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AN ENOUIRY CONCERNING
POLITICAL JUSTICE
AND ITS INFLUENCE
ON GENERAL VIRTUE
AND HAPPINESS
POLITICAL SCIENCE CLASSICS SERIES
Already published:
CHINESE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
By William S. A. Pott
AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE
By William Godwin
edited by Raymond A. Preston 2 Vols.
In Preparation:
POLITICAL WRITINGS OF JAMES WILSON
edited by Randolph G. Adams
POLICRATICUS
By John of Salisbury
edited by John Dickinson
TRACTATUS POLITICUS
By Spinoza
edited by Albert G. A. Balz
DE RE PUBLICA
By Cicero
edited by George H. Sabine
and Stanley B. Smith
POLITICAL SCIENCE CLASSICS
ISSUED UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP of LINDsay Rogers,
OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, columbia UNIversity
AN ENOUIRY CONCERNING
POLITICAL JUSTICE
AND ITS INFLUENCE
ON GENERAL VIRTUE
AND HAPPINESS
BY WILLIAM GODWIN
Edited and Abridged
BY RAYMOND A. PRESTON
VOLUME II
New York ALFRED A KNOPF McMxxv.1


CoPYRIGHT, 1926, BY ALFRED A. KNoFF, INC
º:
M.A.N. UFA CTU. R. EID IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
The titles of chapters omitted in this abridgment are enclosed in
brackets.
BOOK V
OF LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE POWER
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
(Continued)
Of Hereditary Distinction
Moral Effects of Aristocracy
[Of Titles]
Of the Aristocratical Character
General Features of Democracy
Of Political Imposture \
Of the Causes of War
[Of the Object of War]
| Of the Conduct of War]
[Of Military Establishments and Treaties]
[Of Democracy as Connected with the Trans-
actions of War]
Of the Composition of Government
Of the Future History of Political Societies
Of National Assemblies
Of the Dissolution of Government
BOOK VI
OF OPINION CONSIDERED AS A SUBJECT OF
I General Effects of the Political Superintendence
POLITICAL INSTITUTION
of Opinion
Of Religious Establishments
PAGE
I4
22
3O
4O
49
55
- II
75
92
V
Contents
III
IV
VI
VII
VIII
IX
II
III
IV
VI
VII
VIII
IX
II
III
IV
FAGE
Of the Suppression of Erroneous Opinion in
Religion and Government
Of Tests Io?
Of Oaths II 2
Of Libels II6
Of Constitutions I28
Of National Education 138
Of Pensions and Salaries I45
Of the Modes of Deciding a Question on the
Part of the Community I5O
BOOK VII
OF CRIMES AND PUNISH MENTS
Limitations of the Doctrine of Punishment
which Result from the Principles of Morality 153
General Disadvantages of Coercion I59
Of the Purposes of Coercion I66
Of the Application of Coercion 169
Of Coercion Considered as a Temporary Ex-
pedient 179
Scale of Coercion I94
[Of Evidence]
Of Law 205
Of Pardons 2I8
BOOK VIII
OF PROPERTY
Genuine System of Property Delineated 223
Benefits Arising from the Genuine System of
Property 232
Of the Objection to this System from the Ad-
mirable Effects of Luxury 2
Of the Objection to this System from the
Allurements of Sloth 247
Contents vii
VI
VII
VIII
PAGE
Of the Objection to this System from the Im-
possibility of its Being Rendered Permanent 256
Of the Objection to this System from the In-
flexibility of its Restrictions 264
[Of the Objection to this System from the
Principle of Population]
Of the Means of Introducing the Genuine
System of Property 28I
Bibliography 299
Index 3OI
BOOK V
OF LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE POWER
(continued)
CHAPTER X
OF HEREDITARY DISTINCTION
A principle deeply interwoven with both monarchy and
aristocracy in their most flourishing state, but most deeply
with the latter, is that of hereditary pre-eminence. No prin-
ciple can present a deeper insult upon reason and justice.
Examine the new-born son of a peer and a mechanic. Has
nature designated in different lineaments their future for-
tune? Is one of them born with callous hands and an un-
gainly form? Can you trace in the other the early promise
of genius and understanding, of virtue and honour? We
have been told indeed that “nature will break out,” + and
that
“The eaglet of a valiant nest will quickly tower
Up to the region of his sire;” +
and the tale was once believed. But mankind will not soon
again be persuaded that one lineage of human creatures pro-
duces beauty and virtue, and another vice.
An assertion thus bold and unfounded will quickly be
refuted if we consider the question a priori. Mind is the
creature of sensation; we have no other inlet of knowledge.
What are the sensations that the lord experiences in his
mother's womb by which his mind is made different from
that of the peasant? Is there any variation in the finer
1 [John Home] Tragedy of Douglas, Act iii.
3
4 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
reticulated substance of the brain by which the lord is
adapted to receive clearer and stronger impressions than the
husbandman or the smith ?”
“But a generous blood circulates in his heart and enriches
his veins.” What are we to understand by this hypothesis?
Men's actions are the creatures of their perceptions. He
that apprehends most strongly will act most intrepidly. He
in whose mind truth is most distinctly impressed, who, un-
derstanding its nature, is best aware of its value, will speak
with the most heartfelt persuasion and write with the great-
est brilliancy and energy. By intrepidity and firmness in
action we must either understand the judicious and deliberate
constancy of a Regulus or a Cato, or the brute courage of a
private soldier, which is still an affair of mind, consisting in
a slight estimate of life which affords him few pleasures, and
a thoughtless and stupid oblivion of danger. What has
the blood to do with this?—Health is undoubtedly in most
cases the prerequisite of the best exertions of mind. But
health itself is a mere negation, the absence of disease. A
man must have experienced or imagined the inconveniences
of sickness before he can derive positive pleasure from the
enjoyment of health. Again, however extravagant we may
be in our estimate of the benefit of health, is it true in fact
* [This and the following paragraph, identical in the second
edition, are entirely rewritten in the third, where the gist is: “Chil-
dren certainly bring into the world with them a part of the char-
acter of their parents; nay, it is probable that the human race is
meliorated, somewhat in the same way as the races of brutes, and
that every generation, in a civilised state, is further removed, in
its physical structure, from the savage and uncultivated man. But
these causes operate too uncertainly to afford any just basis of
hereditary distinction. If a child resembles his father in many
particulars, there are particulars, perhaps more numerous and im-
portant, in which he differs from him.”]
Of Hereditary Distinction 5
that the lord enjoys a more vigorous health, experiences a
more uniform cheerfulness, and is less a prey to weariness
and languor than the rustic? High birth may inspire high
thoughts as a moral cause; but is it credible that it should
operate instinctively and when its existence is unknown,
while, with every external advantage to assist, the no-
blest families so often produce the most degenerate sons?
Into its value then as a moral cause let us proceed to en-
quire.
The persuasion of its excellence in this respect is an
opinion probably as old as the institution of nobility itself.
The very etymology of the word expressing this particular
form of government is built upon this idea. It is called
aristocracy or the government of the best (äptoroi). In the
writings of Cicero and the speeches of the Roman senate this
order of men is styled the “optimates,” the “virtuous,” the
“liberal,” and the “honest.” It is taken for granted “that the
multitude is an unruly beast, with no sense of honour or
principle, guided by sordid interest or not less Sordid ap-
petite, envious, tyrannical, inconstant and unjust.” From
hence they deduced as a consequence “the necessity of main-
taining an order of men of liberal education and elevated
sentiments, who should either engross the government of the
humbler and more numerous class incapable of governing
themselves, or at least should be placed as a rigid guard upon
their excesses, with powers adequate to their correction and
restraint.” The greater part of these reasonings will fall
under our examination when we consider the disadvantages
of democracy. So much as relates to the excellence of
aristocracy it is necessary at present to discuss.
The whole proceeds upon a supposition that “if nobility
should not, as its hereditary constitution might seem to im-
6 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ply, be found originally superior to the ordinary rate of
mortals, it is at least rendered eminently so by the power of
education. Men who grow up in unpolished ignorance and
barbarism and are chilled with the icy touch of poverty
must necessarily be exposed to a thousand sources of cor-
ruption, and cannot have that delicate sense of rectitude
and honour which literature and manly refinement are found
to bestow. It is under the auspices of indulgence and ease
that civilisation is engendered. A nation must have sur-
mounted the disadvantages of a first establishment and have
arrived at some degree of leisure and prosperity before the
love of letters can take root among them. It is in individuals
as in large bodies of men. A few exceptions will occur;
but, bating these, it can hardly be expected that men who
are compelled in every day by laborious corporal efforts to
provide for the necessities of the day should arrive at
great expansion of mind and comprehensiveness of think-
ing.”
In certain parts of this argument there is considerable
truth. The real philosopher will be the last man to deny
the power and importance of education. It is therefore
necessary either that a system should be discovered for secur-
ing leisure and prosperity to every member of the commun-
ity, or that a paramount influence and authority should be
given to the liberal and the wise over the illiterate and
ignorant. Now, supposing for the present that the former
of these measures is impossible, it may yet be reasonable to
enquire whether aristocracy be the most judicious scheme for
obtaining the latter. Some light may be collected on this
subject from what has already appeared respecting education
under the head of monarchy.
Education is much, but opulent education is of all its
Of Hereditary Distinction 7
modes the least efficacious. The education of words is not
to be despised, but the education of things is on no account
to be dispensed with. The former is of admirable use in
enforcing and developing the latter; but when taken alone,
it is pedantry and not learning, a body without a soul.
Whatever may be the abstract perfection of which mind is
capable, we seem at present frequently to need being excited,
in the case of any uncommon effort, by motives that address
themselves to the individual. But so far as relates to these
motives, the lower classes of mankind, had they sufficient
leisure, have greatly the advantage of the higher. The
plebeian must be the maker of his own fortune; the lord
finds his already made. The plebeian must expect to find
himself neglected and despised in proportion as he is remiss
in cultivating the objects of esteem; the lord will always
be surrounded with sycophants and slaves. The lord there-
fore has no motive to industry and exertion; no stimulus to
rouse him from the lethargic, “oblivious pool” out of which
every finite intellect originally rose. It must indeed be con-
fessed that truth does not need the alliance of circumstances,
and that a man may arrive at the temple of fame by other
pathways than those of misery and distress. But the lord
does not content himself with excluding the spur of ad-
versity: he goes farther than this and provides himself with
fruitful sources of effeminacy and error. Men cannot offend
with impunity against the great principle of universal good.
He that accumulates to himself luxuries and titles and wealth
to the injury of the whole becomes degraded from the rank of
man; and however he may be admired by the multitude, is
pitied by the wise and wearisome to himself. Hence it ap-
pears that to elect men to the rank of nobility is to elect
them to a post of moral danger and a means of depravity;
8 An Enquiry C oncerning Political Justice
but that to constitute them hereditarily noble is to preclude
them, bating a few extraordinary accidents, from all the
causes that generate ability and virtue.
The reasonings we have here repeated upon the subject of
hereditary distinction are so obvious that nothing can be a
stronger instance of the power of prejudice instilled in early
youth than the fact of their having been at any time called
in question. If we can in this manner produce an hereditary
legislator, why not an hereditary moralist or an hereditary
poet?” In reality an attempt in either of these kinds would
be more rational and feasible than in the other. From birth
as a physical cause it sufficiently appears that little can be ex-
pected: and, for education, it is practicable in a certain de-
gree, nor is it easy to set limits to that degree, to infuse
poetical or philosophical emulation into a youthful mind; but
wealth is the fatal blast that destroys the hopes of a future
harvest. There was once indeed a gallant kind of virtue,
that, by irresistibly seizing the senses, seemed to communicate
extensively to young men of birth the mixed and equivocal
accomplishments of chivalry; but since the subjects of moral
emulation have been turned from personal prowess to the
energies of intellect, and especially since the field of that
emulation has been more widely opened to the species, the
lists have been almost uniformly occupied by those whose
narrow circumstances have goaded them to ambition, or
whose undebauched habits and situation in life have rescued
them from the poison of flattery and effeminate indulgence.
* See Paine's Rights of Man.
CHAPTER XI
MORAL EFFECTS OF ARISTOCRACY
There is one thing more than all the rest of importance to
the well-being of mankind, justice. Can there be anything
problematical or paradoxical in this fundamental principle,
that all injustice is injury; and a thousand times more in-
jurious by its effects in perverting the understanding and
Overturning our calculations of the future than by the im-
mediate calamity it may produce?
All moral science may be reduced to this one head, calcula-
tion of the future. We cannot reasonably expect virtue
from the multitude of mankind if they be induced by the
perverseness of the conductors of human affairs to believe
that it is not their interest to be virtuous. But this is not the
point upon which the question turns. Virtue is nothing else
but the pursuit of general good. Justice is the standard
which discriminates the advantage of the many and of the
few, of the whole and a part. If this first and most im–
portant of all subjects be involved in obscurity, how shall the
well-being of mankind be substantially promoted? The most
benevolent of our species will be engaged in crusades of error,
while the cooler and more phlegmatic spectators, discerning
no evident clue that should guide them amidst the labyrinth,
sit down in selfish neutrality and leave the complicated scene
to produce its own denouement.
It is true that human affairs can never be reduced to that
9
IO An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
State of depravation as to reverse the nature of justice.
Virtue will always be the interest of the individual as well
as of the public. Immediate virtue will always be beneficial
to the present age, as well as to their posterity. But though
the depravation cannot rise to this excess, it will be abun-
dantly sufficient to obscure the understanding and mislead the
conduct. Human beings will never be so virtuous as they
might easily be made till justice be the spectacle perpetually
presented to their view, and injustice be wondered at as a
prodigy.
Of all the principles of justice there is none so material to
the moral rectitude of mankind as this, that no man can be
distinguished but by his personal merit. Why not endeavour
to reduce to practice so simple and sublime a lesson? When
a man has proved himself a benefactor to the public, when he
has already by laudable perseverance cultivated in himself
talents which need only encouragement and public favour
to bring them to maturity, let that man be honoured. In a
state of society where fictitious distinctions are unknown, it
is impossible he should not be honoured. But that a man
should be looked up to with servility and awe because the
king has bestowed on him a spurious name or decorated him
with a ribbon; that another should wallow in luxury be-
cause his ancestor three centuries ago bled in the quarrel
of Lancaster or York—do we imagine that these iniquities
can be practised without injury?
Let those who entertain this opinion converse a little with
the lower orders of mankind. They will perceive that the
unfortunate wretch who with unremitted labour finds himself
incapable adequately to feed and clothe his family has a sense
of injustice rankling at his heart.
Moral Effects of Aristocracy II
But let us suppose that their sense of injustice were less
acute than it is here described, what favourable inference
can be drawn from that? Is not the injustice real? If the
minds of men be so withered and stupefied by the con-
stancy with which it is practised that they do not feel the
rigour that grinds them into nothing, how does that improve
the picture?
Let us for a moment give the reins to reflection, and en-
deavour accurately to conceive the state of mankind where
justice should form the public and general principle. In that
case our moral feelings would assume a firm and wholesome
tone, for they would not be perpetually counteracted by ex-
amples that weakened their energy and confounded their
clearness. Men would be fearless, because they would know
that there were no legal snares lying in wait for their lives.
They would be courageous, because no man would be pressed
to the earth that another might enjoy immoderate luxury, be-
cause everyone would be secure of the just reward of his
industry and prize of his exertions. Jealousy and hatred
would cease, for they are the offspring of injustice. Every
man would speak truth with his neighbour, for there would
be no temptation to falsehood and deceit. Mind would find
its level, for there would be everything to encourage and to
animate. Science would be unspeakably improved, for un-
derstanding would convert into a real power, no longer an
ignis fatuus, shining and expiring by turns, and leading us
into sloughs of sophistry, false science and specious mistake.
All men would be disposed to avow their dispositions and
actions: none would endeavour to suppress the just eulogium
of his neighbour, for, so long as there were tongues to record,
the suppression would be impossible; none fear to detect the
misconduct of his neighbour, for there would be no laws con-
I2 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
verting the sincere expression of our convictions into a libel.
Let us fairly consider for a moment what is the amount of
injustice included in the institution of aristocracy. I am
born, suppose, a Polish prince with an income of £300,000
per annum. You are born a manorial serf or a Creolian
negro, by the law of your birth attached to the soil, and
transferable by barter or otherwise to twenty successive
lords. In vain shall be your most generous efforts and your
unwearied industry to free yourself from the intolerable
yoke. Doomed by the law of your birth to wait at the gates
of the palace you must never enter, to sleep under a ruined
weather-beaten roof, while your master sleeps under canopies
of state, to feed on putrefied offals while the world is ran-
sacked for delicacies for his table, to labour without modera-
tion or limit under a parching sun while he basks in perpetual
sloth, and to be rewarded at last with contempt, reprimand,
stripes and mutilation. In fact the case is worse than this.
I could endure all that injustice or caprice could inflict pro-
vided I possessed in the resource of a firm mind the power of
looking down with pity on my tyrant and of knowing that I
had that within, that sacred character of truth, virtue and
fortitude, which all his injustice could not reach. But a
slave and a serf are condemned to stupidity and vice as well
as to calamity.
Is all this nothing? Is all this necessary for the main-
tenance of civil order? Let it be recollected that for this
distinction there is not the smallest foundation in the nature
of things, that, as we have already said, there is no particular
mould for the construction of lords, and that they are born
neither better nor worse than the poorest of their depend-
ents. It is this structure of aristocracy in all its sanctuaries
and fragments against which reason and philosophy have
Moral Effects of Aristocracy I3
declared war. It is alike unjust whether we consider it in
the castes of India, the villeinage of the feudal system, or the
despotism of the patricians of ancient Rome dragging their
debtors into personal servitude to expiate loans they could not
repay. Mankind will never be in an eminent degree virtuous
and happy till each man shall possess that portion of distinc-
tion and no more to which he is entitled by his personal
merits. The dissolution of aristocracy is equally the in-
terest of the oppressor and the oppressed. The one will be
delivered from the listlessness of tyranny, and the other from
the brutalising operation of servitude. How long shall we
be told in vain “that mediocrity of fortune is the true ram-
part of personal happiness?”
[Chapter XII, “Of Titles,” discusses the “origin and history”
of titles and “their miserable absurdity.” It concludes that
truth is “the only adequate reward of merit.”]
CHAPTER XIII
OF THE ARISTOCRATICAL CHARACTER
Aristocracy in its proper signification implies neither less
nor more than a scheme for rendering more permanent and
visible by the interference of political institution the inequal-
ity of mankind. Aristocracy, like monarchy, is founded in
falsehood, the offspring of art foreign to the real nature of
things, and must therefore, like monarchy, be supported by
artifice and false pretences. Its empire however is founded
in principles more gloomy and unsocial than those of
monarchy. The monarch often thinks it advisable to employ
blandishments and courtship with his barons and officers;
but the lord deems it sufficient to rule with a rod of iron.
Both depend for their perpetuity upon ignorance. Could
they, like Omar, destroy the productions of profane reason-
ing and persuade mankind that the Alcoran contained every-
thing which it became them to study, they might then renew
their lease of empire. But here again aristocracy displays
its superior harshness. Monarchy admits of a certain de-
gree of monkish learning among its followers. But aristoc-
racy holds a stricter hand. Should the lower ranks of
society once come to be generally taught to write and read,
its power would be at an end. To make men serfs and vil-
leins it is indispensably necessary to make them brutes.
This is a question which has long been canvassed with great
eagerness and avidity. The resolute advocates of the old
I4
Of the Aristocratical Character I5
System have with no contemptible foresight opposed this
alarming innovation. In their well-known observation that
a servant who has been taught to write and read ceases to be
any longer a passive machine is contained the embryo from
which it would be easy to explain the whole philosophy of
human society.
And who is there that can reflect with patience upon the
malevolent contrivances of these insolent usurpers, con-
trivances the end of which is to keep the human species in a
state of endless degradation ? It is in the subjects we are
here examining that the celebrated maxim of “many made
for one” is brought to the real test. Those reasoners were
no doubt wise in their generation who two centuries ago con-
ceived alarm at the blasphemous doctrine that government
was instituted for the benefit of the governed, and if it pro-
posed to itself any other object, was no better than an usurpa-
tion. It will perpetually be found that the men who in
every age have been the earliest to give the alarm of innova-
tion and have been ridiculed on that account as bigoted and
timid were in reality persons of more than common discern-
ment, who saw, though but imperfectly, in the rude prin-
ciple the inferences to which it inevitably led. It is time
that men of reflection should choose between the two alterna-
tives: either to go back fairly and without reserve to the
primitive principles of tyranny; or, adopting any one of the
axioms opposite to these, however neutral it may at first ap-
pear, not feebly and ignorantly to shut their eyes upon its
countless host of consequences.
It is not necessary to enter into a methodical disquisition
of the different species of aristocracy, since, if the above
reasonings have any force, they are equally cogent against
them all. Aristocracy may vest its prerogatives principally
I6 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
in the individual, as in Poland; or entirely restrict them to
the nobles in their corporate capacity, as in Venice. The
former will be more tumultuous and disorderly; the latter
more jealous, intolerant and severe. The magistrates may
either recruit their body by election among themselves, as in
Holland; or by the choice of the people, as in ancient Rome.
