Godwin, William (1756-1836)

An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

London

Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson

1793

"Mind will never arrive at the true tone of energy, till we feel that moral liberty and discretion are mere creatures of the imagination"

All reference of public questions and elections to lot includes in it two evils, moral misapprehension and cowardice. There is no situation in which we can be placed that has not its correspondent duties. There is no alternative that can be offered to our choice, that does not include in it a better and a worse. The idea of sortition derives from the same root as the idea of discretionary rights. Men, undebauched by the lessons of superstition, would never have recourse to the decision by lot, were they not impressed with the notion of indifference, that they had a right to do any one of two or more things offered to their choice; and that of consequence, in order to rid themselves of uncertainty and doubt, it was sufficiently allowable to refer the decision of certain matters to accident. It is of great importance that this idea should be extirpated. Mind will never arrive at the true tone of energy, till we feel that moral liberty and discretion are mere creatures of the imagination, that in all cases our duty is precise, and the path of justice single and direct.

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2 entries in ESTC (both 1793).

See An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness. by William Godwin., 2 vols. (London: Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1793). <Link to ECCO>

05/26/2005