"Reason is the only legislator, and her decrees are irrevocable and uniform."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson
Date
1793
Metaphor
"Reason is the only legislator, and her decrees are irrevocable and uniform."
Metaphor in Context
To these questions the answer is exceedingly simple: Legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. Reason is the only legislator, and her decrees are irrevocable and uniform. The functions of society extend, not to the making, but the interpreting of law; it cannot decree, it can only declare that, which the nature of things has already decreed, and the propriety of which irresistibly flows from the circumstances of the case. Montesquieu says, that "in a free state every man will be his own legislator." This is not true, setting apart the functions of the community, unless in the limited sense already explained. It is the office of conscience to determine, "not like an Asiatic cadi, according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions, but like a British judge, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares that law which he finds already written."
(I.iii.v)
Provenance
Searching online
Citation
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>
Date of Entry
05/25/2012

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.