The aristocracy of ancient Rome was incomparably the
most venerable and illustrious that ever existed upon the face
of the earth. It may not therefore be improper to con-
template in them the degree of excellence to which aristoc-
racy may be raised. They included in their institution some
of the benefits of democracy, as generally speaking no man
became a member of the senate but in consequence of his
being elected by the people to the superior magistracies. It
was reasonable therefore to expect that the majority of the
members would possess some degree of capacity. They
were not like modern aristocratical assemblies, in which,
as primogeniture and not selection decides upon their prerog-
atives, we shall commonly seek in vain for capacity, except
in a few of the lords of recent creation. As the plebeians
were long restrained from looking for candidates except
among the patricians—that is, the posterity of senators—
it was reasonable to suppose that the most eminent talents
would be confined to that order. A circumstance which con-
tributed to this was the monopoly of liberal education and
the cultivation of the mind, a monopoly which the art of
printing has at length fully destroyed. Accordingly all the
great literary ornaments of Rome were either patricians, or
of the equestrian order, or their immediate dependents. The
plebeians, though in their corporate capacity they possessed
for some centuries the virtues of sincerity, intrepidity, love
of justice and of the public, could never boast of any of
Of the Aristocratical Character 17
those individual characters in their party that reflect lustre
on mankind, except the two Gracchi: while the patricians
told of Brutus, Valerius, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, Camillus,
Fabricius, Regulus, the Fabii, the Decii, the Scipios, Lucul-
lus, Marcellus, Cato, Cicero, and innumerable others. With
this retrospect continually suggested to their minds it was
almost venial for the stern heroes of Rome and the last illus-
trious martyrs of the republic to entertain aristocratical senti-
mentS.
Let us however consider impartially this aristocracy, so
incomparably superior to any other of ancient or modern
times. Upon the first institution of the republic the people
possessed scarcely any authority except in the election of
magistrates, and even here their intrinsic importance was
eluded by the mode of arranging the assembly, so that the
whole decision vested in the richer classes of the community.
No magistrates of any description were elected but from
among the patricians. All causes were judged by the patri-
cians, and from their judgment there was no appeal. The
patricians intermarried among themselves, and thus formed
a republic of narrow extent in the midst of the nominal one,
which was held by them in a state of abject servitude. The
idea which purified these usurpations in the minds of the
usurpers was that the vulgar are essentially coarse, grovel-
ing and ignorant, and that there can be no security for the
empire of justice and consistency but in the decided ascend-
ancy of the liberal. Thus, even while they opposed the
essential interests of mankind, they were animated with pub-
lic spirit and an unbounded enthusiasm of virtue. But it
is not less true that they did oppose the essential interests of
mankind. What can be more extraordinary than the dec-
lamations of Appius Claudius in this style, at once for the
I8 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
moral greatness of mind by which they were dictated and the
cruel intolerance they were intended to enforce? It is in-
expressibly painful to see so much virtue through successive
ages employed in counteracting the justest requisitions. The
result was that the patricians notwithstanding their immeas-
urable superiority in abilities, were obliged to yield one by
one the exclusions to which they so obstinately clung. In
the interval they were led to have recourse to the most odi-
ous methods of counteraction; and every man among them
contended who should be loudest in applause of the nefarious
murder of the Gracchi. If the Romans were distinguished
for so many virtues, constituted as they were, what might
they not have been but for the iniquity of aristocratical
usurpation? The indelible blemish of their history, the love
of conquest, originated in the same cause. Their wars,
through every period of the republic, were nothing more
than the contrivance of the patricians to divert their country-
men from attending to the sentiments of unalterable truth
by leading them to scenes of conquest and carnage. They
understood the art common to all governments, of confound-
ing the understandings of the multitude and persuading
them that the most unprovoked hostilities were merely the
dictates of necessary defence.
The principle of aristocracy is founded in the extreme in-
equality of conditions. No man can be an useful member of
Society except so far as his talents are employed in a manner
conducive to the general advantage. In every society the
produce, the means of contributing to the necessities and con-
veniencies of its members, is of a certain amount. In every
society the bulk at least of its members contribute by their
personal exertions to the creation of this produce. What can
be more reasonable and just than that the produce itself
Of the Aristocratical Character I9
should with some degree of equality be shared among them P
What more injurious than the accumulating upon a few every
means of superfluity and luxury to the total destruction of
the ease and plain, but plentiful, subsistence of the many?
It may be calculated that the king even of a limited monarchy
receives as the salary of his office an income equivalent to
the labour of fifty thousand men." Let us set out in our
estimate from this point and figure to ourselves the shares of
his counsellors, his nobles, the wealthy commoners by whom
the nobility will be emulated, their kindred and dependents.
Is it any wonder that in such countries the lower orders of
the community are exhausted by all the hardships of penury
and immoderate fatigue? When we see the wealth of a
province spread upon the great man's table, can we be sur-
prised that his neighbours have not bread to satiate the crav-
ings of hunger?
Is this a state of human beings that must be considered as
the last improvement of political wisdom? In such a state
it is impossible that eminent virtue should not be exceedingly
rare. The higher and the lower classes will be alike cor-
rupted by their unnatural situation. But to pass over the
higher class for the present, what can be more evident than
the tendency of want to contract the intellectual powers ?
The situation which the wise man would desire for himself
and for those in whose welfare he was interested would be
a situation of alternate labour and relaxation, labour that
should not exhaust the frame, and relaxation that was in no
danger to degenerate into indolence. Thus industry and
activity would be cherished, the frame preserved in a health-
ful tone, and the mind accustomed to meditation and reflec-
tion. But this would be the situation of the whole human
* Taking the average price of labour at one shilling per diem.
20 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
species if the supply of our wants were equally distributed.
Can any system be more worthy of our disapprobation than
that which converts nineteen twentieths of them into beasts
of burden, annihilates so much thought, renders impossible
So much virtue and extirpates so much happiness?
But it may be alleged that this argument is foreign to the
subject of aristocracy, the inequality of conditions being the
inevitable consequence of the institution of property. It
is true that many disadvantages flow out of this institution in
its simplest form; but these disadvantages, to whatever they
may amount, are greatly aggravated by the operations of
aristocracy. Aristocracy turns the stream of property out
of its natural channel and forwards with the most assiduous
care its accumulation in the hands of a very few persons.
The doctrines of primogeniture and entails, as well as the
immense volumes of the laws of transfer and inheritance
which have infested every part of Europe, were produced for
this express purpose.
At the same time that it has endeavoured to render the ac-
quisition of permanent property difficult, aristocracy has
greatly increased the excitements to that acquisition. All
men are accustomed to conceive a thirst after distinction and
pre-eminence, but they do not all fix upon wealth as the ob-
ject of this passion, but variously upon skill in any particular
art, grace, learning, talents, wisdom and virtue. Nor does it
appear that these latter objects are pursued by their votaries
with less assiduity than wealth is pursued by those who are
anxious to acquire it. Wealth would be still less capable of
being mistaken for the universal passion were it not ren-
dered by political institution, more than by its natural influ-
ence, the road to honour and respect.
There is no mistake more thoroughly to be deplored on
Of the Aristocratical Character 2 I
this subject than that of persons sitting at their ease and sur-
rounded with all the conveniences of life who are apt to ex-
claim, “We find things very well as they are;” and to inveigh
bitterly against all projects of reform as “the romances of
visionary men and the declamations of those who are never
to be satisfied.” Is it well that so large a part of the com-
munity should be kept in abject penury, rendered stupid with
ignorance and disgustful with vice, perpetuated in nakedness
and hunger, goaded to the commission of crimes, and made
victims to the merciless laws which the rich have instituted
to oppress them? Is it sedition to enquire whether this state
of things may not be exchanged for a better? Or can there
be anything more disgraceful to ourselves than to exclaim
that “All is well” merely because we are at our ease, regard-
less of the misery, degradation and vice that may be oc-
casioned in others?
There is one argument to which the advocates of monarchy
and aristocracy always have recourse when driven from every
other pretence; the mischievous nature of democracy.
“However imperfect the two former of these institutions
may be in themselves, they are found necessary,” we are told,
“as accommodations to the imperfection of human nature.”
It is for the reader who has considered the arguments of the
preceding chapters to decide how far it is probable that cir-
cumstances can occur, which should make it our duty to sub-
mit to these complicated evils. Meanwhile let us proceed
to examine that democracy of which so alarming a picture
has uniformly been exhibited.
CHAPTER XIV
GENERAL FEATURES OF DEMOCRACY
Democracy is a system of government according to which
every member of society is considered as a man and nothing
more. So far as positive regulation is concerned, if indeed
that can with any propriety be termed regulation which is
the mere recognition of the simplest of all principles, every
man is regarded as equal. Talents and wealth, wherever
they exist, will not fail to obtain a certain degree of influ-
ence without requiring any positive institution of society to
second their operation.
But there are certain disadvantages that may seem the
necessary result of democratical equality. In political society
it is reasonable to suppose that the wise will be outnumbered
by the unwise, and it will be inferred that the welfare of
the whole will therefore be at the mercy of ignorance and
folly. It is true that the ignorant will generally be suf-
ficiently willing to be guided by the judicious, “but their
very ignorance will incapacitate them from discerning the
merit of their guides. The turbulent and crafty demagogue
will often possess greater advantages for inveigling their
judgment than the man who with purer intentions may pos-
sess a less brilliant talent. Add to this that the demagogue
has a never-failing resource in the ruling imperfection of
human nature, that of preferring the specious present to the
substantial future. This is what is usually termed playing
22
General Features of Democracy 23
upon the passions of mankind. Political truth has hitherto
proved an enigma that all the wit of man has been insuf-
ficient to solve. Is it to be supposed that the uninstructed
multitude should always be able to resist the artful sophistry
and captivating eloquence that will be employed to darken
it? Will it not often happen that the schemes proposed by
the ambitious disturber will possess a meretricious attraction
which the severe and sober project of the discerning states-
man shall be unable to compensate?
“One of the most fruitful sources of human happiness is
to be found in the steady and uniform operation of certain
fixed principles. But it is the characteristic of a democracy
to be wavering and inconstant. The philosopher only who
has deeply meditated his principles is inflexible in his ad-
herence to them. The mass of mankind, as they have never
arranged their reflections into system, are at the mercy of
every momentary impulse and liable to change with every
wind. But this inconstancy is directly the reverse of every
idea of political justice.
“Nor is this all. Democracy is a monstrous and unwieldy
vessel launched upon the sea of human passions without bal-
last. Liberty in this unlimited form is in danger to be
lost almost as soon as it is obtained. The ambitious man
finds nothing in this scheme of human affairs to set bounds
to his desires. He has only to dazzle and deceive the multi-
tude in order to rise to absolute power.
“A farther ill consequence flows out of this circumstance.
The multitude, conscious of their weakness in this respect,
will, in proportion to their love of liberty and equality, be
perpetually suspicious and uneasy. Has any man displayed
uncommon virtues or rendered eminent services to his
country? He will presently be charged with secretly aim-
24 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ing at the tyranny. Various circumstances will come in aid
of this accusation, the general love of novelty, envy of
superior merit, and the incapacity of the multitude to under-
stand the motives and character of those who so far excel
them. Like the Athenian, they will be tired of hearing
Aristides constantly called the Just. Thus will merit be too
frequently the victim of ignorance and envy. Thus will all
that is liberal and refined, whatever the human mind in its
highest state of improvement is able to conceive, be often
overpowered by the turbulence of unbridled passion and the
rude dictates of savage folly.”
If this picture must inevitably be realised wherever dem-
ocratical principles are established, the state of human nature
would be peculiarly unfortunate. No form of government
can be devised which does not partake of monarchy,
aristocracy or democracy. We have taken a copious survey
of the two former, and it would seem impossible that greater
or more inveterate mischiefs can be inflicted on mankind
than those which are inflicted by them. No portrait of in-
justice, degradation and vice can be exhibited that can sur-
pass the fair and inevitable inferences from the principle
upon which they are built. If then democracy could by any
arguments be brought down to a level with such monstrous
institutions as these, in which there is neither integrity nor
reason, our prospects of the future happiness of mankind
would indeed be deplorable.
But this is impossible. Supposing that we should even
be obliged to take democracy with all the disadvantages that
were ever annexed to it, and that no remedy could be dis-
covered for any of its defects, it would be still greatly pref-
erable to the exclusive system of other forms. Let us take
Athens with all its turbulence and instability; with the pop-
General Features of Democracy 25
ular and temperate usurpations of Pisistratus and Pericles;
with their monstrous ostracism, by which with undisguised
injustice they were accustomed periodically to banish some
eminent citizen without the imputation of a crime; with the
imprisonment of Miltiades, the exile of Aristides and the
murder of Phocion—with all these errors on its head, it is
incontrovertible that Athens exhibited a more illustrious and
enviable spectacle than all the monarchies and aristocracies
that ever existed. Who would reject the gallant love of
virtue and independence because it was accompanied with
some irregularities? Who would pass an unreserved con-
demnation upon their penetrating mind, their quick discern-
ment and their ardent feeling because they were subject oc-
casionally to be intemperate and impetuous P Shall we com-
pare a people of such incredible achievements, such ex-
quisite refinement, gay without insensibility and splendid
without intemperance, in the midst of whom grew up the
greatest poets, the noblest artists, the most finished orators
and political writers, and the most disinterested philosophers
the world ever saw—shall we compare this chosen seat of
patriotism, independence and generous virtue with the torpid
and selfish realms of monarchy and aristocracy? All is not
happiness that looks tranquillity. Better were a portion of
turbulence and fluctuation than that unwholesome calm which
is a stranger to virtue.
In the estimate that is usually made of democracy one of
the most flagrant sources of error lies in our taking man-
kind such as monarchy and aristocracy have made them and
from thence judging how fit they are to legislate for them-
selves. Monarchy and aristocracy would be no evils if their
tendency were not to undermine the virtues and the under-
standings of their subjects. The thing most necessary is to
26 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
remove all those restraints which hold mind back from its
natural flight. Implicit faith, blind submission to authority,
timid fear, a distrust of our powers, an inattention to our
own importance and the good purposes we are able to ef-
fect, these are the chief obstacles to human improvement.
Democracy restores to man a consciousness of his value,
teaches him by the removal of authority and oppression to
listen only to the dictates of reason, gives him confidence
to treat all other men as his fellow beings, and induces him to
regard them no longer as enemies against whom to be upon
his guard, but as brethren whom it becomes him to assist.
The citizen of a democratical state when he looks upon the
miserable oppression and injustice that prevail in the coun-
tries around him cannot but entertain an inexpressible esteem
for the advantages he enjoys and the most unalterable deter-
mination at all hazards to preserve them. The influence of
democracy upon the sentiments of its members is altogether
of the negative sort, but its consequences are inestimable.
Nothing can be more unreasonable than to argue from men
as we now find them to men as they may hereafter be made.
Strict and accurate reasoning, instead of suffering us to be
surprised that Athens did so much, would at first induce
us to wonder that she retained so many imperfections.
The road to the improvement of mankind is in the utmost
degree simple, to speak and act the truth. If the Athenians
had had more of this, it is impossible they should have been
so flagrantly erroneous. To tell the truth in all cases without
reserve, to administer justice without partiality, are prin-
ciples which, when once rigorously adopted, are of all others
the most prolific. They enlighten the understanding, give
energy to the judgment, and strip misrepresentation of its
speciousness and plausibility. In Athens men suffered them-
General Features of Democracy 27
selves to be dazzled by splendour and show. If the error
in their constitution which led to this defect can be dis-
covered, if a form of political society can be devised in
which men shall be accustomed to judge strictly and Soberly,
and habitually exercised to the plainness and simplicity of
truth, democracy would in that society cease from the tur-
bulence, instability, fickleness and violence that have too often
characterised it. Nothing can be more certain than the om-
nipotence of truth, or, in other words, than the connection
between the judgment and the outward behaviour. If science
be capable of perpetual improvement, men will also be cap-
able of perpetually advancing in practical wisdom and jus-
tice. Once establish the perfectibility of man and it will
inevitably follow that we are advancing to a state in which
truth will be too well known to be easily mistaken, and
justice too habitually practised to be voluntarily counteracted.
Nor shall we see reason to think upon severe reflection that
this state is so distant as we might at first be inclined to
imagine. Error is principally indebted for its permanence
to social institution. Did we leave individuals to the prog-
ress of their own minds, without endeavouring to regulate
them by any species of public foundation, mankind would
in no very long period convert to the obedience of truth.
The contest between truth and falsehood is of itself too
unequal for the former to stand in need of support from
any political ally. The more it be discovered, especially
that part of it which relates to man in society, the more
simple and self-evident will it appear; and it will be found
impossible any otherwise to account for its having been so
long concealed than from the pernicious influence of positive
institution.
There is another obvious consideration that has frequently
28 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
been alleged to account for the imperfection of ancient de-
mocracies which is worthy of our attention, though it be
not so important as the argument which has just been stated.
The ancients were unaccustomed to the idea of deputed or
representative assemblies; and it is reasonable to suppose that
affairs might often be transacted with the utmost order in
such assemblies which might be productive of much tumult
and confusion if submitted to the personal discussion of the
citizens at large.” By this happy expedient we secure many
of the pretended benefits of aristocracy as well as the real
benefits of democracy. The discussion of national affairs is
brought before persons of superior education and wisdom;
we may conceive of them not only as the appointed medium
of the sentiments of their constituents, but as authorised
upon certain occasions to act on their part, in the same
manner as an unlearned parent delegates his authority over
his child to a preceptor of greater accomplishments than him-
self. This idea within proper limits might be entitled to our
approbation, provided the elector had the wisdom not to
relax in the exercise of his own understanding in all his
political concerns, exerted his censorial power over his rep-
resentative, and were accustomed, if the representative were
unable after the fullest explanation to bring him over to his
opinion, to transfer his deputation to another.
The true value of the system of representation is as fol-
lows. It is not reasonable to doubt that mankind, whether
acting by themselves or their representatives, might in no
long time be enabled to contemplate the subjects offered to
their examination with calmness and true discernment, pro-
* The general grounds of this institution have been stated, Book
III, Chap. IV. The exceptions which limit its value will be seen in
the twenty-third chapter of the present book.
General Features of Democracy 29
vided no positive obstacles were thrown in their way by the
errors and imperfection of their political institutions. This
is the principle in which the sound political philosopher will
rest with the most perfect satisfaction. But should it ulti-
mately appear that representation, and not the intervention of
popular assemblies, is the mode which reason prescribes, then
an error in this preliminary question will of course infer er-
rors in the practice which is built upon it. We cannot make
one false step without involving ourselves in a series of mis-
takes and ill consequences that must be expected to grow
out of it.
Such are the general features of democratical government;
but this is a subject of too much importance to be dismissed
without the fullest examination of everything that may enable
us to decide upon its merits. We will proceed to consider
the farther objections that have been alleged against it.
CHAPTER XV
OF POLITICAL INIPOSTURE
All the arguments that have been employed to prove the in-
sufficiency of democracy grow out of this one root, the Sup-
posed necessity of deception and prejudice for restraining
the turbulence of human passions. Without the assumption
of this principle the argument could not be sustained for a
moment. The direct and decisive answer would be, “Are
kings and lords intrinsically wiser and better than their
humbler neighbours? Can there be any solid ground of dis-
tinction except what is founded in personal merit? Are not
men, really and strictly considered, equal, except so far as
what is personal and inalienable makes them to differ?” To
these questions there can be but one reply, “Such is the order
of reason and absolute truth, but artificial distinctions are
necessary for the happiness of mankind. Without deception
and prejudice the turbulence of human passions cannot be
restrained.” Let us then examine the merits of this theory;
and these will best be illustrated by an instance.
It has been held by some divines and some politicians that
the doctrine which teaches that men will be eternally tor-
mented in another world for their errors and misconduct in
this is “in its own nature unreasonable and absurd, but that
it is nevertheless necessary, to keep mankind in awe. Do
we not see,” say they, “that notwithstanding this terrible
denunciation the world is overrun with vice? What then
30
Of Political Imposture 3I
would be the case if the irregular passions of mankind were
set free from their present restraint and they had not the
fear of this retribution before their eyes?”
This argument seems to be founded in a singular inatten-
tion to the dictates of history and experience, as well as to
those of reason. The ancient Greeks and Romans had
nothing of this dreadful apparatus of fire and brimstone and
a torment “the smoke of which ascends forever and ever.”
Their religion was less personal than political. They con-
fided in the gods as protectors of the state, and this inspired
them with invincible courage. In periods of public calamity
they found a ready consolation in expiatory sacrifices to ap-
pease the anger of the gods. The attention of these beings
was conceived to be principally directed to the ceremonial of
religion and very little to the moral excellencies and defects
of their votaries, which were supposed to be sufficiently pro-
vided for by the inevitable tendency of moral excellence or
defect to increase or diminish individual happiness. If their
systems included the doctrine of a future existence, little
attention was paid by them to the connecting the moral
deserts of individuals in this life with their comparative situa-
tion in another. The same defect ran through the systems
of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Celts, the Phenicians,
the Jews, and indeed every system which has not been in
some manner or other the offspring of the Christian. If we
were to form our judgment of these nations by the above
argument, we should expect to find every individual among
them cutting his neighbour's throat and hackneyed in the
commission of every enormity without measure and without
remorse. But they were in reality as susceptible of the
regulations of government and the order of society as those
whose imaginations have been most artfully terrified by the
32 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
threats of future retribution, and some of them were much
more generous, determined and attached to the public weal.
Nothing can be more contrary to a just observation of the
nature of the human mind than to suppose that these
speculative tenets have much influence in making mankind
more virtuous than they would otherwise be found. Hu-
man beings are placed in the midst of a system of things all
the parts of which are strictly connected with each other
and exhibit a sympathy and unison by means of which the
whole is rendered intelligible and as it were palpable to the
mind. The respect I shall obtain and the happiness I shall
enjoy for the remainder of my life are topics of which my
mind has a complete comprehension. I understand the value
of plenty, liberty and truth to myself and my fellow men.
I perceive that these things and a certain conduct intending
them are connected in the visible system of the world, and
not by the supernatural interposition of an invisible director.
