope that Greece will renew her glories. For one +fleeting instant--how ironical the vision seems to us--he conceives that +she may be re-incarnated in America. But there is a deeper doubt than +this in the prophet's mind. He is not sure that he wants to see the +Golden Age founded anew in the perilous world of fact. There is a +pattern of the perfect society laid up in Heaven, or if that phrase by +familiarity has lost its meaning, let us say rather that the Republic +exists firmly founded in the human mind itself: + + But Greece and her foundations are + Built below the tide of war, + Based on the crystalline sea + Of thought and its eternity. + +Again, and yet again, he tells us that the heavenly city, the New +Athens, "the kingless continents, sinless as Eden" shine in no common +day, beside no earthly sea: + + If Greece must be + A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, + And build themselves impregnably + In a diviner clime, + To Amphionic music on some cape sublime + Which frowns above the idle foam of Time. + +Is it only an eloquent phrase, which satisfies us, by its beautiful +words, we know not why, as the chords that make the "full close" in +music content us? Or shall we re-interpret it in our own prose? Where +any mind strives after justice, where any soul suffers and loves and +defies, there is the ideal Republic. + + * * * * * + +We have moved from Dr. Price's sermon to Shelley's chorus. The eloquent +old man, preaching in the first flush of hope that came with the new +time, conceived that his eyes had seen the great salvation. The day of +tyrants and priests was already over, and before the earth closed on his +grave, a free Europe would be linked in a confederacy that had abolished +war. A generation passed, and the winged victory is now a struggling +hope, her pinions singed with the heat of battle, her song mingled with +the rumour of massacre, speeding, a fugitive from fact, to the diviner +climes of an ideal world. The logic of the revolution has worked to its +predestined conclusion. It dreamed too eagerly of the end. It thought in +indictments. It packed the present on its tumbrils, and cleared away the +past with its dialectical guillotine. When the present was condemned and +the past buried, the future had somehow eluded it. It executed the +mother, and marvelled that the child should die. + +The human mind can never be satisfied with the mere assurance that +sooner or later the golden years will come. The mere lapse of time is in +itself intolerable. If our waking life and our years of action are to +regain a meaning, we must perceive that the process of evolution is +itself significant and interesting. We are to-day so penetrated with +that thought, that the notion of a state of perfection in the future +seems to us as inconceivable and as little interesting as Rousseau's +myth of a state of innocence in the past. We know very well that our +ideal, whether we see it in the colours of Plato or Godwin or William +Morris, does but measure the present development of our faculties. Long +before the dream is realised in fact, a new horizon will have been +unfolded before the imagination of mankind. + +What is of value in this endless process is precisely the unfolding of +ideals which record themselves, however imperfectly, in institutions, +and still more the developing sense of comradeship and sympathy which +links us in relations of justice and love with every creature that +feels. We are old enough to pass lightly over the enthusiastic paradoxes +that intoxicated the youth of the progressive idea. It is a truth that +outworn institutions fetter and dwarf the mind of man. It is also a +truth that institutions have moulded and formed that mind. To condemn +the past is in the same breath to blast the future. The true basis for +that piety towards our venerable inheritance which Burke preached, is +that it has made for us the possibility of advance. + +But our strivings would be languid, our march would be slow, were it not +for the revolutionary leaven which Godwin's generation set fermenting. +They taught how malleable and plastic is the human mind. They saw that +by a resolute effort to change the environment of institutions and +customs which educate us, we can change ourselves. They liberated us not +so much from "priests and kings" as from the deadlier tyranny of the +belief that human nature, with all its imperfections, is an innate +character which it were vain to hope to reform. Their teaching is a +tonic to the will, a reminder still eloquent, still bracing, that among +the forces which make history the chief is the persuasion of the +understanding, the conscious following of a rational ideal. From much +that is iconoclastic and destructive in their ideal we may turn away +unconvinced. There remain its ardent statement of the duty of humanity, +which shames our practice after a century of progress, and its faith in +the efficacy of unregimented opinion to supersede brute force. They +taught a lesson which posterity has but half learned. We shall be the +richer for returning to them, as much by what we reject as by what we +embrace. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +GENERAL + +LECKY. _History of England in the 18th Century._ + +LESLIE STEPHEN.--_History of English Thought in the 18th Century._ + +OLIVER ELTON..--_A Survey of English Literature._ + +EDWARD DOWDEN--_The French Revolution and English Literature._ + +The most vivid impression of the period from the standpoint of Godwin's +Circle is conveyed in the _Memoirs_ of Thomas Holcroft edited by +Hazlitt, and in Hazlitt's portraits of Godwin, Malthus and Mackintosh in +_The Spirit of the Age_ (Everyman's Library). + +Of the opposite way of thinking the one immortal record is Burke's +_Reflections on the French Revolution_. Lord Morley's _Burke_ (English +Men of Letters) should be read, and the eloquent exposition by Lord Hugh +Cecil (_Conservatism_) in this (H.U.L.) series. + +The main works of the French revolutionary thinkers have been issued in +Dent's series of French classics. For study and pleasure consult Lord +Morley's books on Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. + +The details given in the first chapter concerning the London +Corresponding Society are based on its pamphlets in the British Museum. + + +THOMAS PAINE + +Paine's writings are published in cheap editions by the Rationalist +Press, and may be had bound in one volume. The same press issues a cheap +edition of the admirable _Life_ by Dr. Moncure D. Conway. + + +WILLIAM GODWIN + +Godwin's works are now procurable only in old libraries, with the +exception of _Caleb Williams_. _Political Justice_ should be read in the +second edition (1796), which is maturer than the first and more lively +than the third. A modern summary of it by Mr. Salt, with the full text +of the last section "On Property," was published by Swan, Sonnenschein & +Co. This selection emphasises his communism, but hardly does full +justice to the novelty of his anarchist opinions. Full biographical data +are to be found in _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, by +Mr. Kegan Paul, which contains a readable collection of letters. There +is a painstaking and elaborate study in French by Raymond Gourg (Felix +Alcan, 1908) and a stimulating little essay in German from the anarchist +standpoint (_William Godwin, der Theoretiker des Kommunistischen +Anarchismus._ Von Pierre Ramus. Leipzig. Dietrich). + +For a modern statement of Anarchist Communism read Kropotkin's _The +Conquest of Bread_ (Chapman and Hall). + + +MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT + +_The Rights of Woman_ has been reissued in Everyman's Library. The +volume of _Selections_ in the Regent Library (Herbert and Daniel) was +well edited by Miss Jebb, and may be recommended, for Mary +Wollstonecraft rather gains than loses by compression. For her life Mr. +Kegan Paul's _William Godwin_ should be consulted. The edition of the +_Rights_, published by T. Fisher Unwin, contains an admirable critical +study of Mrs. Fawcett. There is no general history of the so-called +"feminist" movement, and in English books the French pioneers are +ignored. Mr. Lyon Blease has some good historical chapters in _The +Emancipation of English Women_. + + +SHELLEY + +Shelley literature is a library in itself. The standard edition is +Forman's; the standard biography is the tolerant, human, gossipy _Life_ +by Professor Dowden. The general reader can use no better edition than +Mrs. Shelley's. Of critical essays the most notable are Matthew Arnold's +oddly unsympathetic essay, and Sir Leslie Stephen's informing but +hostile study on _Godwin and Shelley_ ("Hours in a Library"). Professor +Santayana may be mentioned among the few critics who have realised that +Shelley thought before he sang (_Winds of Doctrine_). Incomparably the +best of all the critical essays is the little monograph by Francis +Thompson (Burns and Oates). + + + +_POSTSCRIPT_, 1942 + +Since this book was written two indispensable aids to the study of +Godwin and his Circle have been published. (1) An adequate modern life +of Godwin is now available: _The Life of William Godwin_ by Ford K. +Brown (J. M. Dent & Sons). The work could hardly have been better done. +(2) Mr. Elbridge Colby has given us in two volumes a modern edition of +_The Life of Thomas Holcroft_ (Constable & Co.) by himself with +Hazlitt's continuation. Mr. Colby's scholarly notes and introduction add +greatly to its value. + +A modern edition of Godwin's _Political Justice_ (Knopf, Political +Science Classics) is now available, but cannot be recommended. The +editor has abbreviated it by capricious omissions. + +_The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers_ by Carl L. +Becker (Oxford University Press, also Yale) is a most readable study of +the political thought of the period. See also Professor H. J. Laski's +_The Rise of European Liberalism_ (Allen & Unwin) and _Voltaire_ by H. +N. Brailsford in this series. + + + + +INDEX + + + _Age of Reason_, 75 + + Arnold, Matthew, 184, 220 + + Arnot, 174 + + + Baldwin, Edward, 172 + + Barbauld, Mrs., 192 + + Blake, Wm., 35, 66 + + Bright, John, 115 + + Burke, 15-26, 63 + + Burney, Fanny, 18 + + + _Caleb Williams_, 143 + + Calvinism, 79 + + Chesterfield, Lord, 195 + + Clairmont, Mrs. (afterwards Godwin), 169-70 + + Clairmont, Jane, 169 + + Coleridge, S. T., 51-55, 86, 156, 173 + + Condorcet, 22, 23, 27, 92, 109, 110, 197 + + Convention, English, 44 + ---- Scottish, 41-43 + + Cooper, Thomas, 83, 84 + + Corresponding Society (see London) + + + Dundas, 40, 44 + + + _Enquirer, The_, 145 + + _Essays_ (on Religion) by Wm. Godwin, 180 + + + Fenelon, 130 + + _Fleetwood_, 176 + + + Gatton, Borough of, 25 + + Gerrald, Joseph, 43, 88, 89 + + Gillray, 155 + + Godwin, William: as historian 22; + letter on trial of twelve Reformers, 46; + experience during Revolution, 49-51; + influence on Coleridge and Southey, 51-55; + relation to Paine, 64, 65, 71; + relation to Holcroft, 84-88; + early life, 78; + _Political Justice_, 89-141; + Marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft, 149; + _Caleb Williams_, 143; + controversies, 155; + estimate of his work, 163; + second marriage and later life, 163; + later works, 172; + relations with Shelley, 174; + death, 178; + religious views, 179; + intellectual influence on Shelley, 216 _seq._ + + Godwin, William (junior), 170 + + Godwin, Mrs. (_see_ Wollstonecraft and Clairmont) + + + Hardy, Thomas, 33, 37, 39, 41, 44 + + Hazlitt, 9, 78, 152, 159, 168, 173 + + Helvetius, 31, 39, 96, 99, 100, 102, 105, 120, 166, 171, 179, 187 + + Herve, 119 + + Holbach, Baron d', 31, 196 + + Holcroft, Thomas, quoted, 31; + early life of, 35, 36; + trial of, 44, 45, 48; + association with Paine, 65; + Influence on Godwin, 84-88 + + + Imlay, Fanny, 148, 169 + + Imlay, Gilbert, 148 + + + Jones, Sir Wm., 37 + + + Kames, Lord, 193 + + Kant, 11 + + + Lafayette, 62, 64 + + Lamb, Charles, 173 + + Leibnitz, 11, 95 + + London Corresponding Society, 33-48, 66 + + Lovell, R., 53 + + Lytton, Bulwer, 174 + + + Mably, 87 + + Mackintosh, Sir James, 16, 157 + + Malthus, 29, 158 + + Margarot, 42 + + Marius, 128, 220 + + Milton, 192, 212 + + Montesquieu, 31, 90, 97 + + Muir, 42 + + + Napoleon, 154 + + + Paine, Thomas, 16, 34, 39, 56; + biographical sketch, 57-68; + political views 69-75; + religious views, 75-77 + + Palmer, 42 + + Pantisocracy, 51-55 + + Parr, Rev. Dr., 157 + + Patrickson, 174 + + Pitt, 40, 44, 66, 91 + + Plato, Platonism, 102, 104, 126, 131, 197, 218, 234, 243 + + Plutarch, 182 + + _Political Justice_, 89-141 + + Price, Rev. Dr., 10-15, 248 + + Priestley, 11, 39, 81, 171 + + + _Rights of Man_, Paine's, 63, 69 + + _Rights of Woman--a Vindication of the_, 148 _seq._ + + Ritson, 35, 170 + + Roosevelt, Theodore, 75 + + Rousseau, 21, 101, 191, 194 + + + Sandemanians, 79 + + _Sepulchres, Godwin's Essay on_, 22 + + Shelley, 9, 104, 168; + personal relations with Godwin, 174; + intellectual outlook, 212; + debt to Godwin, 216; + his mythology, 225; + his view of human perfectibility, 230 + + Shelley, Mary, nee Godwin, 144, 153, 169, 176, 180 + + Sheridan, 82 + + Sinclair, 42 + + Skirving, 42 + + Socrates, Socratic (_see_ Plato) + + Southey, 51-55, 151 + + _St. Leon_, 160, 172 + + Stanhope, Earl, 12 + + Swift, 131, 193 + + + Tolstoy, 120, 138 + + Tooke, Horne, 34, 43, 44, 46 + + Turgot, 28 + + + _Vindication of the Rights of Women_ (_see Rights_) + + Voltaire, 95, 221 + + + Wedgwood, 170 + + Weissmann, 98 + + Wells, H. G., 221 + + Westbrook, Harriet, 175 + + Windham, 48 + + Wollstonecraft, Mary, 16; + early life, 147; + marriage and death, 149-154; + her personality, 202; + her originality, 199; + summary of "Rights," 204; + relation to French Revolution, 186-199; + reflection in Shelley, 238 + + Wordsworth, 8, 51, 157 + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + +Passages in bold font are indicated by =bold=. + +The following misprint has been corrected: + "magnaminity" corrected to "magnanimity" (page 124) + "subjecttion" corrected to "subjection" (page 187) + "Gilray" corrected to "Gillray" (page 255) + +All other spelling and punctuation is presented as in the original. + +Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate +both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as +presented in the original text. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle, by +H. N. 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