But all that can be told me of a future world, a world of
spirits or of glorified bodies, where the employments are
spiritual and the first cause is to be rendered a subject of im-
mediate perception, or of a scene of retribution, where the
mind, doomed to everlasting inactivity, shall be wholly a prey
to the upbraidings of remorse and the sarcasms of devils, is
so foreign to the system of things with which I am acquainted
that my mind in vain endeavours to believe or to understand
it. If doctrines like these occupy the habitual reflections of
any, it is not of the lawless, the violent and ungovernable,
but of the sober and conscientious, persuading them passively
to submit to despotism and injustice that they may receive
the recompense of their patience hereafter. This objection
is equally applicable to every species of deception. Fables
may amuse the imagination, but can never stand in the place
Of Political Imposture 33
of reason and judgment as the principles of human conduct.
—Let us proceed to a second instance.
It is affirmed by Rousseau in his treatise of the Social
Contract, “that no legislator could ever establish a grand
political system without having recourse to religious im-
posture. To render a people who are yet to receive the im-
pressions of political wisdom susceptible of the evidence of
that wisdom would be to convert the effect of civilisation into
the cause. The legislator ought not to employ force and
cannot employ reasoning; he is therefore obliged to have
recourse to authority of a different sort, which may draw
without compulsion and persuade without conviction.” "
* “Pour qu'un peuple naissant pât gouter les saines marimes de la
politique et suivre les regles fondamentales de la raison de l'état, il
faudroit que l'effet påt devenir la cause, que l'esprit social, qui doit
étre l'ouvrage de l’institution, présidāt d l’institution même, et que
les hommes fussent avant les lois ce qu'ils doivent devenir par elles.
Ainsi donc le législateur ne pouvant employer ni la force ni le raison-
nement; cºest une nécessité qu'il recoure à une autorité d'un autre
ordre, qui puisse entrainer sans violence, et persuader sans convain-
cre.” Du Contrat Social, Liv. II, Chap. VII.
Having frequently quoted Rousseau in the course of this work, it
may be allowable to say one word of his general merits as a moral
and political writer. He has been subjected to perpetual ridicule for
the extravagance of the proposition with which he began his literary
career: that the savage state was the genuine and proper condition of
man. It was however by a very slight mistake that he missed the
opposite opinion, which it is the business of the present work to estab-
lish. It is sufficiently observable that where he describes the enthu-
siastic influx of truth that first made him a moral and political writer
(in his second letter to Malesherbes), he does not so much as mention
his fundamental error but only the just principles which led him into
it. He was the first to teach that the imperfections of government
were the only permanent source of the vices of mankind, and this
principle was adopted from him by Helvétius and others. But he saw
farther than this, that government, however reformed, was little capa-
ble of affording solid benefit to mankind, which they did not. This
34 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
These are the dreams of a fertile conception, busy in the
erection of imaginary systems. To a rational mind that
project would seem to promise little substantial benefit which
set out from so erroneous a principle. To terrify men into
the reception of a system the reasonableness of which they
were unable to perceive is surely a very indirect method of
rendering them sober, judicious, fearless and happy.
In reality no grand political system ever was introduced in
the manner Rousseau describes. Lycurgus, as he observes,
obtained the sanction of the oracle at Delphi to the constitu-
tion he had established. But was it by an appeal to Apollo
that he persuaded the Spartans to renounce the use of money,
to consent to an equal division of land, and to adopt various
other regulations the most contrary to their preconceived
prejudices? No; it was by an appeal to their understand-
ings, in the midst of long debate and perpetual counteraction,
and through the inflexibility of his courage and resolution
that he at last attained his purpose. Lycurgus thought
proper, after the whole was concluded, to obtain the sanction
of the oracle, conceiving that it became him to neglect no
principle has since (probably without any assistance from the writings
of Rousseau) been expressed with great perspicuity and energy, but
not developed, by Mr. Thomas Paine in the first page of his Common
Sense.
Rousseau, notwithstanding his great genius, was full of weakness
and prejudice. His Émile is upon the whole to be regarded as the
principal reservoir of philosophical truth as yet existing in the world,
but with a perpetual mixture of absurdity and mistake. In his writ-
ings expressly political, Du Contrat Social and Considérations sur la
Pologne, the unrivalled superiority of his genius appears to desert him.
To his merits as a reasoner we should not forget to add that the term
eloquence is perhaps more precisely descriptive of his mode of compo-
sition than of that of any other writer that ever existed.
Of Political Imposture 35
method of substantiating the benefit he had conferred on his
countrymen. It is indeed hardly possible to persuade a
society of men to adopt any system without convincing them
that it is their wisdom to adopt it. It is difficult to conceive
of a society of such miserable dupes as to receive a code
without any imagination that it is reasonable or wise or just,
but upon this single recommendation that it is delivered to
them from the gods. The only reasonable and infinitely the
most efficacious method of changing the institutions of any
people is by creating in them a general opinion of their er-
roneousness and insufficiency.
But if it be indeed impracticable to persuade men into
the adoption of any system without employing as our prin-
cipal argument the intrinsic rectitude of that system, what
is the argument which he would desire to use who had most
at heart the welfare and improvement of the persons con-
cerned P. Would he begin by teaching them to reason well
or to reason ill? by unnerving their mind with prejudice or
new stringing it with truth? How many arts, and how
noxious to those towards whom we employ them, are neces-
sary if we would successfully deceive? We must not only
leave their reason in indolence at first, but endeavour to
supersede its exertion in any future instance. If men be for
the present kept right by prejudice, what will become of
them hereafter if by any future penetration or any ac-
cidental discovery this prejudice shall be annihilated? De-
tection is not always the fruit of systematical improvement,
but may be effected by some solitary exertion of the faculty
or some luminous and irresistible argument while everything
else remains as it was. If we would first deceive and then
maintain our deception unimpaired, we shall need penal
36 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
statutes, and licensers of the press, and hired ministers of
falsehood and imposture. Admirable modes these for the
propagation of wisdom and virtue!
There is another case similar to that stated by Rousseau
upon which much stress has been laid by political writers.
“Obedience,” say they, “must either be courted or compelled.
We must either make a judicious use of the prejudices and
the ignorance of mankind or be contented to have no hold
upon them but their fears, and maintain social order en-
tirely by the severity of punishment. To dispense us from
this painful necessity authority ought carefully to be in-
vested with a sort of magic persuasion. Citizens should
serve their country, not with a frigid submission that scrupu-
lously weighs its duties, but with an enthusiasm that places
its honour in its loyalty. For this reason our governors and
superiors must not be spoken of with levity. They must be
considered, independently of their individual character, as
deriving a sacredness from their office. They must be ac-
companied with splendour and veneration. Advantage must
be taken of the imperfection of mankind. We ought to gain
over their judgments through the medium of their senses and
not leave the conclusions to be drawn to the uncertain process
of immature reason.” ”
This is still the same argument under another form. It
takes for granted that reason is inadequate to teach us our
duty; and of consequence recommends an equivocal engine
which may with equal ease be employed in the service of
* This argument is the great commonplace of Mr. Burke's Reflec-
tions on the Revolution in France, of several successive productions
of Mr. Necker, and of a multitude of other works upon the sub-
ject of government.
Of Political Imposture 37
justice and injustice, but would surely appear somewhat more
in its place in the service of the latter. It is injustice that
stands most in need of superstition and mystery, and will
most frequently be a gainer by the imposition. This hy-
pothesis proceeds upon an assumption which young men
sometimes impute to their parents and preceptors. It says,
“Mankind must be kept in ignorance: if they know vice, they
will love it too well; if they perceive the charms of error,
they will never return to the simplicity of truth.” And
strange as it may appear, this barefaced and unplausible
argument has been the foundation of a very popular and
generally received hypothesis. It has taught politicians to
believe that a people once sunk into decrepitude, as it has
been termed, could never afterwards be endued with purity
and vigour.
Is it certain that there is no alternative between deceit and
unrelenting severity? Does our duty contain no inherent
recommendations? If it be not our own interest that we
should be temperate and virtuous, whose interest is it? Polit-
ical institution, as has abundantly appeared in the course of
this work and will still farther appear as we go forward,
has been too frequently the parent of temptations to error
and vice of a thousand different denominations. It would
be well if legislators, instead of contriving farther deceptions
and enchantments to retain us in our duty, would remove the
impostures which at present corrupt our hearts and engender
at once artificial wants and real distress. There would be
less need under the system of plain, unornamented truth
than under theirs that “every vista should be terminated with
the gallows.” "
* Burke's Reflections.
38 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
Why deceive me? It is either my wisdom to do the thing
you require of me, or it is not. The reasons for doing it
are either sufficient or insufficient. If sufficient, why should
not they be the machine to govern my understanding? Shall
I most improve while I am governed by false reasons, by
imposture and artifice, which, were I a little wiser, I should
know were of no value in whatever cause they may be em-
ployed; or while my understanding grows every day sounder
and stronger by perpetual communication with truth? If
the reasons for what you demand of me be insufficient, why
should I comply? It is strongly to be suspected that that
regulation which dares not rest upon its own reasonableness
conduces to the benefit of a few at the expense of the many.
Imposture was surely invented by him who thought more of
securing dignity to himself than of prevailing on mankind
to consent to their own welfare. That which you require
of me is wise no farther than it is reasonable. Why en-
deavour to persuade me that it is more wise, more essential
than it really is, or that it is wise for any other reason than
the true? Why divide men into two classes one of which is
to think and reason for the whole, and the other to take the
conclusions of their superiors on trust? This distinction is
not founded in the nature of things; there is no such in-
herent difference between man and man as it thinks proper
to suppose. The reasons that should convince us that virtue
is better than vice are neither complicated nor abstruse;
and the less they be tampered with by the injudicious in-
terference of political institution, the more will they come
home to the understanding and approve themselves to the
judgment of every man.
Nor is the distinction less injurious than it is unfounded.
Of Political Imposture 39
The two classes which it creates must be more and less than
man. It is too much to expect of the former, while we con-
sign to them an unnatural monopoly, that they should rig-
idly consult for the good of the whole. It is an iniquitous
requisition upon the latter that they should never employ
their understandings, never penetrate into the essences of
things, but always rest in a deceitful appearance. It is in-
iquitous that we should seek to withhold from them the prin-
ciples of simple truth and exert ourselves to keep alive their
fond and infantine mistakes. The time must probably come
when the deceit shall vanish, and then the impostures of
monarchy and aristocracy will no longer be able to maintain
their ground. The change will at that time be most aus-
picious if we honestly inculcate the truth now, secure that
men’s minds will grow strong enough to endure the practice
in proportion as their understanding of the theory excites
them to demand it.
CHAPTER XVI
OF THE CAUSES OF WAR
Exclusively of those objections which have been urged
against the democratical system as it relates to the internal
management of affairs, there are others upon which consider-
able stress has been laid in relation to the transactions of a
state with foreign powers, to war and peace, to treaties of al-
liance and commerce.
There is indeed an eminent difference with respect to these
between the democratical system and all others. It is per-
haps impossible to show that a single war ever did or could
have taken place in the history of mankind that did not in
Some way originate with those two great political monopolies,
monarchy and aristocracy. This might have formed an ad-
ditional article in the catalogue of evils to which they have
given birth, little inferior to any of those we have enumer-
ated. But nothing could be more superfluous than to seek
to overcharge a subject the evidence of which is irresistible.
What could be the source of misunderstanding between
states where no man or body of men found encouragement to
the accumulation of privileges to himself at the expense of
the rest? A people among whom equality reigned would
possess everything they wanted where they possessed the
means of subsistence. Why should they pursue additional
wealth or territory? These would lose their value the
moment they became the property of all. No man can
40
Of the Causes of War 4. I
cultivate more than a certain portion of land. Money is
representative and not real wealth. If every man in the
society possessed a double portion of money, bread and every
other commodity would sell at double their present price,
and the relative situation of each individual would be just
what it had been before. War and conquest cannot be
beneficial to the community. Their tendency is to elevate
a few at the expense of the rest, and consequently they will
never be undertaken but where the many are the instruments
of the few. But this cannot happen in a democracy till the
democracy shall become such only in name. If expedients
can be devised for maintaining this species of government in
its purity, or if there be anything in the nature of wisdom
and intellectual improvement which has a tendency daily to
make truth prevail more over falsehood, the principle of
offensive war will be extirpated. But this principle enters
into the very essence of monarchy and aristocracy."
Meanwhile, though the principle of offensive war be in-
compatible with the genius of democracy, a democratical state
may be placed in the neighbourhood of states whose govern-
ment is less equal, and therefore it will be proper to enquire
into the supposed disadvantages which the democratical state
may sustain in the contest. The only species of war in which
* [At this point, the following paragraph is inserted in the third
edition:
“It is not meant here to be insinuated that democracy has not
repeatedly been a source of war. It was eminently so among the
ancient Romans; the aristocracy found in it an obvious expedient
for diverting the attention and encroachments of the people. It may
be expected to be so wherever the form of government is compli-
cated and the nation at large is enabled to become formidable to a
band of usurpers. But war will be foreign to the character of any
people in proportion as their democracy becomes simple and un-
alloyed.”]
42 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
it can consistently be engaged will be that the object of which
is to repel wanton invasion. Such invasions will be little likely
frequently to occur. For what purpose should a corrupt
state attack a country which has no feature in common with
itself upon which to build a misunderstanding, and which
presents in the very nature of its government a pledge of its
own inoffensiveness and neutrality? Add to which, it will
presently appear that this state, which yields the fewest in-
citements to provoke an attack, will prove a very im-
practicable adversary to those by whom an attack shall be
commenced.
One of the most essential principles of political justice is
diametrically the reverse of that which impostors and
patriots have too frequently agreed to recommend. Their
perpetual exhortation has been, “Love your country. Sink
the personal existence of individuals in the existence of the
community. Make little account of the particular men of
whom the society consists, but aim at the general wealth,
prosperity and glory. Purify your mind from the gross
ideas of sense and elevate it to the single contemplation of
that abstract individual of which particular men are so many
detached members, valuable only for the place they fill.””
The lessons of reason on this head are precisely opposite.
Society is an ideal existence, and not on its own account
entitled to the smallest regard. The wealth, prosperity and
glory of the whole are unintelligible chimeras. Set no value
on anything but in proportion as you are convinced of its
tendency to make individual men happy and virtuous.
Benefit by every practicable mode man wherever he exists,
but be not deceived by the specious idea of affording services
to a body of men for which no individual man is the better.
* Du Contrat Social, &c., &c., &c.
Of the Causes of War 43
Society was instituted, not for the sake of glory, not to
furnish splendid materials for the page of history, but for
the benefit of its members. The love of our country, if we
would speak accurately, is another of those specious illusions
which have been invented by impostors in order to render the
multitude the blind instruments of their crooked designs.
Meanwhile let us beware of passing from one injurious
extreme to another. Much of what has been usually under-
stood by the love of our country is highly excellent and
valuable, though perhaps nothing that can be brought within
the strict interpretation of the phrase. A wise man will not
fail to be the votary of liberty and equality. He will be
ready to exert himself in their defence wherever they exist.
It cannot be a matter of indifference to him when his own
liberty and that of other men with whose excellence and
capabilities he has the best opportunity of being acquainted
are involved in the event of the struggle to be made. But
his attachment will be to the cause and not to the country.
Wherever there are men who understand the value of polit-
ical justice and are prepared to assert it, that is his country.
Wherever he can most contribute to the diffusion of these
principles and the real happiness of mankind, that is his
country. Nor does he desire for any country any other
benefit than justice.
To apply these principles to the subject of war. And
before that application can be adequately made, it is necessary
to recollect for a moment the force of the term.
Because individuals were liable to error, and suffered their
apprehensions of justice to be perverted by a bias in favour
of themselves, government was instituted. Because nations
were susceptible of a similar weakness and could find no
sufficient umpire to whom to appeal, war was introduced.
44 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
Men were induced deliberately to seek each other's lives and
to adjudge the controversies between them, not according to
the dictates of reason and justice, but as either should prove
most successful in devastation and murder. This was no
doubt in the first instance the extremity of exasperation and
rage. But it has since been converted into a trade. One
part of the nation pays another part to murder and be
murdered in their stead; and the most trivial causes, a sup-
posed insult or a sally of youthful ambition, have sufficed to
deluge provinces with blood.
We can have no adequate idea of this evil unless we visit,
at least in imagination, a field of battle. Here men de-
liberately destroy each other by thousands without any re-
sentment against or even knowledge of each other. The
plain is strewed with death in all its various forms. An-
guish and wounds display the diversified modes in which
they can torment the human frame. Towns are burned,
ships are blown up in the air while the mangled limbs descend
on every side, the fields are laid desolate, the wives of the
inhabitants exposed to brutal insult, and their children driven
forth to hunger and nakedness. It would be despicable to
mention, along with these scenes of horror and the total
subversion of all ideas of moral justice they must occasion
in the auditors and spectators, the immense treasures which
are wrung in the form of taxes from those inhabitants whose
residence is at a distance from the scene.
After this enumeration we may venture to enquire what
are the justifiable causes and rules of war.
It is not a justifiable reason “that we imagine our own
people would be rendered more cordial and orderly if we
could find a neighbour with whom to quarrel, and who might
Serve as a touchstone to try the characters and dispositions of
Of the Causes of War 45
individuals among ourselves.” ” We are not at liberty to
have recourse to the most complicated and atrocious of all
mischiefs in the way of an experiment.
It is not a justifiable reason “that we have been exposed to
certain insults, and that tyrants perhaps have delighted in
treating with contempt the citizens of our happy state who
have visited their dominions.” Government ought to pro-
tect the tranquillity of those who reside within the sphere of
its functions; but if individuals think proper to visit other
countries, they must then be delivered over to the protec-
tion of general reason. Some proportion must be observed
between the evil of which we complain and the evil which the
nature of the proposed remedy inevitably includes.
It is not a justifiable reason “that our neighbour is pre-
paring or menacing hostilities.” If we be obliged to pre-
pare in our turn, the inconvenience is only equal; and it is
not to be believed that a despotic country is capable of more
exertion than a free one when the task incumbent on the
latter is indispensable precaution.
It has sometimes been held to be sound reasoning upon
this subject “that we ought not to yield little things, which
* The reader will easily perceive that the pretences by which the
people of France were instigated to a declaration of war in April
I792 were in the author’s mind in this place. Nor will a few lines
be misspent in this note in stating the judgment of an impartial ob-
server upon the wantonness with which they have appeared ready
upon different occasions to proceed to extremities. If policy were
in question, it might be doubted whether the confederacy of kings
would ever have been brought into action against them had it not
been for their precipitation; and it might be asked what impression
they must expect to be made upon the minds of other states by their
intemperate commission of hostility? But that strict justice which
prescribes to us never by a hasty interference to determine the doubt-
ful balance in favour of murder is a superior consideration, in com-
parison with which policy is unworthy so much as to be named.
46 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
may not in themselves be sufficiently valuable to authorise
this tremendous appeal, because a disposition to yield only
invites farther experiments.” “ Far otherwise; at least when
the character of such a nation is sufficiently understood. A
people that will not contend for nominal and trivial objects,
that maintains the precise line of unalterable justice, and that
does not fail to be moved at the moment that it ought to be
moved is not the people that its neighbours will delight to
urge to extremities.
“The vindication of national honour” is a very insufficient
reason for hostilities. True honour is to be found only in
integrity and justice. It has been doubted how far a view to
reputation ought in matters of inferior moment to be per-
mitted to influence the conduct of individuals; but let the
case of individuals be decided as it may, reputation, con-
sidered as a separate motive in the instance of nations, can
never be justifiable. In individuals it seems as if I might,
consistently with the utmost real integrity, be so miscon-
strued and misrepresented by others as to render my efforts
at usefulness almost always abortive. But this reason does
not apply to the case of nations. Their real story cannot
easily be suppressed. Usefulness and public spirit in rela-
tion to them chiefly belong to the transactions of their mem-
bers among themselves, and their influence in the transactions
of neighbouring nations is a consideration evidently sub-
ordinate. The question which respects the justifiable causes
of war would be liable to few difficulties if we were ac-
customed, along with the word, strongly to call up to our
minds the thing which that word is intended to represent.
Accurately considered, there can probably be but two
* This pretence is sustained in Paley's Moral and Political
Philosophy, Book VI, Ch. XII.
Of the Causes of War 47
justifiable causes of war, and one of them is among those
which the logic of sovereigns and the law of nations, as it
has been termed, proscribe: these are the defence of our own
liberty and of the liberty of others. The well-known objec-
tion to the latter of these cases is that one nation ought not
to interfere in the internal transactions of another; and we
can only wonder that so absurd an objection should have
been admitted so long. The true principle, under favour of
which this false one has been permitted to pass current, is
that no people and no individual are fit for the possession
of any immunity till they understand the nature of that im-
munity and desire to possess it. It may therefore be an un-
justifiable undertaking to force a nation to be free. But
when the people themselves desire it, it is virtue and duty to
assist them in the acquisition. This principle is capable of
being abused by men of ambition and intrigue; but accurately
considered, the very same argument that should induce me to
exert myself for the liberties of my own country is equally
cogent, so far as my opportunities and ability extend, with
respect to the liberties of any other country. But the moral-
ity that ought to govern the conduct of individuals and of
nations is in all cases the same.
[Chapter XVII, “Of the Object of War,” Chapter XVIII,
“Of the Conduct of War,” and Chapter XIX, “Of Military
Establishments and Treaties,” have become largely antiquated,
and are omitted in this abridgment. The object of war, God-
win says, “can extend no farther than the repelling the enemy
from our borders. . . . Declarations of war and treaties of .
peace are inventions of a barbarous age, and would never have /
grown into established usages if war had customarily gone no
farther than to the limits of defence.” He concludes Chapter
XVII, “An instrument evil in its own nature ought never to be
48 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
selected as the means of promoting our purpose in any case
in which selection can be practised.” He seems to believe it
possible to conduct a really defensive war with the punctilious
“honor” of the duelling ground. Treaties of alliance are, like
other absolute promises, wrong, and are besides nugatory.
Chapter XX, “Of Democracy As Connected With the Trans-
actions of War,” holds that democracy is less fitted to wage
wars of offence, and is adequate to wars of defence; and con-
siders the objections that democracy is incompatible with se-
crecy, and that its movements are too slow or too precipitate.
The chapter ends with a paragraph on the evils of anarchy
(omitted in the third edition) thus:
“The nature of anarchy has never been sufficiently under-
stood. It is undoubtedly a horrible calamity, but it is less
horrible than despotism. Where anarchy has slain its hun-
dreds, despotism has sacrificed millions upon millions, with this
only effect, to perpetuate the ignorance, the vices and the
misery of mankind. Anarchy is a short-lived mischief, while
despotism is all but immortal. It is unquestionably a dreadful
remedy for the people to yield to all their furious passions till
the spectacle of their effects gives strength to recovering rea-
son; but though it be a dreadful remedy, it is a sure one.
No idea can be supposed more pregnant with absurdity than
that of a whole people taking arms against each other till they
are all exterminated. It is to despotism that anarchy is in-
debted for its sting. If despotism were not ever watchful for
its prey and mercilessly prepared to take advantage of the
errors of mankind, this ferment, like so many others, being left
to itself, would subside into an even, clear and delightful calm.
Reason is at all times progressive. Nothing can give perma-
nence to error that does not convert it into an establishment
and arm it with powers to resist an invasion.”]
CHAPTER XXI
OF THE COMPOSITION OF GOVERNMENT
One of the articles which has been most eagerly insisted
on by the advocates of complexity in political institutions is
that of “checks, by which a rash proceeding may be pre-
vented, and the provisions under which mankind have hitherto
lived with tranquillity may not be reversed without mature
deliberation.” We will suppose that the evils of monarchy
and aristocracy are by this time too notorious to incline the
speculative enquirer to seek for a remedy in either of these.
“Yet it is possible, without the institution of privileged
orders, to find means that may answer a similar purpose in
this respect. The representatives of the people may be dis-
tributed for example into two assemblies; they may be chosen
with this particular view to constitute an upper and a lower
house, and may be distinguished from each other either by
various qualifications of age or fortune, or by being chosen
by a greater or smaller number of electors, or for a shorter
or longer term.”
To every inconvenience that experience can produce or
imagination suggest there is probably an appropriate remedy.
This remedy may either be sought in the dictates of reason or
in artificial combinations encroaching upon those dictates.
Which are we to prefer? There is no doubt that the in-
stitution of two houses of assembly is contrary to the primary
dictates of reason and justice. How shall a nation be gov-
49
5O An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
erned 2 Agreeably to the opinions of its inhabitants, or in
opposition to them? Agreeably to them undoubtedly. Not,
as we cannot too often repeat, because their opinion is a
standard of truth, but because, however erroneous that
opinion may be, we can do no better. There is no effectual
way of improving the institutions of any people but by en-
lightening their understandings. He that endeavours to
maintain the authority of any sentiment, not by argument,
but by force, may intend a benefit, but really inflicts an ex-
treme injury. To suppose that truth can be instilled through
any medium but that of its intrinsic evidence is the most
flagrant of all errors. He that believes the most fundamental
proposition through the influence of authority does not be-
lieve a truth, but a falsehood. The proposition itself he
does not understand, for thoroughly to understand it is to
perceive the degree of evidence with which it is accompanied;
thoroughly to understand it is to know the full meaning of its
terms and, by necessary consequence, to perceive in what
respects they agree or disagree with each other. All that he
believes is that it is very proper he should submit to usurpa-
tion and injustice.
It was imputed to the late government of France that,
when they called an assembly of notables in 1787, they con-
trived, by dividing the assembly into seven distinct corps
and not allowing them to vote otherwise than in these corps,
that the vote of fifty persons should be capable of operating
as if they were a majority in an assembly of one hundred
and forty-four. It would have been still worse if it had been
ordained that no measure should be considered as the measure
of the assembly unless it were adopted by the unanimous
voice of all the corps: eleven persons might then, in voting
Of the Composition of Government 5 I
a negative, have operated as a majority of one hundred and
forty-four. This may serve as a specimen of the effects of
distributing a representative national assembly into two or
more houses. Nor should we suffer ourselves to be deceived
under the pretence of the innocence of a negative in com-
parison with an affirmative. In a country in which universal
truth was already established, there would be little need of a
representative assembly. In a country into whose institu-
tions error has insinuated itself, a negative upon the repeal of
those errors is the real affirmative.
The institution of two houses of assembly is the direct
method to divide a nation against itself. One of these houses
will in a greater or less degree be the asylum of usurpation,
monopoly and privilege. Parties would expire as soon as
they were born in a country where opposition of sentiments
and a struggle of interests were not allowed to assume the
formalities of distinct institution.
Meanwhile a species of check perfectly simple, and which
appears sufficiently adequate to the purpose, suggests itself
in the idea of a slow and deliberate proceeding which the
representative assembly should prescribe to itself. Perhaps
no proceeding of this assembly should have the force of a
general regulation till it had undergone five or six successive
discussions in the assembly, or till the expiration of one
month from the period of its being proposed. Something
like this is the order of the English House of Commons, nor
does it appear to be by any means among the worst features
of our constitution. A system like this would be sufficiently
analogous to the proceedings of a wise individual, who cer–
tainly would not wish to determine upon the most important
concerns of his life without a severe examination, and still
52 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
less would omit this examination if his decision were
destined to be a rule for the conduct and a criterion to
determine upon the rectitude of other men.
Perhaps, as we have said, this slow and gradual proceed-
ing ought in no instance to be dispensed with by the national
representative assembly. This seems to be the true line
between the functions of the assembly and its ministers. It
would give a character of gravity and good sense to this
central authority that would tend eminently to fix the con-
fidence of the citizens in its wisdom and justice. The mere
votes of the assembly, as distinguished from its acts and de-
crees, might serve as an encouragement to the public func-
tionaries, and as affording a certain degree of hope respect-
ing the speedy cure of those evils of which the public might
complain; but they should never be allowed to be pleaded as
the legal justification of any action. A precaution like this
would not only tend to prevent the fatal consequences of any
precipitate judgment of the assembly within itself, but of
tumult and disorder from without. An artful demagogue
would find it much more easy to work up the people into a
fit of momentary insanity than to retain them in it for a
month in opposition to the efforts of their real friends to
undeceive them. Meanwhile the consent of the assembly to
take their demand into consideration might reasonably be
expected to moderate their violence.
Scarcely any plausible argument can be adduced in favour
of what has been denominated by political writers a division
of powers. Nothing can seem less reasonable than to
prescribe any positive limits to the topics of deliberation
in an assembly adequately representing the people, or per-
emptorily to forbid them the exercise of functions the de-
positaries of which are placed under their inspection and
Of the Composition of Government 53
censure. Perhaps upon any emergence totally unforeseen
at the time of their election and uncommonly important they
would prove their wisdom by calling upon the people to
elect a new assembly with a direct view to that emergence.
But the emergence, as we shall have occasion more fully
to observe in the sequel, cannot with any propriety be pre-
judged and a rule laid down for their conduct by a body
prior to or distinct from themselves. The distinction of
legislative and executive powers, however intelligible in
theory, will by no means authorise their separation in
practice.
Legislation—that is, the authoritative enunciation of
abstract or general propositions—is a function of equivocal
nature and will never be exercised in a pure state of society,
or a state approaching to purity, but with great caution and
unwillingness. It is the most absolute of the functions of
government, and government itself is a remedy that in-
evitably brings its own evils along with it. Administration
on the other hand is a principle of perpetual application. So
long as men shall see reason to act in a corporate capacity,
they will always have occasions of temporary emergency for
which to provide. In proportion as they advance in social
improvement, executive power will, comparatively speaking,
become everything, and legislative nothing. Even at present
can there be any articles of greater importance than those of
peace and war, taxation, and the selection of proper periods
for the meeting of deliberative assemblies, which, as was
observed in the commencement of the present book, are
articles of temporary regulation?" Is it decent, can it be
just, that these prerogatives should be exercised by any
power less than the supreme, or be decided by any authority
1 Chap. I [Vol. I, p. 192].
54 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
but that which most adequately represents the voice of the
nation? This principle ought beyond question to be ex-
tended universally. There can be no just reason for ex-
cluding the national representative from the exercise of any
function the exercise of which on the part of the society is
at all necessary.
The functions therefore of ministers and magistrates
commonly so called do not relate to any particular topic
respecting which they have a right exclusive of the represent-
ative assembly. They do not relate to any supposed neces-
sity for secrecy; for secrets are always pernicious, and, most
of all, secrets relating to the interests of any society which
are to be concealed from the members of that society. It is
the duty of the assembly to desire information without re-
serve for themselves and the public upon every subject of
general importance, and it is the duty of ministers and others
to communicate such information, though it should not be
expressly desired. The utility therefore of ministerial func-
tions being less than nothing in these respects, there are
only two classes of utility that remain to them; particular
functions, such as those of financial detail or minute super-
intendence, which cannot be exercised unless by one or at
most by a small number of persons; * and measures propor-
tioned to the demand of those necessities which will not ad-
mit of delay, and subject to the revision and censure of the
deliberative assembly. The latter of these classes will per-
petually diminish as men advance in improvement; nor can
anything be of greater importance than the reduction of that
discretionary power in an individual which may greatly affect
the interests or fetter the deliberations of the many.
* Chap. I [Vol. I, p. 192].
CHAPTER XXII
OF THE FUTURE HISTORY OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES
We have now endeavoured to deduce certain general prin-
ciples upon most of the subjects of legislative and executive
power. But there is one very important topic which remains
to be discussed. How much of either of these powers does
the benefit of society require us to maintain?
We have already seen * that the only legitimate object of
political institution is the advantage of individuals. All that
cannot be brought home to them, national wealth, prosperity
and glory, can be advantageous only to those self-interested
impostors who, from the earliest accounts of time, have con-
founded the understandings of mankind the more securely to
sink them in debasement and misery.
The desire to gain a more extensive territory, to conquer
or to hold in awe our neighbouring states, to surpass them in
arts or arms, is a desire founded in prejudice and error.
Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be
desired than a name at which nations tremble. Mankind are
brethren. We associate in a particular district or under a
particular climate because association is necessary to our in-
ternal tranquillity, or to defend us against the wanton attacks
of a common enemy. But the rivalship of nations is a crea-
ture of the imagination. If riches be our object, riches can
only be created by commerce; and the greater is our neigh-
1 [Bk. V, Chap. XVI, Vol. II, p. 43.]
55
56 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
bour's capacity to buy, the greater will be our opportunity to
sell. The prosperity of all is the interest of all.
The more accurately we understand our own advantage,
the less shall we be disposed to disturb the peace of our
neighbour. The same principle is applicable to him in re-
turn. It becomes us therefore to desire that he may be wise.
But wisdom is the growth of equality and independence, not
of injury and oppression. If oppression had been the school
of wisdom, the improvement of mankind would have been
inestimable, for they have been in that school for many thou-
sand years. We ought therefore to desire that our neigh-
bour should be independent. We ought to desire that he
should be free; for wars do not originate in the unbiassed
propensities of nations, but in the cabals of government and
the propensities that governments inspire into the people at
large. If our neighbour invade our territory, all we should
desire is to repel him from it; and for that purpose it is
not necessary we should surpass him in prowess, since upon
our own ground his match is unequal. Not to say that to
conceive a nation attacked by another, so long as its own
conduct is sober, equitable and moderate, is an exceedingly
improbable supposition.
Where nations are not brought into avowed hostility, all
jealousy between them is an unintelligible chimera. I re-
side upon a certain spot because that residence is most con-
ducive to my happiness or usefulness. I am interested in the
political justice and virtue of my species because they are
men—that is, creatures eminently capable of justice and
virtue; and I have perhaps additional reason to interest my-
self for those who live under the same government as myself,
because I am better qualified to understand their claims and
more capable of exerting myself in their behalf. But I can
Of the Future History of Political Societies 57
certainly have no interest in the infliction of pain upon others,
unless so far as they are expressly engaged in acts of injus-
tice. The object of sound policy and morality is to draw
men nearer to each other, not to separate them; to unite their
interests, not to oppose them.
Individuals cannot have too frequent or unlimited inter-
course with each other, but societies of men have no interests
to explain and adjust except so far as error and violence may
render explanation necessary. This consideration annihilates
at once the principal objects of that mysterious and crooked
policy which has hitherto occupied the attention of govern-
ments. Before this principle officers of the army and the
navy, ambassadors and negotiators, and all the train of arti-
fices that has been invented to hold other nations at bay, to
penetrate their secrets, to traverse their machinations, to
form alliances and counter-alliances sink into nothing. The
expense of government is annihilated, and together with its
expense the means of subduing and undermining the deter-
mination of its subjects.
Another of the great opprobriums of political science is
at the same time completely removed, that extent of territory
subject to one head, respecting which philosophers and mor-
alists have alternately disputed whether it be most unfit for
a monarchy or for a democratical government. The appear-
ance which mankind in a future state of improvement may
be expected to assume is a policy that in different countries
will wear a similar form, because we have all the same fac-
ulties and the same wants; but a policy the independent
branches of which will extend their authority over a small
territory, because neighbours are best informed of each
other's concerns and are perfectly equal to their adjustment.
No recommendation can be imagined of an extensive rather
58 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
than a limited territory except that of external security.
Whatever evils are included in the abstract idea of govern-
ment are all of them extremely aggravated by the extensive-
ness of its jurisdiction and softened under circumstances of
an opposite species. Ambition, which may be no less formid-
able than a pestilence in the former, has no room to unfold
itself in the latter. Popular commotion is like the waves of
the sea, capable where the surface is large of producing the
most tragical effects, but mild and innocuous when confined
within the circuit of an humble lake. Sobriety and equity
are the obvious characteristics of a limited circle.
It may indeed be objected that great talents are the off-
spring of great passions, and that in the quiet mediocrity of
a petty republic the powers of intellect may be expected to
subside into inactivity. This objection, if true, would be en-
titled to the most serious consideration. But it is to be con-
sidered that, upon the hypothesis here advanced, the whole
human species would constitute in one sense one great repub-
lie, and the prospects of him who desired to act beneficially
upon a great surface of mind would become more animat-
ing than ever. During the period in which this state was
growing but not yet complete, the comparison of the bless-
ings we enjoyed with the iniquities practising among our
neighbours would afford an additional stimulus to exertion.”
Ambition and tumult are evils that arise out of government
in an indirect manner, in consequence of the habits which
government introduces of material action extending itself
over multitudes of men. There are other evils inseparable
from its existence. The objects of government are the sup-
pression of violence, either external or internal, which might
* This objection will be copiously discussed in the eighth book of
the present work.
Of the Future History of Political Societies 59
otherwise destroy or bring into jeopardy the well-being of
the community or its members; and the means it employs is
violence of a more regulated kind. For this purpose the
concentration of individual forces becomes necessary, and
the method in which this concentration is usually obtained is
also constraint. The evils of constraint have been con-
sidered on a former occasion.” Constraint employed against
delinquents or persons to whom delinquency is imputed is
by no means without its mischiefs. Constraint employed
by the majority of a society against the minority who may
differ from them upon some question of public good is cal-
culated at first sight at least to excite a still greater dis-
approbation.
Both of these exertions may indeed appear to rest upon
the same principle. Vice is unquestionably no more than
error of judgment, and nothing can justify an attempt to
correct it by force but the extreme necessity of the case.”
The minority, if erroneous, fall under precisely the same
general description, though their error may not be of equal
magnitude. But the necessity of the case can seldom be
equally impressive. If the idea of secession for example
were somewhat more familiarised to the conceptions of
mankind, it could seldom happen that the secession of the
minority could in any degree compare in mischievous ten-
dency with the hostility of a criminal offending against the
most obvious principles of social justice. The cases are
parallel to those of offensive and defensive war. In putting
constraint upon a minority we yield to a suspicious temper
that tells us the opposing party may hereafter in some way
injure us, and we will anticipate his injury. In putting con-
* Book II, Chap. VI.
4 Ibid.
60 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
straint upon a criminal we seem to repel an enemy who has
entered our territory and refuses to quit it.
Government can have no more than two legitimate pur-
poses, the suppression of injustice against individuals within
the community, and the common defence against external
invasion. The first of these purposes, which alone can have
an uninterrupted claim upon us, is sufficiently answered by
an association of such an extent as to afford room for the
institution of a jury to decide upon the offences of individuals
within the community and upon the questions and con-
troversies respecting property which may chance to arise.
It might be easy indeed for an offender to escape from the
limits of so petty a jurisdiction; and it might seem necessary
at first that the neighbouring parishes or jurisdictions should
be governed in a similar manner, or at least should be willing,
whatever was their form of government, to cooperate with us
in the removal or reformation of an offender whose present
habits were alike injurious to us and to them. But there
will be no need of any express compact, and still less of any
common centre of authority, for this purpose. General
justice and mutual interest are found more capable of bind-
ing men than signatures and seals. In the meantime all
necessity for causing the punishment of the crime to pursue
the criminal would soon at least cease if it ever existed. The
motives to offence would become rare, its aggravations few,
and rigour superfluous. The principal object of punish-
ment is restraint upon a dangerous member of the commun-
ity; and the end of this restraint would be answered by the
general inspection that is exercised by the members of a
limited circle over the conduct of each other, and by the
gravity and good sense that would characterise the censures
of men from whom all mystery and empiricism were ban-
Of the Future History of Political Societies 61
ished. No individual would be hardy enough in the cause
of vice to defy the general consent of sober judgment that
would surround him. It would carry despair to his mind,
or, which is better, it would carry conviction. He would be
obliged, by a force not less irresistible than whips and chains,
to reform his conduct.
In this sketch is contained the rude outline of political
government. Controversies between parish and parish would
be in an eminent degree unreasonable, since, if any question
arose, about limits for example, justice would presently teach
us that the individual who cultivates any portion of land is
the properest person to decide to which district he would
belong. No association of men so long as they adhered to
the principles of reason could possibly have any interest in
extending their territory. If we would produce attachment
in our associates, we can adopt no surer method than that of
practising the dictates of equity and moderation; and if this
failed in any instance, it could only fail with him who, to
whatever society he belonged, would prove an unworthy
member. The duty of any society to punish offenders is not
dependent upon the hypothetical consent of the offender to
be punished, but upon the duty of necessary defence.
But however irrational might be the controversy of parish
with parish in such a state of society, it would not be the
less possible. For such extraordinary emergencies there-
fore provision ought to be made. These emergencies are
similar in their nature to those of foreign invasion. They
can only be provided against by the concert of several dis-
tricts, declaring and, if needful, enforcing the dictates of
justice.
One of the most obvious remarks that suggests itself upon
these two cases, of hostility between district and district, and
62 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of foreign invasion which the interest of all calls upon them
jointly to repel, is that it is their nature to be only of oc-
casional recurrence and that therefore the provisions to be
made respecting them need not be in the strictest sense of
perpetual operation. In other words, the permanence of a
national assembly as it has hitherto been practised in France
cannot be necessary in a period of tranquillity, and may per-
haps be pernicious. That we may form a more accurate
judgment of this let us recollect some of the principal
features that enter into the constitution of a national as-
sembly.
CHAPTER XXIII
OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES
In the first place the existence of a national assembly in-
troduces the evils of a fictitious unanimity. The public,
guided by such an assembly, acts with concert, or else the as-
sembly is a nugatory excrescence. But it is impossible that
this unanimity can really exist. The individuals who con-
stitute a nation cannot take into consideration a variety of
important questions without forming different sentiments
respecting them. In reality all matters that are brought be-
fore such an assembly are decided by a majority of votes,
and the minority, after having exposed with all the power
of eloquence and force of reasoning of which they are capable
the injustice and folly of the measures adopted, are obliged
in a certain sense to assist in carrying them into execution.
Nothing can more directly contribute to the depravation of
the human understanding and character. It inevitably ren-
ders mankind timid, dissembling and corrupt. He that is
not accustomed exclusively to act upon the dictates of his
own understanding must fall infinitely short of that energy
and simplicity of which our nature is capable. He that con-
tributes his personal exertions or his property to the sup-
port of a cause which he believes to be unjust will quickly
lose that accurate discrimination and nice sensibility of moral
rectitude which are the principal ornaments of reason.
Secondly, the existence of national councils produces a
63
64 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
certain species of real unanimity, unnatural in its char-
acter and pernicious in its effects. The genuine and whole-
Some state of mind is to be unloosed from shackles and to ex-
pand every fibre of its frame according to the independent
and individual impressions of truth upon that mind. How
great would be the progress of intellectual improvement if
men were unfettered by the prejudices of education, un-
seduced by the influence of a corrupt state of society, and
accustomed to yield without fear to the guidance of truth,
however unexplored might be the regions and unexpected
the conclusions to which she conducted us? We cannot
advance in the voyage of happiness unless we be wholly at
large upon the stream that would carry us thither: the
anchor, that we at first looked upon as the instrument of our
safety, will at last appear to be the means of detaining our
progress. Unanimity of a certain species will be the result
of perfect freedom of enquiry, and this unanimity would,
in a state of perfect freedom, become hourly more con-
spicuous. But the unanimity that results from men's having
a visible standard by which to adjust their sentiments is
deceitful and pernicious.
In numerous assemblies a thousand motives influence our
judgments independently of reason and evidence. Every
man looks forward to the effects which the opinions he
avows will produce on his success. Every man connects
himself with some sect or party. The activity of his thought
is shackled at every turn by the fear that his associates may
disclaim him. This effect is strikingly visible in the present
state of the British parliament, where men whose faculties
are comprehensive almost beyond all former example are
induced by these motives sincerely to espouse the most con-
temptible and clearly exploded errors.
Of National Assemblies 65
Thirdly, the debates of a national assembly are distorted
from their reasonable tenour by the necessity of their being
uniformly terminated by a vote. Debate and discussion are
in their own nature highly conducive to intellectual im-
provement, but they lose this salutary character the moment
they are subjected to this unfortunate condition. What can
be more unreasonable than to demand that argument, the
usual quality of which is gradually and imperceptibly to en-
lighten the mind, should declare its effect in the close of a
single conversation? No sooner does this circumstance oc-
cur than the whole scene changes its character. The orator
no longer enquires after permanent conviction, but transitory
effect. He seeks rather to take advantage of our prejudices
than to enlighten our judgment. That which might other-
wise have been a scene of philosophic and moral enquiry is
changed into wrangling, tumult and precipitation.
Another circumstance that arises out of the decision by
vote is the necessity of constructing a form of words that
shall best meet the sentiments and be adapted to the pre-
conceived ideas of a multitude of men. What can be con-
ceived of at once more ludicrous and disgraceful than the
spectacle of a set of rational beings employed for hours to-
gether in weighing particles and adjusting commas? Such is
the scene that is perpetually witnessed in clubs and private
societies. In parliaments this sort of business is usually
adjusted before the measure becomes a subject of public in-
spection. But it does not the less exist; and sometimes it
occurs in the other mode, so that, when numerous amend-
ments have been made to suit the corrupt interest of im-
perious pretenders, the Herculean task remains at last to
reduce the chaos into a grammatical and intelligible form.
The whole is then wound up with that intolerable insult
66 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
upon all reason and justice, the deciding upon truth by the
casting up of numbers. Thus everything that we have been
accustomed to esteem most sacred is determined at best by
the weakest heads in the assembly, but, as it not less fre-
quently happens, by the most corrupt and dishonourable
intentions. - -
In the last place, national assemblies will by no means be
thought to deserve our direct approbation if we recollect
for a moment the absurdity of that fiction by which society
is considered, as it has been termed, as a moral individual.
It is in vain that we endeavour to counteract the immutable
laws of necessity. . A multitude of men after all our in-
genuity will still remain no more than a multitude of men.
Nothing can intellectually unite them short of equal capacity
and identical perception. So long as the varieties of mind
shall remain, the force of society can no otherwise be con-
centrated than by one man for a shorter or a longer term
taking the lead of the rest and employing their force, whether
material or dependent on the weight of their character, in a
mechanical manner, just as he would employ the force of a
tool or a machine. All government corresponds in a certain
degree to what the Greeks denominated a tyranny. The dif-
ference is that in despotic countries mind is depressed by an
uniform usurpation, while in republics it preserves a greater
portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily con-
forms itself to the fluctuations of opinion.
The pretence of collective wisdom is the most palpable of
all impostures. The acts of the society can never rise above
the suggestions of this or that individual who is a member of
it. Let us enquire whether society, considered as an agent,
can really become the equal of certain individuals of whom it
is composed. And here, without staying to examine what
Of National Assemblies 67
ground we have to expect that the wisest member of the
Society will actually take the lead in it, we find two obvious
reasons to persuade us that, whatever be the degree of wis-
dom inherent in him that really superintends, the acts which
he performs in the name of the society will be both less
virtuous and less able than under other circumstances they
might be expected to be. In the first place, there are few
men who, with the consciousness of being able to cover their
responsibility under the name of a society, will not venture
upon measures less direct in their motives or less justifiable
in the experiment than they would have chosen to adopt in
their own persons. Secondly, men who act under the name
of a Society are deprived of that activity and energy which
may belong to them in their individual character. They
have a multitude of followers to draw after them, whose
humours they must consult, and to whose slowness of ap-
prehension they must accommodate themselves. It is for
this reason that we frequently see men of the most elevated
genius dwindle into vulgar leaders when they become in-
volved in the busy scenes of public life.
From these reasonings we are sufficiently authorised to
conclude that national assemblies, or in other words as-
semblies instituted for the joint purpose of adjusting the
differences between district and district and of consulting
respecting the best mode of repelling foreign invasion, how-
ever necessary to be had recourse to upon certain occasions,
ought to be employed as sparingly as the nature of the case
will admit. They should either never be elected but upon
extraordinary emergencies, like the dictator of the ancient
Romans, or else sit periodically—one day for example in a
year, with a power of continuing their sessions within a cer-
tain limit—to hear the complaints and representations of their
68 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
constituents. The former of these modes is greatly to be
preferred. Several of the reasons already adduced are
calculated to show that election itself is of a nature not to
be employed but when the occasion demands it. There
would be no difficulty in suggesting expedients relative to the
regular originating of national assemblies. It would be most
suitable to past habits and experience that a general election
should take place whenever a certain number of districts
demanded it. It would be most agreeable to rigid sim-
plicity and equity that an assembly of two or two hundred
districts should take place in exact proportion to the number
of districts by whom that measure was desired.
It cannot reasonably be denied that all the objections which
have been most loudly reiterated against democracy become
null in an application to the form of government which has
now been delineated. Here is no opening for tumult, for the
tyranny of a multitude drunk with unlimited power, for
political ambition on the part of the few, or restless jealousy
and precaution on the part of the many. Here no demagogue
would find a suitable occasion for rendering the multitude
the blind instrument of his purposes. Men in such a state
of society would understand their happiness and cherish it.
The true reason why the mass of mankind has so often been
made the dupe of knaves has been the mysterious and com-
plicated nature of the social system. Once annihilate the
quackery of government, and the most homebred understand-
ing will be prepared to scorn the shallow artifices of the state
juggler that would mislead him.
CHAPTER XXIV
OF THE DISSOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT
It remains for us to consider what is the degree of author-
ity necessary to be vested in such a modified species of na-
tional assembly as we have admitted into our system. Are
they to issue their commands to the different members of
the confederacy? Or is it sufficient that they should in-
vite them to cooperate for the common advantage, and by
arguments and addresses convince them of the reasonable-
ness of the measures they propose? The former of these
would at first be necessary. The latter would afterwards
become sufficient.” The Amphictyonic council of Greece
possessed no authority but that which derived from its per-
sonal character. In proportion as the spirit of party was
extirpated, as the restlessness of public commotion subsided,
and as the political machine became simple, the voice of
reason would be secure to be heard. An appeal by the as-
sembly to the several districts would not fail to obtain the
approbation of all reasonable men, unless it contained in it
something so evidently questionable as to make it perhaps de-
sirable that it should prove abortive.
This remark leads us one step farther. Why should not
* [Footnote in second and third editions: “Such is the idea of
the author of Gulliver's Travels (Part IV), a man who appears to
have had a more profound insight into the true principles of politi-
cal justice than any preceding or contemporary author. . . .”] .
70 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
the same distinction between commands and invitations which
we have just made in the case of national assemblies be
applied to the particular assemblies or juries of the several
districts? At first, we will suppose that some degree of
authority and violence would be necessary. But this neces-
sity 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 listen or 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, they were in reality, at the expense of his,
promoting their own. Such are the fatal effects of myste-
riousness and complexity. Simplify the social system in
the manner which every motive but those of usurpation and
ambition powerfully recommends; render the plain dictates
of justice level to every capacity; remove the necessity of
implicit faith; and the whole species will become reasonable
and virtuous. It will then be sufficient for juries to recom-
mend a certain mode of adjusting controversies without as-
suming the prerogative of dictating that adjustment. It will
then be sufficient for them to invite offenders to forsake their
errors. If their expostulations proved in a few instances
ineffectual, the evils arising out of this circumstance would
be of less importance than those which proceed from the
perpetual violation of the exercise of private judgment. But
in reality no evils would arise, for 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 uneasy under the unequivocal disapprobation
Of the Dissolution of Government 7I
and observant eye of public judgment as willingly to re-
move to a society more congenial to his errors.
The reader has probably anticipated me in the ultimate
conclusion from these remarks. If juries might at length
cease to decide and be contented to invite, if force might
gradually be withdrawn and reason trusted alone, shall we
not one day find that juries themselves and every other
species of public institution may be laid aside as unnecessary?
Will not the reasonings of one wise man be as effectual as
those of twelve? Will not the competence of one individual
to instruct his neighbours be a matter of sufficient notoriety
without the formality of an election? Will there be many
vices to correct and much obstinacy to conquer? This is
one of the most memorable stages of human improvement.
With what delight must every well-informed friend of man-
kind look forward to the auspicious period, the dissolution
of political government, of that brute engine which has been
the only perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which,
as has abundantly appeared in the progress of the present
work, has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its
substance, and no otherwise to be removed than by its utter
annihilation
BOOK VI
OF OPINION CONSIDERED AS A SUBJECT OF
POLITICAL INSTITUTION
CHAPTER I
GENERAL EFFECTS OF THE POLITICAL SUPERINTENDENCE,
OF OPINION
A principle which has entered deeply into the systems of
the writers on political law is that of the duty of govern-
ments to watch over the manners of the people. “Govern-
ment,” say they, “plays the part of an unnatural step-mother,
not of an affectionate parent, when she is contented by
rigorous punishments to avenge the commission of a crime
while she is wholly inattentive beforehand to imbue the mind
with those virtuous principles which might have rendered
punishment unnecessary. It is the business of a sage and
patriotic magistracy to have its attention ever alive to the
sentiments of the people, to encourage such as are favourable
to virtue, and to check in the bud such as may lead to dis-
order and corruption. How long shall government be em-
ployed to display its terrors without ever having recourse to
the gentleness of invitation? How long shall she deal in
retrospect and censure to the utter neglect of prevention and
remedy?” These reasonings have in some respects gained
additional strength by means of the latest improvements and
clearest views upon the subject of political truth. It has
been rendered more evident than in any former period that
government instead of being an object of secondary con-
sideration has been the principal vehicle of extensive and
permanent evil to mankind. It was natural therefore to say,
75
76 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
“Since government can produce so much positive mischief,
surely it can do some positive good.”
But these views, however specious and agreeable they may
in the first instance appear, are liable to very serious ques-
tion. If we would not be seduced by visionary good, we
ought here more than ever to recollect the principles that have
repeatedly been insisted upon and illustrated in this work,
“that government is in all cases an evil,” and “that it ought
to be introduced as sparingly as possible.” Nothing can be
more unquestionable than that the manners and opinions
of mankind are of the utmost consequence to the general
welfare. But it does not follow that government is the in-
strument by which they are to be fashioned.
One of the reasons that may lead us to doubt of its fit-
ness for this purpose is to be drawn from the view we have
already taken of society considered as an agent.” A mul-
titude of men may be feigned to be an individual, but they
cannot become a real individual. The acts which go under
the name of the society are really the acts now of one single
person and now of another. The men who by turns usurp.
the name of the whole perpetually act under the pressure of
incumbrances that deprive them of their true energy. They
are fettered by the prejudices, the humours, the weakness and
the vice of those with whom they act; and after a thousand
sacrifices to these contemptible interests their project comes
out at last distorted in every joint, abortive and monstrous.
Society therefore in its corporate capacity can by no means
be busy and intrusive with impunity, since its acts must be
expected to be deficient in wisdom.
Secondly, they will not be less deficient in efficacy than
they are in wisdom. The object at which we are supposing
1 Book V, Chap. XXIII, IVol. II, p. 66].
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 77
them to aim is to improve the opinions and through them the
manners of mankind; for manners are nothing else but
opinions carried out into action: such as is the fountain, such
will be the streams that are supplied from it. But what is
it upon which opinion must be founded ? Surely upon evi-
dence, upon the perceptions of the understanding. Has
society then any particular advantage in its corporate capac-
ity for illuminating the understanding? Can it convey into
its addresses and expostulations a compound or sublimate of
the wisdom of all its members, superior in quality to the in-
dividual wisdom of any? If so, why have not societies of
men written treatises of morality, of the philosophy of nature,
or the philosophy of mind? Why have all the great steps x
of human improvement been the work of individuals?
If then society considered as an agent have no particular
advantage for enlightening the understanding, the real dif-
ference between the dicta of society and the dicta of in-
dividuals must be looked for in the article of authority. But
is authority a proper instrument for influencing the opinions
and manners of men? If laws were a sufficient means for
the reformation of error and vice, it is not to be believed but
that the world long ere this would have become the seat of
every virtue. Nothing can be more easy than to command
men to be just and good, to love their neighbours, to practise
universal sincerity, to be content with a little, and to resist
the enticements of avarice and ambition. But when you
have done, will the characters of men be altered by your pre-
cepts? These commands have been issued for thousands of
years; and if it had been decreed that every man should
be hanged that violated them, it is vehemently to be suspected
that this would not have secured their influence.
But it will be answered “that laws need not deal thus in
78 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
generals, but may descend to particular provisions calculated
to secure their success. We may institute sumptuary laws,
limiting the expense of our citizens in dress and food. We
may institute agrarian laws, forbidding any man to possess
more than a certain annual revenue. We may proclaim
prizes as the reward of acts of justice, benevolence and public
virtue.” And when we have done this, how far are we really
advanced in our career? If the people be previously in-
clined to moderation in expense, the laws are a superfluous
parade. If they are not inclined, who shall execute them or
prevent their evasion? It is the misfortune in these cases
that regulations cannot be executed but by individuals of that
very people they are meant to restrain. If the nation at
large be infested with vice, who shall secure us a succession
of magistrates that are free from the contagion? Even if
we could surmount this difficulty, still it would be vain.
Vice is ever more ingenious in evasion than authority in
detection. It is absurd to imagine that any law can be
executed that directly contradicts the propensities and spirit
of the nation. If vigilance were able fully to countermine
the subterfuges of art, the magistrates who thus pertina-
ciously adhered to the practice of their duty would not fail
to be torn in pieces.
What can be more contrary to the most rational principles
of human intercourse than the inquisitorial spirit which such
regulations imply? Who shall enter into my house, scrutin-
ise my expenditure and count the dishes upon my table?
Who shall detect the stratagems I employ to cover my real
possession of an enormous income while I seem to receive but
a small one? Not that there is really anything unjust and
unbecoming, as has been too often supposed, in my neigh-
bour's animadverting with the utmost freedom upon my
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 79
personal conduct.” But that such regulations include a
system of petty watchfulness and inspection; not contenting
themselves with animadversion whenever the occasion is
presented, but making it the business of one man constantly
to pry into the proceedings of another, the whole depending
upon the uniformity with which this is done; creating a per-
petual struggle between the restless curiosity of the first
and the artful concealment of the second. By what motives
will you make a man an informer? If by public spirit and
philanthropy inciting him to brave obloquy and resentment
for the sake of duty, will sumptuary laws be very necessary
among a people thus far advanced in virtue? If by sinister
and indirect considerations, will not the vices you propagate
be more dangerous than the vices you suppress?
Such must be the case in extensive governments: in
governments of smaller dimensions opinion would be all
sufficient; the inspection of every man over the conduct of
his neighbours, when unstained with caprice, would con-
stitute a censorship of the more irresistible nature. But the
force of this censorship would depend upon its freedom, not
following the positive dictates of law but the spontaneous
decisions of the understanding.
Again, in the distribution of rewards who shall secure us
against error, partiality and intrigue, converting that which
was meant for the support of virtue into a new engine for
her ruin? Not to add that prizes are a very feeble in-
strument for the generation of excellence, always inadequate
to its reward where it really exists, always in danger of being
bestowed on its semblance, continually misleading the un-
derstanding by foreign and degenerate motives of avarice
and vanity.
* [Bk. II, Chap. V; Vol. I, note, p. 64.]
8o An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
In truth, the whole system of such regulations is a per-
petual struggle against the laws of nature and necessity.
Mind will in all instances be swayed by its own views and
propensities. No project can be more absurd than that of
reversing these propensities by the interposition of authority.
He that should command a conflagration to cease or a tem-
pest to be still would not display more ignorance of the sys-
tem of the universe than he who with a code of regulations,
whether general or minute, that he has framed in his closet
expects to restore a corrupt and luxurious people to tem-
perance and virtue.
The force of this argument respecting the inefficacy of
regulations has often been felt, and the conclusions that are
deduced from it have been in a high degree discouraging.
“The character of nations,” it has been said, “is unalterable,
or at least, when once debauched, can never be recovered to
purity. Laws are an empty name when the manners of the
people are become corrupt. In vain shall the wisest legislator
attempt the reformation of his country when the torrent
of profligacy and vice has once broken down the bounds of
moderation. There is no longer any instrument left for
the restoration of simplicity and frugality. It is useless to
declaim against the evils that arise from inequality of riches
and rank where this inequality has already gained an
establishment. A generous spirit will admire the exertions
of a Cato and a Brutus, but a calculating spirit will con-
demn them as inflicting useless torture upon a patient whose
disease is irremediable. It was from a view of this truth
that the poets derived their fictions respecting the early his-
tory of mankind, well aware that when luxury was in-
troduced and the springs of mind unbent, it would be a
vain expectation that should hope to recall men from passion
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 81
to reason, and from effeminacy to energy.” But this con-
clusion from the inefficacy of regulations is so far from be-
ing valid that in reality,
A third objection to the positive interference of society in
its corporate capacity for the propagation of truth.and virtue
is that such interference is altogether unnecessary. Truth
and virtue are competent to fight their own battles. They
do not need to be nursed and patronised by the hand of
power.
The mistake which has been made in this case is similar
to the mistake which is now universally exploded upon the
subject of commerce. It was long supposed that if any
nation desired to extend its trade, the thing most immediately
necessary was for government to interfere and institute pro-
tecting duties, bounties and monopolies. It is now well
known that commerce never flourishes so much as when it
is delivered from the guardianship of legislators and min-
isters and is built upon the principle not of forcing other
people to buy our commodities dear when they might pur-
chase them elsewhere cheaper and better, but of ourselves
feeling the necessity of recommending them by their in-
trinsic advantages. Nothing can be at once so unreasonable
and hopeless as to attempt by positive regulations to disarm
the unalterable laws of the universe.
The same truth which has been felt under the article of
commerce has also made a considerable progress as to the
subjects of speculative enquiry. Formerly it was thought
that the true religion was to be defended by acts of uniform-
ity and that one of the principal duties of the magistrate was
to watch the progress of heresy. It was truly judged that
the connection between error and vice is of the most in-
timate nature and it was concluded that no means could be
82 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
more effectual to prevent men from deviating into error
than to check their wanderings by the scourge of authority.
Thus writers whose political views in other respects have
been uncommonly enlarged have told us “that men ought in-
deed to be permitted to think as they please, but not to
propagate their pernicious opinions; as they may be per-
mitted to keep poisons in their closet, but not to offer them
to sale under the denomination of cordials.” “ Or if human-
ity have forbidden them to recommend the extirpation of a
sect which has already got footing in a country, they have
however earnestly advised the magistrate to give no quarter
to any new extravagance that might be attempted to be in-
troduced.4—The reign of these two errors respecting com-
merce and theoretical speculation is nearly at an end and it
is reasonable to believe that the idea of teaching virtue
through the instrumentality of government will not long
survive them.
All that is to be asked on the part of government in be-
half of morality and virtue is a clear stage upon which for
them to exert their own energies, and perhaps some restraint
for the present upon the violent disturbers of the peace of
society that the efforts of these principles may be allowed
to go on uninterrupted to their natural conclusion. Who
ever saw an instance in which error unaided by power was
victorious over truth? Who is there so absurd as to be-
lieve that with equal arms truth can be ultimately defeated?
Hitherto every instrument of menace or influence has been
employed to counteract her. Has she made no progress?
Has the mind of man the capacity to choose falsehood and
3 Gulliver’s Travels, Part II, Chap. VI.
4 Mably, de la Législation, Liv. IV, Chap. III: des États Unis
d’Amérique, Lettre III.
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 83
reject truth, when her evidence is fairly presented? When
it has been once thus presented and has gained a few con-
verts, does she ever fail to go on perpetually increasing the
number of her votaries? Exclusively of the fatal interfer-
ence of government and the violent irruptions of barbarism
threatening to sweep her from the face of the earth, has not
this been in all instances the history of science?
Nor are these observations less true in their application to
the manners and morals of mankind. Do not men always
act in the manner which they esteem best upon the whole or
most conducive to their interest? Is it possible then that
evidence of what is best or what is most beneficial can be
thrown away upon them? The real history of the changes
of character they experience in this respect is this. Truth
for a long time spreads itself unobserved. Those who are
the first to embrace it are little aware of the extraordinary
effects with which it is pregnant. But it goes on to be
studied and illustrated. It perpetually increases in clearness
and amplitude of evidence. The number of those by whom
it is embraced is gradually enlarged. If it have relation to
their practical interests, if it show them that they may be a
thousand times more happy and free than at present, it is
impossible that in its perpetual increase of evidence and
energy it should not at last break the bounds of speculation
and become an animating principle of action. What can be
more absurd than the opinion, which has so long prevailed,
“that justice and an equal distribution of the means of happi-
ness may appear ever so clearly to be the only reasonable
foundation of political society without ever having any
chance of being reduced into practice? that oppression and
misery are draughts of so intoxicating a nature that, when
once tasted, we can never afterwards refuse to partake of
84 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
them? that vice has so many advantages over virtue that the
reasonableness and wisdom of the latter, however powerfully
exhibited, can never obtain a hold upon our affections?”
While therefore we decry the efficacy of unassisted laws,
we are far from throwing any discouragement by that means
upon the prospect of social improvement. The true tendency
of this view of the subject is to suggest indeed a different
but a more consistent and promising method by which this
improvement is to be produced. The legitimate instrument
of effecting political reformation is truth. Let truth be in-
cessantly studied, illustrated and propagated, and the effect
is inevitable. Let us not vainly endeavour by laws and regu-
lations to anticipate the future dictates of the general mind,
but calmly wait till the harvest of opinion is ripe. Let no
new practice in politics be introduced and no old one anx-
iously superseded till called for by the public voice. The
task which for the present should wholly occupy the friend
of man is enquiry, instruction, discussion. The time may
come when his task shall be of another sort. Error, being
completely detected, may indeed sink into unnoticed oblivion
without one partisan to interrupt her fall. This would in-
evitably be the event were it not for the restlessness and in-
considerate impetuosity of mankind. But the event may be
otherwise. Political change, by advancing too rapidly to
its crisis, may become attended with commotion and hazard;
and it will then be incumbent on him actively to assist in un-
, folding the catastrophe. The evils of anarchy have been
shown to be much less than they are ordinarily supposed; *
but whatever be their amount, the friend of man will not,
when they arise, timidly shrink from the post of danger.
He will on the contrary by social emanations of wisdom en-
* Book V, Chap. XX, [Vol. II, p. 48.]
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 85
deavour to guide the understandings of the people at large
to the perception of felicity.
In the fourth place the interference of an organised
society for the purpose of influencing opinions and manners
is not only useless but pernicious. We have already found
that such interference is in one view of the subject inef-
fectual. But here a distinction is to be made. Considered
with a view to the introduction of any favourable changes
in the state of society, it is altogether impotent. But though
it be inadequate to change, it is powerful to prolong. This
property in political regulation is so far from being doubt-
ful that to it alone we are to ascribe all the calamities that
government has inflicted on mankind. When regulation
coincides with the habits and propensities of mankind at the
time it is introduced, it will be found sufficiently capable of
maintaining those habits and propensities in the greater part
unaltered for centuries. In this view it is doubly pernicious.
To understand this more accurately let us apply it to the
case of rewards, which has always been a favourite topic
with the advocates of an improved legislation. How often
have we been told that talents and virtues would spring up
spontaneously in a country, one of the objects of whose con-
stitution should be to secure to them an adequate reward?
Now to judge of the propriety of this aphorism we should
begin with recollecting that the discerning of merit is an
individual and not a social capacity. What can be more
reasonable than that each man for himself should estimate
the merits of his neighbour? To endeavour to institute a
general judgment in the name of the whole and to melt down
the different opinions of mankind into one common opinion
appears at first sight so monstrous an attempt that it is im-
possible to augur well of its consequences. Will this judg-
86 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ment be wise, reasonable or just? Wherever each man is
accustomed to decide for himself, and the appeal of merit
is immediately to the opinion of its contemporaries, there,
were it not for the false bias of some positive institution,
we might expect a genuine ardour in him who aspired to
excellence, creating and receiving impressions in the judg-
ment of an impartial audience. We might expect the judg-
ment of the auditors to ripen by perpetual exercise, and
mind, ever curious and awake, continually to approach nearer
to the standard of truth. What do we gain in compensa-
tion for this by setting up authority as the general oracle
from which the active mind is to inform itself what sort of
excellence it should seek to acquire, and the public at large
what judgment they should pronounce upon the efforts of
their contemporaries? What should we think of an act
of parliament appointing some particular individual president
of the court of criticism and judge in the last resort of the
literary merit of dramatic compositions? Is there any solid
reason why we should expect better things from authority
usurping the examination of moral or political excellence?
Nothing can be more unreasonable than the attempt to
retain men in one common opinion by the dictate of author-
ity. The opinion thus obtruded upon the minds of the public
is not their real opinion; it is only a project by which they
are rendered incapable of forming an opinion. Whenever
government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of think-
ing for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are
those of torpor and imbecility. Wherever truth stands in
the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it de-
pends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.
Mind is in this case robbed of its essential character and
genuine employment, and along with them must be expected
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 87
to lose all that which is capable of rendering its operations
salutary and admirable. Either mankind will resist the as-
sumptions of authority undertaking to superintend their
opinions, and then these assumptions will produce no more
than an ineffectual struggle; or they will submit, and then
the effects will be injurious. He that in any degree con-
signs to another the task of dictating his opinions and his
conduct will cease to enquire for himself, or his enquiries
will be languid and inanimate.
Regulations will originally be instituted in favour either of
falsehood or truth. In the first case no rational enquirer
will pretend to allege anything in their defence; but even
should truth be their object, yet such is their nature that they
infallibly defeat the very purpose they were intended to
serve. Truth when originally presented to the mind is
powerful and invigorating, but when attempted to be per-
petuated by political institution becomes flaccid and lifeless.
Truth in its unpatronised state strengthens and improves
the understanding, because in that state it is embraced only
so far as it is perceived to be truth. But truth when recom-
mended by authority is weakly and irresolutely embraced.
The opinions I entertain are no longer properly my own; I
repeat them as a lesson appropriated by rote, but I do not
strictly speaking understand them, and I am not able to as-
sign the evidence upon which they rest. My mind is weak-
ened, while it is pretended to be improved. Instead of the
firmness of independence I am taught to bow to authority I
know not why. Persons thus trammelled are not strictly
speaking capable of a single virtue. The first duty of man
is to take none of the principles of conduct upon trust, to do
nothing without a clear and individual conviction that it is
right to be done. He that resigns his understanding upon
88 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
one particular topic will not exercise it vigorously upon
others. If he be right in any instance, it will be inadvert-
ently and by chance. A consciousness of the degradation to
which he is subjected will perpetually haunt him; or at least
he will want the consciousness that accrues from independ-
ent consideration, and will therefore equally want that in-
trepid perseverance, that calm self-approbation that grows
out of independence. Such beings are the mere dwarfs and
mockery of men, their efforts comparatively pusillanimous,
and the vigour with which they should execute their purposes,
superficial and hollow.
Strangers to conviction, they will never be able to dis-
tinguish between prejudice and reason. Nor is this the
worst. Even when the glimpses of enquiry suggest them-
selves, they will not dare to yield to the temptation. To
what purpose enquire when the law has told me what to be-
lieve and what must be the termination of my enquiries?
Even when opinion properly so called suggests itself, I am
compelled, if it differ in any degree from the established
system, to shut my eyes, and loudly profess my adherence
where I doubt the most. This compulsion may exist in many
different degrees. But supposing it to amount to no more
than a very slight temptation to be insincere, what judgment
must we form of such a regulation either in a moral or intel-
lectual view? of a regulation inviting men to the profession
of certain opinions by the proffer of a reward, and deterring
them from a severe examination of their justice by penalties
and disabilities? A system like this does not content itself
with habitually unnerving the mind of the great mass of
mankind through all its ranks, but provides for its own con-
tinuance by debauching or terrifying the few individuals
who, in the midst of the general emasculation, might retain
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 89
their curiosity and love of enterprise. We may judge how
pernicious it is in its operation in this respect by the long
reign of papal usurpation in the Dark Ages, and the many
attacks upon it that were suppressed, previously to the suc-
cessful one of Luther. Even yet, how few are there that
venture to examine into the foundation of Mahometanism
and Christianity, or the effects of monarchy and aristocrat-
ical institution, in countries where those systems are estab-
lished by law P Supposing men were free from persecu-
tion for their hostilities in this respect, yet the investigation
could never be impartial while so many allurements are held
out inviting men to a decision in one particular way.
To these considerations it should be added that what is
right under certain circumstances today, may by an altera-
tion in those circumstances become wrong tomorrow. Right
and wrong are the result of certain relations, and those rela-
tions are founded in the respective qualities of the beings to
whom they belong. Change those qualities, and the relations
become altogether different. The treatment that I am bound
to bestow upon any one depends upon my capacity and his
circumstances. Increase the first, or vary the second, and I
am bound to a different treatment. I am bound at present
to subject an individual to forcible restraint because I am
not wise enough by reason alone to change his vicious pro-
pensities. The moment I can render myself wise enough,
I ought to confine myself to the latter mode. It is perhaps
right to suffer the negroes in the West Indies to continue
in slavery till they can be gradually prepared for a state of
liberty. Universally it is a fundamental principle in sound
political science that a nation is best fitted for the amendment
of its civil government by being made to understand and
desire the advantage of that amendment, and the moment
90 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
it is so understood and desired it ought to be introduced.
But if there be any truth in these views, nothing can be more
adverse to reason or inconsistent with the nature of man than
positive regulations tending to continue a certain mode of
proceeding when its utility is gone.
If we would be still more completely aware of the per-
nicious tendency of positive institutions, we ought in the last
place explicitly to contrast the nature of mind and the nature
of government. It is one of the most unquestionable prop-
erties of mind to be susceptible of perpetual improvement.
It is the inalienable tendency of positive institution to retain
that with which it is conversant forever in the same state.
Is then the perfectibility of understanding an attribute of
trivial importance? Can we recollect with coldness and in-
difference the advantages with which this quality is pregnant
to the latest posterity? And how are these advantages to be
secured? By incessant industry, by a curiosity never to be
disheartened or fatigued, by a spirit of enquiry to which a
sublime and philanthropic mind will allow no pause. The
circumstance of all others most necessary is that we should
never stand still, that everything most interesting to the gen-
eral welfare, wholly delivered from restraint, should be in a
state of change, moderate and as it were imperceptible, but
continual. Is there anything that can look with a more
malignant aspect upon the general welfare than an institution
tending to give permanence to certain systems and opinions?
Such institutions are two ways pernicious; first, which is
most material, because they render all the future advances of
mind infinitely tedious and operose; secondly, because, by
violently confining the stream of reflection, and holding it for
a time in an unnatural state, they compel it at last to rush
forward with impetuosity, and thus occasion calamities which,
Effects of Political Superintendence of Opinion 91
were it free from restraint, would be found extremely
foreign to its nature. Is it to be believed that, if the inter-
ference of positive institution were out of the question, the
progress of mind in past ages would have been so slow as
to have struck the majority of ingenuous observers with
despair? The science of Greece and Rome upon the subjects
of political justice was in many respects extremely imperfect;
yet could we have been so long in appropriating their dis-
coveries had not the allurements of reward and the menace
of persecution united to induce us not to trust to the first and
fair verdict of our own understandings?
The just conclusion from the above reasonings is nothing
more than a confirmation, with some difference in the mode
of application, of the fundamental principle that govern-
ment is little capable of affording benefit of the first im-
portance to mankind. It is calculated to induce us to lament,
not the apathy and indifference, but the inauspicious activity
of government. It incites us to look for the moral improve-
ment of the species, not in the multiplying of regulations,
but in their repeal. It teaches us that truth and virtue, like
commerce, will then flourish most when least subjected to the
mistaken guardianship of authority and laws. This maxim
will rise upon us in its importance in proportion as we con-
nect it with the numerous departments of political justice to
which it will be found to have relation. As fast as it shall
be adopted into the practical system of mankind, it will go
on to deliver us from a weight intolerable to mind and in
the highest degree inimical to the progress of truth.
CHAPTER II
OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS
One of the most striking instances of the injurious effects
of the political patronage of opinion as it at present exists
in the world is to be found in the system of religious con-
formity. Let us take our example from the Church of Eng-
land, by the constitution of which subscription is required
from its clergy to thirty-nine articles of precise and dog-
matical assertion upon almost every subject of moral and
metaphysical enquiry. Here then we have to consider the
whole honours and revenues of the church, from the arch-
bishop who takes precedence next after the princes of the
blood royal to the meanest curate in the nation, as employed
in support of a system of blind submission and abject
hypocrisy. Is there one man through this numerous hier-
archy that is at liberty to think for himself? Is there one
man among them that can lay his hand upon his heart and
declare upon his honour and conscience that his emoluments
have no effect in influencing his judgment? The declaration
is literally impossible. The most that an honest man under
such circumstances can say is, “I hope not; I endeavour to
be impartial.”
First, the system of religious conformity is a system of
blind submission. In every country possessing a religious
establishment, the state, from a benevolent care it may be for
the manners and opinions of its subjects, publicly encourages
Q2 *
Of Religious Establishments 93
a numerous class of men to the study of morality and
virtue. What institution, we might naturally be led to en-
quire, can be more favourable to public happiness? Moral-
ity and virtue are the most interesting topics of human
speculation, and the best effects might be expected to result
from the circumstance of many persons perpetually receiv-
ing the most liberal education and setting themselves apart
for the express cultivation of these topics. But unfortu-
nately these very men are fettered in the outset by having
a code of propositions put into their hands in a conformity
to which all their enquiries must terminate. The natural
tendency of science is to increase from age to age and pro-
ceed from the humblest beginnings to the most admirable
conclusions. But care is taken in the present case to
anticipate these conclusions and to bind men by promises
and penalties not to improve upon the wisdom of their an-
cestors. The plan is to guard against degeneracy and de-
cline, but never to advance. It is founded in the most
sovereign ignorance of the nature of mind, which never fails
to do either the one or the other.
Secondly, the tendency of a code of religious conformity
is to make men hypocrites. To understand this it may be
useful to recollect the various subterfuges that have been
invented by ingenious men to apologise for the subscription
of the English clergy. It is observable by the way that the
articles of the church are founded upon the creed of the
Calvinists, though for one hundred and fifty years past it
has been accounted disreputable among the clergy to be of
any other than the opposite or Arminian tenets. Volumes
have been written to prove that, while these articles express
predestinarian sentiments, they are capable of a different
construction and that the subscriber has a right to take
94 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
advantage of that construction. Divines of another class
have rested their arguments upon the known good character
and benevolent intentions of the first reformers and have
concluded that they could never intend to tyrannise over the
consciences of men or preclude the result of farther informa-
tion. Lastly, there are many who have treated the articles as
articles of peace, and inferred that, though you did not be-
lieve, you might allow yourself in the disingenuity of sub-
scribing them, provided you added to it the farther guilt of
constantly refraining to oppose what you considered as an
adulteration of divine truth.
It would perhaps be regarded as incredible if it rested
upon the evidence of history alone that a whole body of men,
set apart as the instructors of mankind, weaned as they are
expected to be from temporal ambition, and maintained from
the supposition that the existence of human virtue and divine
truth depends on their exertions, should with one consent
employ themselves in a casuistry the object of which is to
prove the propriety of a man's declaring his assent to what
he does not believe. These men either credit their own
subterfuges, or they do not. If they do not, what can be
expected from men so unprincipled and profligate? With
what front can they exhort other men to virtue, with the
brand of vice upon their own foreheads? If they do, what
must be their portion of moral sensibility and discernment?
Can we believe that men shall enter upon their profession
with so notorious a perversion of reason and truth and that
no consequences will flow from it to infect their general
character? Rather, can we fail to compare their unnatural
and unfortunate state with the profound wisdom and deter-
mined virtue which their industry and exertions would un-
questionably have produced if they had been left to their
Of Religious Establishments 95
genuine operation? They are like the victims of Circe,
to whom human understanding was preserved entire that
they might more exquisitely feel their degraded condition.
They are incited to study and to a thirst after knowledge at
the same time that the fruits of knowledge are constantly
withheld from their unsuccessful attempts. They are held
up to their contemporaries as the professors of truth, and
political institution tyrannically commands them, in all the
varieties of understanding and succession of ages, to model
themselves to one common standard.
Such are the effects that a code of religious conformity
produces upon the clergy themselves; let us consider the
effects that are produced upon their countrymen. They are
bid to look for instruction and morality to a denomination of
men formal, embarrassed and hypocritical, in whom the main-
spring of intellect is unbent and incapable of action. If the
people be not blinded with religious zeal, they will discover
and despise the imperfections of their spiritual guides. If
they be so blinded, they will not the less transplant into their
own characters the imbecile and unworthy spirit they are not
able to detect. Is virtue so deficient in attractions as to be
incapable of gaining adherents to her standard? Far other-
wise. Nothing can bring the wisdom of a just and pure con-
duct into question but the circumstance of its being recom-
mended to us from an equivocal quarter. The most mali-
cious enemy of mankind could not have invented a scheme
more destructive of their true happiness than that of hiring
at the expense of the state a body of men whose business it
should seem to be to dupe their contemporaries into the
practice of virtue.
One of the lessons that powerful facts are perpetually
reading to the inhabitants of such countries is that of duplic-
96 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ity and prevarication in an order of men which, if it exist
at all, ought to exist only for reverence. Do you think that
this prevarication is not a subject of general notoriety? Do
you think that the first idea that rises to the understanding
of the multitude at sight of a clergyman is not that of a man
who inculcates certain propositions not so properly because
he thinks them true or thinks them interesting as because he
is hired to the employment? Whatever instruction a code
of religious uniformity may fail to convey, there is one that
it always communicates, the wisdom of estimating an un-
reserved and disinterested sincerity at a very cheap rate.
Such are the effects that are produced by political institution
at a time when it most zealously intends with parental care
to guard its subjects from seduction and depravity.
These arguments do not apply to any particular articles
and creeds, but to the very notion of ecclesiastical establish-
ments in general. Wherever the state sets apart a certain
revenue for the support of religion, it will infallibly be given
to the adherents of some particular opinions, and will operate
in the manner of prizes to induce men at all events to em-
brace and profess those opinions. Undoubtedly, if I think it
right to have a spiritual instructor to guide me in my re-
searches and at stated intervals to remind me of my duty,
I ought to be at liberty to take the proper steps to supply
myself in this respect. A priest who thus derives his mis-
sion from the unbiassed judgment of his parishioners will
stand a chance to possess beforehand and independently of
corrupt influence the requisites they demand. But why
should I be compelled to contribute to the support of an in-
stitution whether I approve of it or no? If public worship
be conformable to reason, reason without doubt will prove
adequate to its vindication and support. If it be from God,
Of Religious Establishments 97
it is profanation to imagine that it stands in need of the
alliance of the state. It must be in an eminent degree
artificial and exotic if it be incapable of preserving itself in
existence otherwise than by the inauspicious interference of
political institution.
CHAPTER III
OF THE SUPPRESSION OF ERRONEOUS OPINION IN RELIGION
AND GOVERNMENT
The same views which have prevailed for the introduc-
tion of religious establishments have inevitably led to the
idea of provisions against the rise and progress of heresy.
No arguments can be adduced in favour of the political
patronage of truth that will not be equally cogent in behalf
of the political discouragement of error. Nay, they will, of
the two, be most cogent in the latter case; for error and mis-
representation are the irreconcilable enemies of virtue, and
if authority were the true means to disarm them, there would
then at least be no need of positive provisions to assist the
triumph of truth. It has however happened that this argu-
ment, though more tenable, has had fewer adherents. Men
are more easily reconciled to abuse in the distribution of
rewards than in the infliction of penalties. It will not there-
fore be requisite laboriously to insist upon the refutation of
this principle; its discussion is principally necessary for the
sake of method.
Various arguments have been alleged in defence of this
restraint. “The importance of opinion as a general proposi-
tion is notorious and unquestionable. Ought not political in-
stitution to take under its inspection that root from which
all our actions are ultimately derived? The opinions of men
must be expected to be as various as their education and their
98
Suppression of Erroneous Opinion 99
temper: ought not government to exert its foresight to pre-
vent this discord from breaking out into anarchy and
violence? There is no proposition so absurd or so hostile
to morality and public good as not to have found its votaries:
will there be no danger in suffering these eccentricities to
proceed unmolested, and every perverter of truth and justice
to make as many converts as he is able? It has been found
indeed a hopeless task to endeavour to extirpate by violence
errors already established; but is it not the duty of govern-
ment to prevent their ascendancy, to check the growth of
their adherents and the introduction of heresies hitherto un-
known? Can those persons to whom the care of the general
welfare is confided, or who are fitted by their situation or
their talents to suggest proper regulations to the adoption of
the community, be justified in conniving at the spread of
such extravagant and pernicious opinions as strike at the
root of order and morality? Simplicity of mind and an un-
derstanding undebauched with sophistry have ever been the
characteristics of a people among whom virtue has flourished:
ought not government to exert itself to exclude the inroad
of qualities opposite to these? It is thus that the friends of
moral justice have ever contemplated with horror the pro-
gress of infidelity and latitudinarian principles. It was thus
that the elder Cato viewed with grief the importation into his
own country of that plausible and loquacious philosophy by
which Greece had already been corrupted.””
There are several trains of reflection which these reason-
ings suggest. None of them can be more important than
* The reader will consider this as the language of the objectors.
The most eminent of the Greek philosophers were in reality dis-
tinguished from all other teachers by the fortitude with which they
conformed to the precepts they taught.
IOO An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
that which may assist us in detecting the error of the elder
Cato and of other persons who have been the zealous but
mistaken advocates of virtue. Ignorance is not necessary to
render men virtuous. If it were, we might reasonably con-
clude that virtue was an imposture and that it was our duty
to free ourselves from its shackles. The cultivation of the
understanding has no tendency to corrupt the heart. A
man who should possess all the science of Newton and all
the genius of Shakespeare would not on that account be a
bad man. Want of great and comprehensive views had as
considerable a share as benevolence in the grief of Cato. It
is like the taking to pieces an imperfect machine in order by
reconstructing it to enhance its value. An uninformed and
timid spectator would be frightened at the temerity of the
artist, at the confused heap of pins and wheels that were
laid aside at random, and would take it for granted that
nothing but destruction would be the consequence. But he
would be disappointed. It is thus that the extravagant sallies
of mind are the prelude of the highest wisdom and that the
dreams of Ptolemy were destined to precede the discoveries
of Newton. -
The event cannot be other than favourable. Mind would
else cease to be mind. It would be more plausible to say that
the perpetual cultivation of the understanding will terminate
in madness than that it will terminate in vice. As long as en-
quiry is suffered to proceed and science to improve, our
knowledge is perpetually increased. Shall we know every-
thing else, and nothing of ourselves? Shall we become clear-
sighted and penetrating in all other subjects without increas-
ing our penetration upon the subject of man? Is vice most
truly allied to wisdom or to folly? Can mankind perpetually
increase in wisdom without increasing in the knowledge of
Suppression of Erroneous Opinion IOI
what it is wise for them to do? Can a man have a clear
discernment, unclouded with any remains of former mis-
take, that this is the action he ought to perform, most con-
ducive to his own interest and to the general good, most de-
lightful at the instant and satisfactory in the review, most
agreeable to reason, justice and the nature of things, and
refrain from performing it? Every system which has been
constructed relative to the nature of superior beings and
gods amidst all its other errors has reasoned truly upon
these topics and taught that the increase of wisdom and
knowledge led, not to malignity and tyranny, but to benev-
olence and justice.
Secondly, it is a mistake to suppose that speculative dif-
ferences of opinion threaten materially to disturb the peace
of society. It is only when they are enabled to arm them-
selves with the authority of government, to form parties in
the state, and to struggle for that political ascendancy which
is too frequently exerted in support of or in opposition to
some particular creed that they become dangerous. Wher-
ever government is wise enough to maintain an inflexible
neutrality these jarring sects are always found to live to-
gether with sufficient harmony. The very means that have
been employed for the preservation of order have been the
only means that have led to its disturbance. The moment
government resolves to admit of no regulations oppressive
to either party, controversy finds its level, and appeals to
argument and reason instead of appealing to the sword or
the stake. The moment government descends to wear the
badge of a sect, religious war is commenced, the world is
disgraced with inexpiable broils and deluged with blood.
Thirdly, the injustice of punishing men for their opinions
and arguments will be still more visible if we reflect a little
IO2 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
on the nature of punishment. Punishment is one of those
classes of coercion the multiplication of which is so much
to be deprecated and which nothing but the most urgent
necessity can in any case justify. That necessity is com-
monly admitted to exist where a man has proved by his un-
just actions the injuriousness of his character, and where
the injury, the repetition of which is to be apprehended, is
of such a nature as to be committed before we can have
sufficient notice to guard ourselves against it. But no such
necessity can possibly exist in the case of false opinions
and perverse arguments. Does any man assert falsehood?
Nothing farther can be desired than that it should be con-
fronted with truth. Does he bewilder us with sophistry?
Introduce the light of reason, and his deceptions will vanish.
There is in this case a clear line of distinction. In the
only admissible province of punishment force it is true is
introduced, but it is only in return for force previously
exerted. Where argument, therefore, erroneous statements
and misrepresentation alone are employed, it is by argument
only that they must be encountered. We should not be
creatures of a rational and intellectual nature if the victory
of truth over error were not ultimately certain.
To enable us to conceive properly of the value of laws
for the punishment of heresy let us suppose a country to be
sufficiently provided with such laws, and observe the result.
The object is to prevent men from entertaining certain
opinions, or in other words from thinking in a certain way.
What can be more absurd than to undertake to put fetters
upon the subtlety of thought? How frequently does the
individual who desires to restrain it in himself fail in the
attempt? Add to this that prohibition and menace in this
respect do but give new restlessness to the curiosity of the
Suppression of Erroneous Opinion IO3
mind. I must not think of the possibility that there is no
God, that the stupendous miracles of Moses and Christ were
never really performed, that the dogmas of the Athanasian
creed are erroneous. I must shut my eyes, and run blindly
into all the opinions, religious and political, that my ancestors
regarded as sacred. Will this in all instances be possible?
There is another consideration, trite indeed, but the trite-
ness of which is an additional argument of its truth. Swift
says, “Men ought to be permitted to think as they please,
but not to propagate their pernicious opinions.” “ The ob-
vious answer to this is, “We are much obliged to him: how
would he be able to punish our heresy, even if he desired it,
so long as it was concealed?” The attempt to punish opinion
is absurd : we may be silent respecting our conclusions, if we
please; the train of thinking by which those conclusions are
generated cannot fail to be silent.
“But if men be not punished for their thoughts, they may
be punished for uttering those thoughts.” No. This is not
less impossible than the other. By what arguments will
you persuade every man in the nation to exercise the trade
of an informer? By what arguments will you persuade
my bosom friend, with whom I repose all the thoughts of my
heart, to repair immediately from my company to a magis-
trate in order to procure my commitment for so doing to the
prisons of the inquisition ? In countries where this is at-
tempted, there will be a perpetual struggle, the government
endeavouring to pry into our most secret transactions and
the people busy to countermine, to outwit and to detest their
superintendents.
But the most valuable consideration which this part of the
subject suggests is, supposing all this were done, what judg-
* See above, Chap. I, IVol. II, p. 82].
IO4. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ment must we form of the people among whom it is done?
Though all this cannot, yet much may be performed; though
the embryo cannot be annihilated, it may be prevented from
ever expanding itself into the dimensions of a man. The
arguments by which we were supposing a system for the
restraint of opinion to be recommended were arguments
derived from a benevolent anxiety for the virtue of mankind
and to prevent their degeneracy. Will this end be ac-
complished? Let us contrast a nation of men daring to
think, to speak and to act what they believe to be right and
fettered with no spurious motives to dissuade them from
right with a nation that fears to speak and fears to think
upon the most interesting subjects of human enquiry. Can
any spectacle be more degrading than this timidity? Can
men in whom mind is thus annihilated be capable of any
good or valuable purpose? Can this most abject of all
slaveries be the genuine state, the true perfection of the
human species?
Another argument, though it has often been stated to the
world, deserves to be mentioned in this place. Governments,
no more than individual men, are infallible. The cabinets
of princes and the parliaments of kingdoms, if there be any
truth in considerations already stated,” are often less likely
to be right in their conclusions than the theorist in his closet.
But dismissing the estimate of greater and less, it was to be
presumed from the principles of human nature, and is found
true in fact, that cabinets and parliaments are liable to vary
from each other in opinion. What system of religion or
government has not in its turn been patronised by national
authority? The consequence therefore of admitting this
authority is not merely attributing to government a right
* Book V, Chap. XXIII, IVol. II, p. 66.]
Suppression of Erroneous Opinion IO5
to impose some, but any or all opinions upon the community.
Are Paganism and Christianity, the religions of Mahomet,
Zoroaster and Confucius, are monarchy and aristocracy in all
their forms equally worthy to be perpetuated among man-
kind? Is it quite certain that the greatest of all human
calamities is change? Must we never hope for any ad-
vance, any improvement? Have no revolution in govern-
ment and no reformation in religion been productive of more
benefit than disadvantage? There is no species of reason-
ing in defence of the suppression of heresy which may not
be brought back to this monstrous principle, that the knowl-
edge of truth and the introduction of right principles of
policy are circumstances altogether indifferent to the welfare
of mankind.
The same reasonings that are here employed against the
forcible suppression of religious heresy will be found equally
valid with respect to political. The first circumstance that
will not fail to suggest itself to every reflecting mind is,
What sort of constitution must that be which must never be
examined 2 whose excellencies must be the constant topic of
eulogium, but respecting which we must never permit our-
selves to enquire in what they consist? Can it be the in-
terest of society to proscribe all investigation respecting the
wisdom of its regulations P Or must our debates be oc-
cupied with provisions of temporary convenience; and are
we forbid to ask whether there may not be something
fundamentally wrong in the design of the structure? Rea-
son and good sense will not fail to augur ill of that system
of things which is too sacred to be looked into, and to
suspect that there must be something essentially weak that
thus shrinks from the eye of curiosity. Add to which that,
however we may doubt of the importance of religious dis-
IO6 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
putes, nothing can less reasonably be exposed to question
than that the happiness of mankind is essentially connected
with the improvement of political science.
“But will not demagogues and declaimers lead to the sub-
version of all order, and introduce the most dreadful calam-
ities?” What is the state they will introduce? Monarchy
and aristocracy are some of the most extensive and lasting
mischiefs that have yet afflicted mankind. Will these
demagogues persuade their hearers to institute a new dynasty
of hereditary despots to oppress them? Will they persuade
them to create out of their own body a set of feudal chiefs
to hold their brethren in the most barbarous slavery? They
would probably find the most copious eloquence inadequate
to these purposes. The arguments of declaimers will not
produce an extensive and striking alteration in political
opinions except so far as they are built upon a basis of ir-
resistible truth. Even if the people were in some degree
intemperate in carrying the conclusions of these reasoners
into practice, the mischiefs they would inflict would be in-
expressibly trivial compared with those which are hourly
perpetrated by the most cold-blooded despotism. But in
reality the duty of government in these cases is to be mild
and equitable. 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 reason, are never the offspring of mis-
representation only, but of power endeavouring to stifle rea-
son and traverse the common sense of mankind.
CHAPTER IV
OF TESTS
The majority of the arguments above employed on the
subject of penal laws in matters of opinion are equally ap-
plicable to tests, religious and political. The distinction be-
tween prizes and penalties, between greater and less, is little
worthy of our attention if any discouragement extended to
the curiosity of intellect and any authoritative countenance
afforded to one set of opinions in preference to another be
in its own nature unjust and evidently hostile to the general
good.
Leaving out of the consideration religious tests, as being
already sufficiently elucidated in the preceding discussion,”
let us attend for a moment to an article which has had its
advocates among men of considerable liberality, the supposed
propriety of political tests. “What, shall we have no federal
oaths, no oaths of fidelity to the nation, the law and the
republic? How in that case shall we ever distinguish be-
tween the enemies and the friends of freedom?”
Certainly there cannot be a method devised at once more
ineffectual and iniquitous than a federal oath. What is the
language that in strictness of interpretation belongs to the
act of the legislature imposing this oath? To one party it
says, “We know very well that you are our friends; the oath
as it relates to you we acknowledge to be altogether super-
1 Chap. II.
IO7
Io8. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
fluous; nevertheless you must take it as a cover to our in-
direct purposes in imposing it upon persons whose views are
less unequivocal than yours.” To the other party it says,
“It is vehemently suspected that you are inimical to the
cause in which we are engaged: this suspicion is either true
or false; if false, we ought not to suspect you, and much less
ought we to put you to this invidious and nugatory purga-
tion; if true, you will either candidly confess your dif-
ference or dishonestly prevaricate: be candid and we will in-
dignantly banish you; be dishonest and we will receive you
as bosom friends.”
Those who say this however promise too much. Duty and
common sense oblige us to watch the man we suspect, even
though he should swear he is innocent. Would not the
same precautions which we are still obliged to employ to
secure us against his duplicity have sufficiently answered our
purpose without putting him to his purgation? Are there
no methods by which we can find out whether a man be the
proper subject in whom to repose an important trust without
putting the question to himself? Will not he who is so
dangerous an enemy that we cannot suffer him at large dis-
cover his enmity by his conduct without reducing us to the
painful necessity of tempting him to an act of prevarication?
If he be so subtle a hypocrite that all our vigilance cannot
detect him, will he scruple to add to his other crimes the
crime of perjury?
. . . Fidelity to the law is an engagement of so compli-
cated a nature as to strike terror into every mind of serious
reflection. It is impossible that a system of law, the com-
position of men, should ever be presented to such a mind that
Of Tests IO9
shall appear altogether faultless. But with respect to laws
that appear to..me to be unjust, I am bound to every sort of
hostility short of open violence; I am bound to exert myself
incessantly in proportion to the magnitude of the injus-
tice for their abolition. Fidelity to the nation is an en-
gagement scarcely less equivocal. I have a paramount
engagement to the cause of justice and the benefit of the
human race. If the nation undertake what is unjust, fidelity
in that undertaking is a crime. If it undertake what is
just, it is my duty to promote its success not because I am
one of its citizens, but because such is the command of
justice.
Add to this what has been already said upon the subject of
obedience,” and it will be sufficiently evident that all tests are
the offspring of usurpation. Government has in no case a
right to issue its commands, and therefore cannot command
me to take a certain oath. Its only legal functions are to
impose upon me a certain degree of restraint whenever I
manifest by my actions a temper detrimental to the com-
munity and to invite me to a certain contribution for
purposes conducive to the general interest.
. . . When I swear fidelity to the law, I may mean only
that there are certain parts of it that I approve. When I
swear fidelity to the nation, the law and the king, I may mean
so far only as these three authorities shall agree with each
other, and all of them agree with the general welfare of man-
kind. In a word the final result of this laxity of interpreta-
tion explains the oath to mean, “I swear that I believe it is
my duty to do everything that appears to me to be just.”
Who can look without indignation and regret at this prosti-
tution of language? Who can think without horror of the
* Book III, Chap. VI.
IIo An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
consequences of the public and perpetual lesson of duplicity
which is thus read to mankind?
But supposing there should be certain members of the com-
munity simple and uninstructed enough to conceive that an
oath contained some real obligation and did not leave the
duty of the person to whom it was administered precisely
where it found it, what is the lesson that would be read to
such members? They would listen with horror to the man
who endeavoured to persuade them that they owed no fidelity
to the nation, the law and the king, as to one who was in-
stigating them to sacrilege. They would tell him that it was
too late and that they must not allow themselves to hear his
arguments. They would perhaps have heard enough before
their alarm commenced to make them look with envy on the
happy state of this man who was free to listen to the com-
munications of others without terror, who could give a loose
to his thoughts and intrepidly follow the course of his en-
quiries wherever they led him. For themselves they had
promised to think no more for the rest of their lives. Com-
pliance indeed in this case is impossible; but will a vow of
inviolable adherence to a certain constitution have no effect in
checking the vigour of their contemplations and the elasticity
of their minds P
We put a miserable deception upon ourselves when we
promise ourselves the most favourable effects from the aboli-
tion of monarchy and aristocracy, and retain this wretched
system of tests, overturning in the apprehensions of mankind
at large the fundamental distinctions of justice and injustice.
Sincerity is not less essential than equality to the well-being
of mankind. A government that is perpetually furnishing
motives to Jesuitism and hypocrisy is not less abhorrent to
right reason than a government of orders and hereditary
Of Tests III
distinction. It is not easy to imagine how soon men would
become frank, explicit in their declarations, and unreserved
in their manners were there no positive institutions incul-
cating upon them the necessity of falsehood and disguise.
Nor is it possible for any language to describe the inex-
haustible benefits that would arise from the universal practice
of sincerity.
CHAPTER V
OF OATHS
The same arguments that prove the injustice of tests may
be applied universally to all oaths of duty and office. If I
entered upon the office without an oath, what would be my
duty? Can the oath that is imposed upon me make any
alteration in my duty? If not, does not the very act of
imposing it, by implication assert a falsehood? Will this
falsehood, the assertion that a direct engagement has a
tendency to create a duty, have no injurious effect upon a
majority of the persons concerned 2 What is the true crite-
rion that I shall faithfully discharge the office that is con-
ferred upon me? Surely my past life and not any protesta-
tions I may be compelled to make. If my life have been
unimpeachable, this compulsion is an unmerited insult; if
it have been otherwise, it is something worse.
It is with no common disapprobation that we recollect the
prostitution of oaths which marks the history of modern
European countries, and particularly of our own. This is
one of the means that government employs to discharge itself
of its proper functions, by making each man security for
himself. It is one of the means that legislators have pro-
vided to cover the inefficiency and absurdity of their regula-
tions, by making individuals promise the execution of that
which the police is not able to execute. It holds out in one
hand the temptation to do wrong, and in the other the obliga-
II2
Of Oaths II.3
tion imposed not to be influenced by that temptation. It
compels a man to engage not only for his own conduct but
for that of all his dependents. It obliges certain officers
(church-wardens in particular) to promise an inspection be-
yond the limits of human faculties and to engage for a pro-
ceeding on the part of those under their jurisdiction which
they neither intend nor are expected to enforce. Will it
be believed in after ages that every considerable trader in ex-
cisable articles in this country is induced by the constitution
of its government to reconcile his mind to the guilt of per-
jury as to the condition upon which he is accustomed to ex-
ercise his profession?
There remains only one species of oaths to be considered,
which have found their advocates among persons sufficiently
enlightened to reject every other species of oath; I mean
oaths administered to a witness in a court of justice. These
are certainly free from many of the objections that apply
to oaths of fidelity, duty or office. They do not call upon
a man to declare his assent to a certain proposition which
the legislator has prepared for his acceptance; they only re-
quire him solemnly to pledge himself to the truth of asser-
tions, dictated by his own apprehension of things and
expressed in his own words. They do not require him to
engage for something future, and of consequence to shut up
his mind against farther information as to what his conduct
in that future ought to be; but merely to pledge his veracity
to the apprehended order of things past.
These considerations palliate the evil, but do not convert it
into good. Wherever men of uncommon energy and dignity
of mind have existed, they have felt the degradation of bind-
ing their assertions with an oath. The English constitution
recognises in a partial and imperfect manner the force of this
II.4. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
principle, and therefore provides that, while the common
herd of mankind shall be obliged to swear to the truth, noth-
ing more shall be required from the order of nobles than a
declaration upon honour. Will reason justify this distinc-
tion?
Can there be a practice more pregnant with false morality
than that of administering oaths in a court of justice? The
language it expressly holds is, “You are not to be believed
upon your mere word;” and there are few men firm enough
resolutely to preserve themselves from contamination when
they are accustomed upon the most solemn occasions to be
treated with contempt. To the unthinking it comes like a
plenary indulgence to the occasional tampering with veracity
in affairs of daily occurrence that they are not upon their
oath; and we may affirm without risk of error that there is
no cause of insincerity, prevarication and falsehood more
powerful than the practice of administering oaths in a court
of justice. It treats veracity in the affairs of common life
as a thing unworthy to be regarded. It takes for granted
that no man, at least no man of plebeian rank, is to be
credited upon his bare affirmation; and what it takes for
granted it has an irresistible tendency to produce.
Add to this a feature that runs through all the abuses of
political institution; it inverts the eternal principles of moral-
ity. Why is it that I am bound to be more especially careful
of what I affirm in a court of justice? Because the sub-
sistence, the honest reputation or the life of a fellow man
may be materially affected by it. All these genuine motives
are by the contrivance of human institution thrown into
shade, and we are expected to speak the truth only because
government demands it of us upon oath and at the times in
which government has thought proper or recollected to ad-
Of Oaths II5
minister this oath. All attempts to strengthen the obliga-
tions of morality by fictitious and spurious motives will in
the sequel be found to have no tendency but to relax them.
Men will never act with that liberal justice and conscious
integrity which is their highest ornament till they come to
understand what men are. He that contaminates his lips
with an oath must have been thoroughly fortified with previ-
ous moral instruction if he be able afterwards to understand
the beauty of an easy and simple integrity. If our political
institutors had been but half so judicious in perceiving the
manner in which excellence and worth were to be generated
as they have been ingenious and indefatigable in the means
of depraving mankind, the world instead of a slaughter house
would have been a paradise.
CHAPTER VI
OF LIBELS
In the examination already bestowed upon the article of
heresy political and religious * we have anticipated one of
the two heads of the law of libel; and if the arguments there
adduced be admitted for valid, it will follow that no punish-
ment can justly be awarded against any writing or words
derogatory to religion or political government.
It is impossible to establish any solid ground of distinc-
tion upon this subject or to lay down rules in conformity to
which the argument must be treated. It is impossible to tell
me, when I am penetrated with the magnitude of the sub-
ject, that I must be logical and not eloquent; or when I feel
the absurdity of the theory I am combating, that I must not
express it in terms that may produce feelings of ridicule in
my readers. It were better to forbid me the discussion of
the subject altogether than forbid me to describe it in the
manner I conceive to be most suitable to its merits. It would
be a most tyrannical species of candour to tell me, “You may
write against the system we patronise provided you will
write in an imbecile and ineffectual manner; you may enquire
and investigate as much as you please provided, when you
undertake to communicate the result, you carefully check
your ardour and be upon your guard that you do not convey
any of your own feelings to your readers.” Add to this
1 Chap. III.
II6
Of Libels 1 17
that rules of distinction, as they are absurd in relation to the
dissidents, will prove a continual instrument of usurpation
and injustice to the ruling party. No reasonings will appear
fair to them but such as are futile. If I speak with energy,
they will deem me inflammatory; and if I describe censurable
proceedings in plain and homely but pointed language, they
will cry out upon me as a buffoon.
It must be truly a lamentable case if truth, favoured by
the many and patronised by the great, should prove too weak
to enter the lists with falsehood. It is self-evident that that
which will stand the test of examination cannot need the
support of penal statutes. After our adversaries have ex-
hausted their eloquence and exerted themselves to mislead us,
truth has a clear, nervous and simple story to tell which, if
force be excluded on all sides, will not fail to put down their
arts. Misrepresentation will speedily vanish if the friends
of truth be but half as alert as the advocates of falsehood.
Surely then it is a most ungracious plea to offer, “We are too
idle to reason with you; we are therefore determined to
silence you by force.” So long as the adversaries of justice
confine themselves to expostulation there can be no ground
for serious alarm. As soon as they begin to act with violence
and riot, it will then be time enough to encounter them with
force.
There is however one particular class of libel that seems
to demand a separate consideration. A libel may either not
confine itself to any species of illustration of religion or gov-
ernment, or it may leave illustration entirely out of its view.
Its object may be to invite a multitude of persons to assemble
as the first step towards acts of violence. A public libel
is any species of writing in which the wisdom of some es-
tablished system is controverted; and it cannot be denied that
118 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
a dispassionate and severe demonstration of its injustice
tends, not less than the most alarming tumult, to the destruc-
tion of such institutions. But writing and speech are the
proper and becoming methods of operating changes in human
society, and tumult is an improper and equivocal method. In
the case then of the specific preparations of riot it should
seem that the regular force of the society may lawfully inter-
fere. But this interference may be of two kinds. It may
consist of precautions to counteract all tumultuous concourse,
or it may arraign the individual for the offence he has com-
mitted against the peace of the community. The first of
these seems sufficiently commendable and wise, and would, if
vigilantly exerted, be in almost all cases adequate to the pur-
pose. The second is attended with some difficulty. A libel
the avowed intention of which is to lead to immediate vio-
lence is altogether different from a publication in which the
general merits of any institution are treated with the utmost
freedom, and may well be supposed to fall under different
rules. The difficulty here arises only from the considera-
tion of the general nature of punishment, which is abhorrent
to the true principles of mind and ought to be restrained
within as narrow limits as possible if not instantly abolished.”
A distinction to which observation and experience in cases
of judicial proceeding have uniformly led is that between
crimes that exist only in intention, and overt acts. So far as
prevention only is concerned, the former would seem in many
cases not less entitled to the animadversion of society than
the latter; but the evidence of intention usually rests upon
circumstances equivocal and minute, and the friend of justice
will tremble to erect any grave proceeding upon so uncertain
a basis.--It might be added that he who says that every
* See the following Book.
Of Libels II9
honest citizen of London ought to repair to St. George's
Fields tomorrow in arms only says what he thinks is best to
be done and what the laws of sincerity oblige him to utter.
But this argument is of a general nature, and applies to
everything that is denominated crime, not to the supposed
crime of inflammatory invitations in particular. He that
performs any action does that which he thinks is best to be
done; and if the peace of society make it necessary that he
should be restrained from this by threats of violence, the
necessity is of a very painful nature.—It should be remem-
bered that the whole of these reasonings suppose that the
tumult is an evil and will produce more disadvantage than
benefit, which is no doubt frequently, but may not be always,
the case. It cannot be too often recollected that there is in
no case a right of doing wrong, a right to punish for a meri-
torious action. Every government, as well as every individ-
ual, must follow their own apprehensions of justice at the
peril of being mistaken, unjust and consequently vicious.”—
These reasonings on exhortations to tumult will also be found
applicable with slight variation to incendiary letters addressed
to private persons.
But the law of libel, as we have already said, distributes
itself into two heads, libels against public establishments and
measures, and libels against private character. Those who
have been willing to admit that the first ought to pass un-
punished have generally asserted the propriety of counter-
acting the latter by censures and penalties. It shall be the
business of the remainder of this chapter to show that they
were erroneous in their decision.
The arguments upon which their decision is built must be
allowed to be both popular and impressive. “There is no
* Book II, Chap. III.
I2O. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
external possession more solid or more valuable than an
honest fame. My property, in goods or estate, is appropri-
ated only by convention. Its value is for the most part the
creature of a debauched imagination; and if I were suffi-
ciently wise and philosophical, he that deprived me of it
would do me very little injury. He that inflicts a stab upon
my character is a much more formidable enemy. It is a
very serious inconvenience that my countrymen should re-
gard me as destitute of principle and honesty. If the mis-
chief were entirely to myself, it is not possible to be regarded
with levity. I must be void of all sense of justice if I were
callous to the contempt and detestation of the world. I must
cease to be a man if I were unaffected by the calumny that
deprived me of the friend I loved, and left me perhaps with-
out one bosom in which to repose my sympathies. But this
is not all. The same stroke that annihilates my character ex-
tremely abridges, if it do not annihilate, my usefulness. It is
in vain that I would exert my good intentions and my talents
for the assistance of others if my motives be perpetually mis-
interpreted. Men will not listen to the arguments of him
they despise; he will be spurned during life and execrated
as long as his memory endures. What then are we to con-
clude but that to an injury greater than robbery, greater
perhaps than murder, we ought to award an exemplary
punishment?”
The answer to this statement may be given in the form of
an illustration of two propositions: first, that it is necessary
the truth should be told; secondly, that it is necessary men
should be taught to be sincere.
First, it is necessary the truth should be told. How can
this ever be done if I be forbidden to speak upon more than
one side of the question? The case is here exactly similar
Of Libels I2I
to the case of religion and political establishment. If we
must always hear the praise of things as they are and allow
no man to urge an objection, we may be lulled into torpid
tranquillity, but we can never be wise.
If a veil of partial favour is to be drawn over the errors
of mankind, it is easy to perceive whether virtue or vice will
be the gainer. There is no terror that comes home to the
heart of vice like the terror of being exhibited to the public
eye. On the contrary there is no reward worthy to be be-
stowed upon eminent virtue but this one, the plain, un-
varnished proclamation of its excellence in the face of the
world.
If the unrestrained discussion of abstract enquiry be of
the highest importance to mankind, the unrestrained investi-
gation of character is scarcely less to be cultivated. If truth
were universally told of men's dispositions and actions, gib-
bets 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 grow
a knave. Truth would follow him in his first irresolute
essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the com-
mencement of his career.
There are many men at present who pass for virtuous
that tremble at the boldness of a project like this. They
would be detected in their effeminacy and imbecility. Their
imbecility is the growth of that inauspicious secrecy which
national manners and political institutions at present draw
over the actions of individuals. If truth were spoken with-
out reserve, there would be no such men in existence. Men
would act with clearness and decision if they had no hopes
in concealment, if they saw at every turn that the eye of the
world was upon them. How great would be the magnanim-
I22 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ity of the man who was always sure to be observed, sure to
be judged with discernment and to be treated with justice?
Feebleness of character would hourly lose its influence in the
breast of those over whom it now domineers. They would
feel themselves perpetually urged with an auspicious violence
to assume manners more worthy of the form they bore.
To these reasonings it may perhaps be rejoined, “This
indeed is an interesting picture. If truth could be uni-
versally told, the effects would no doubt be of the most ex-
cellent nature; but the expectation is to be regarded as
visionary.”
Not so: the discovery of individual and personal truth is
to be effected in the same manner as the discovery of general
truth, by discussion. From the collision of disagreeing ac-
counts justice and reason will be produced. Mankind sel-
dom think much of any particular subject without coming
to think right at last.
“What, and is it to be supposed that mankind will have
the discernment and the justice of their own accord to reject
the libel?” Yes; libels do not at present deceive mankind
from their intrinsic power, but from the restraint under
which they labour. The man who from his dungeon is
brought to the light of day cannot accurately distinguish
colours, but he that has suffered no confinement feels no
difficulty in the operation. Such is the state of mankind at
present: they are not exercised to employ their judgment,
and therefore they are deficient in judgment. The most im-
probable tale now makes a deep impression, but then men
would be accustomed to speculate upon the possibilities of
human action.
At first it may be, if all restraint upon the freedom of
writing and speech were removed and men were encouraged
Of Libels I23
to declare what they thought as publicly as possible, every
press would be burdened with an inundation of scandal.
But the stories by their very multiplicity would defeat them-
selves. No one man, if the lie were successful, would be-
come the object of universal persecution. In a short time
the reader, accustomed to the dissection of character, would
acquire discrimination. He would either detect the imposi-
tion by its internal absurdity, or at least would attribute to
the story no farther weight than that to which its evidence
entitled it.
Libel, like every other human concern, would soon find its
level if it were delivered from the injurious interference of
political institution. The libeller—that is, he who utters an
unfounded calumny—either invents the story he tells, or de-
livers it with a degree of assurance to which the evidence
that has offered itself to him is by no means entitled. In
each case he would meet with his proper punishment in the
judgment of the world. The consequences of his error
would fall back upon himself. He would either pass for
a malignant accuser or for a rash and headlong censurer.
Anonymous scandal would be almost impossible in a state
where nothing was concealed. But if it were attempted, it
would be wholly pointless, since where there could be no
honest and rational excuse for concealment, the desire to be
concealed would prove the baseness of the motive.
Secondly, force ought not to intervene for the suppression
of private libels, because men ought to learn to be sincere.
There is no branch of virtue more essential than that which
consists in giving language to our thoughts. He that is ac-
customed to utter what he knows to be false or to suppress
what he knows to be true is in a perpetual state of degrada-
tion. If I have had particular opportunity to observe any
I24 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
man's vices, justice will not fail to suggest to me that I ought
to admonish him of his errors and to warn those whom his
errors might injure. There may be very sufficient ground
for my representing him as a vicious man, though I may be
totally unable to establish his vices so as to make him a
proper subject of judicial punishment. Nay, it cannot be
otherwise; for I ought to describe his character exactly such
as it appears to be, whether it be virtuous, or vicious, or of
an ambiguous nature. Ambiguity would presently cease if
every man avowed his sentiments. It is here as in the inter-
courses of friendship: a timely explanation seldom fails to
heal a broil; misunderstandings would not grow considerable
were we not in the habit of brooding over imaginary wrongs.
Laws for the suppression of private libels are properly
speaking laws to restrain men from the practice of sincerity.
They create a warfare between the genuine dictates of un-
biassed private judgment and the apparent sense of the
community, throwing obscurity upon the principles of virtue
and inspiring an indifference to the practice. This is one
of those consequences of political institution that presents
itself at every moment: morality is rendered the victim of
uncertainty and doubt. Contradictory systems of conduct
contend with each other for the preference and I become in-
different to them all. How is it possible that I should im-
bibe the divine enthusiasm of benevolence and justice when
I am prevented from discerning what it is in which they con-
sist? Other laws assume for the topic of their animadver-
sion actions of unfrequent occurrence. But the law of libels
usurps the office of directing me in my daily duties, and by
perpetually menacing me with the Scourge of punishment
undertakes to render me habitually a coward, continually
governed by the basest and most unprincipled motives.
Of Libels I25
Courage consists more in this circumstance than in any
other, the daring to speak everything the uttering of which
may conduce to good. Actions the performance of which
requires an inflexible resolution call upon us but seldom, but
the virtuous economy of speech is our perpetual affair.
Every moralist can tell us that morality seminently consists
in “the government of the tongue.” But this branch "of
morality has long been inverted. Instead of studying what
we shall tell, we are taught to consider what we shall conceal.
Instead of an active virtue, “going about doing good,” we
are instructed to believe that the chief end of man is to do no
mischief. Instead of fortitude we are carefully imbued with
maxims of artifice and cunning, misnamed prudence.
Let us contrast the character of those men with whom we
are accustomed to converse with the character of men such
as they ought to be and will be. On the one side we perceive
a perpetual caution that shrinks from the observing eye, that
conceals with a thousand folds the genuine emotions of the
heart, and that renders us unwilling to approach the men that
we suppose accustomed to read it and to tell what they read.
Such characters as ours are the mere shadows of men, with
a specious outside perhaps, but destitute of substance and
soul. Oh, when shall we arrive at the land of realities, when
men shall be known for what they are, by energy of thought
and intrepidity of action! It is fortitude that must render a
man superior alike to caresses and threats, enable him to
derive his happiness from within, and accustom him to be
upon all occasions prompt to assist and to inform. Every-
thing therefore favourable to fortitude must be of inestim-
able value; everything that inculcates dissimulation worthy
of our perpetual abhorrence.
There is one thing more that is of importance to be ob-
I26 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
served upon this subject of libel, which is the good effects
that would spring from every man's being accustomed to en-
counter falsehood with its only proper antidote, truth. After
all the arguments that have been industriously accumulated
to justify prosecution for libel, every man that will retire
into himself will feel himself convinced of their insufficiency.
The modes in which an innocent and a guilty man would
repel an accusation against them might be expected to be
opposite; but the law of libel confounds them. He that was
conscious of his rectitude and undebauched by ill systems of
government would say to his adversary, “Publish what you
please against me; I have truth on my side, and will con-
found your misrepresentations.” His sense of fitness and
justice would not permit him to say, “I will have recourse to
the only means that are congenial to guilt; I will compel you
to be silent.” A man urged by indignation and impatience
may commence a prosecution against his accuser; but he
may be assured the world, that is a disinterested spectator,
feels no cordiality for his proceedings. The language of
their sentiments upon such occasions is, “What! he dares not
even let us hear what can be said against him.”
The arguments in favour of justice, however different may
be the views under which it is considered, perpetually run
parallel to each other. The recommendations under this
head are precisely the same as those under the preceding, the
generation of activity and fortitude. The tendency of all false
systems of political institution is to render the mind lethargic
and torpid. Were we accustomed not to recur either to pub-
lic or individual force but upon occasions that unequivocally
justified their employment, we should then come to have
some respect for reason, for we should know its power.
How great must be the difference between him who answers
Of Libels I27
me with a writ of summons or a challenge and him who em-
ploys the sword and the shield of truth alone? He knows
that force only is to be encountered with force and allegation
with allegation; and he scorns to change places with the of-
fender by being the first to break the peace. He does that
which, were it not for the degenerate habits of society,
would scarcely deserve the name of courage, dares to meet
upon equal ground, with the sacred armour of truth, an ad-
versary who possesses only the perishable weapons of false-
hood. He calls up his understanding, and does not despair
of baffling the shallow pretences of calumny. He calls up
his firmness, and knows that a plain story, every word of
which is marked with the emphasis of sincerity, will carry
conviction to every hearer. It were absurd to expect that
truth should be cultivated so long as we are accustomed to
believe that it is an impotent encumbrance. It would be
impossible to neglect it if we knew that it was as impenetra-
ble as adamant and as lasting as the world.
CHAPTER VII
OF CONSTITUTIONS
An article intimately connected with the political consider-
ation of opinion is suggested to us by a doctrine which has
lately been taught relatively to constitutions. It has been
said that the laws of every regular state naturally distribute
themselves under two heads, fundamental and adscititious;
laws the object of which is the distribution of political
power and directing the permanent forms according to which
public business is to be conducted, and laws the result of
the deliberations of powers already constituted. This dis-
tinction being established in the first instance, it has been in-
ferred that these laws are of very unequal importance, and
that of consequence those of the first class ought to be origi-
nated with much greater solemnity and to be declared much
less susceptible of variation than those of the second. The
French national assembly of 1789 pushed this principle to the
greatest extremity and seemed desirous of providing every
imaginable security for rendering the work they had formed
immortal. It could not be touched upon any account under
the term of ten years; every alteration it was to receive must
be recognised as necessary by two successive national as-
semblies of the ordinary kind; after these formalities an
assembly of revision was to be elected, and they to be for-
bidden to touch the constitution in any other points than
those which had been previously marked out for their con-
sideration.
I28
Of Constitutions I29
It is easy to perceive that these precautions are in direct
hostility with the principles established in this work. “Man
and for ever !” was the motto of the labours of this assembly.
Just broken loose from the thick darkness of an absolute
monarchy, they assumed to prescribe lessons of wisdom to all
future ages. They seem not so much as to have dreamed
of that purification of intellect, that climax of improvement,
which may very probably be the destiny of posterity. The
true state of man, as has been already demonstrated, is, not
to have his opinions bound down in the fetters of an eternal
quietism, but flexible and unrestrained to yield with facility
to the impressions of increasing truth. That form of society
will appear most perfect to an enlightened mind which is
least founded in a principle of permanence. But if this view
of the subject be just, the idea of giving permanence to what
is called the constitution of any government and rendering
one class of laws, under the appellation of fundamental, less
susceptible of change than another must be founded in mis-
apprehension and error.
The error probably originally sprung out of the forms of
political monopoly which we see established over the whole
civilised world. Government could not justly derive in the
first instance but from the choice of the people; or, to speak
more accurately (for the former principle, however popular
and specious, is in reality false), government ought to be ad-
justed in its provisions to the prevailing apprehensions of
justice and truth. But we see government at present ad-
ministered either in whole or in part by a king and a body of
noblesse; and we reasonably say that the laws made by these
authorities are one thing, and the laws from which they
derived their existence another. But we do not consider
that these authorities, however originated, are in their own
I3o An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
nature unjust. If we had never seen arbitrary and capri-
cious forms of government, we should probably never have
thought of cutting off certain laws from the code under the
name of constitutional. When we behold certain individuals
or bodies of men exercising an exclusive superintendence
over the affairs of a nation, we inevitably ask how they came
by their authority, and the answer is, By the constitution.
But if we saw no power existing in the state but that of the
people, having a body of representatives and a certain num-
ber of official secretaries and clerks acting in their behalf,
subject to their revisal and renewable at their pleasure, the
question how the people came by this authority would never
have suggested itself.
But to return to the question of permanence. Whether
we admit or reject the distinction between constitutional and
ordinary legislation, it is not less true that the power of a
people to change their constitution morally considered, must
be strictly and universally coeval with the existence of a
constitution. The language of permanence in this case is
the greatest of all absurdities. It is to say to a nation, “Are
you convinced that something is right, perhaps immediately
necessary, to be done? It shall be done ten years hence.”
The folly of this system may be farther elucidated, if
farther elucidation be necessary, from the following dilemma.
Either a people must be governed according to their own ap-
prehensions of justice and truth, or they must not. The last
of these assertions cannot be avowed but upon the unequi-
vocal principles of tyranny. But if the first be true, then it
is just as absurd to say to a nation, “This government which
you chose nine years ago is the legitimate government, and
Of Constitutions I31
the government which your present sentiments approve the
illegitimate,” as to insist upon their being governed by the
dicta of their remotest ancestors, or even of the most insolent
usurper.
It is extremely probable that a national assembly chosen
in the ordinary forms is just as much empowered to change
the fundamental laws as to change any of the least important
branches of legislation. This function would never perhaps
be dangerous but in a country that still preserved a portion of
monarchy or aristocracy, and in such a country a principle
of permanence would be found a very feeble antidote against
the danger. The true principle upon the subject is that
no assembly, though chosen with the most unexampled
solemnity, has a power to impose any regulations contrary to
the public apprehension of right; and a very ordinary au-
thority fairly originated will be sufficient to facilitate the
harmonious adoption of a change that is dictated by national
opinion. The distinction of constitutional and ordinary
topics will always appear in practice unintelligible and vexa-
tious. The assemblies of more frequent recurrence will find
themselves arrested in the intention of conferring any emi-
nent benefit on their country by the apprehension that they
shall invade the constitution. In a country where the people
are habituated to sentiments of equality and where no poli-
tical monopoly is tolerated, there is little danger that any
national assembly should be disposed to enforce a pernicious
change, and there is still less that the people should submit to
the injury, or not possess the means easily and with small
interruption of public tranquillity to avert it. The language
of reason on this subject is, “Give us equality and justice,
but no constitution. Suffer us to follow without restraint
the dictates of our own judgment, and to change our forms
132 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of social order as fast as we improve in understanding and
knowledge.”
The opinion upon this head most popular in France at
the time that the national convention entered upon its func-
tions was that the business of the convention extended only
to the presenting a draught of a constitution, to be submitted
in the sequel to the approbation of the districts and then
only to be considered as law. This opinion is well deserving
of a serious examination.
The first idea that suggests itself respecting it is that if
constitutional laws ought to be subjected to the revision of the
districts, then all laws ought to undergo the same process,
understanding by laws all declarations of a general principle
to be applied to particular cases as they may happen to oc-
cur, and even including all provisions for individual emer-
gencies that will admit of the delay incident to the revision in
question. It is an egregious mistake to imagine that the
importance of these articles is in a descending ratio from
fundamental to ordinary, and from ordinary to particular.
It is possible for the most odious injustice to be perpetrated
by the best constituted assembly. A law rendering it capital
to oppose the doctrine of transubstantiation would be more in-
jurious to the public welfare than a law changing the dura-
tion of the national representative from two years to one year
or to three. Taxation has been shown to be an article rather
of executive than legislative administration; * and yet a very
oppressive and unequal tax would be scarcely less ruinous
than any single measure that could possibly be devised.
It may farther be remarked that an approbation demanded
from the districts to certain constitutional articles, whether
more or less numerous, will be either real or delusive accord-
* Book V, Chap. I.
Of Constitutions I33
ing to the mode adopted for that purpose. If the districts
be required to decide upon these articles by a simple affirma-
tive or negative, it will then be delusive. It is impossible for
any man or body of men in the due exercise of their under-
standing to decide upon any complicated system in that man-
ner. It can scarcely happen but that there will be some
things that they will approve and some that they will disap-
prove. On the other hand, if the articles be unlimitedly
proposed for discussion in the districts, a transaction will be
begun to which it is not easy to foresee a termination. Some
districts will object to certain articles; and if these articles
be modelled to obtain their approbation, it is possible that the
very alteration introduced to please one part of the com-
munity may render the code less acceptable to another.
How are we to be assured that the dissidents will not set up a
separate government for themselves? The reasons that
might be offered to persuade a minority of districts to yield
to the sense of a majority are by no means so perspicuous
and forcible as those which sometimes persuade the minority
of members in a given assembly to that species of concession.
It is desirable in all cases of the practical adoption of any
given principle that we should fully understand the meaning
of the principle and perceive the conclusions to which it in-
evitably leads. This principle of a consent of districts has
an immediate tendency, by a salutary gradation perhaps, to
lead to the dissolution of all government. What then can
be more absurd than to see it embraced by those very men
who are at the same time advocates for the complete legis-
lative unity of a great empire? It is founded upon the same
basis as the principle of private judgment, which it is to be
hoped will speedily supersede the possibility of the action of
society in a collective capacity. It is desirable that the most
134 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
important acts of the national representatives should be sub-
ject to the approbation or rejection of the districts whose
representatives they are for exactly the same reason as it
is desirable that the acts of the districts themselves should,
as speedily as practicability will admit, be in force only so
far as relates to the individuals by whom those acts are
approved.
The first consequence that would result, not from the de-
lusive, but the real establishment of this principle would be
the reduction of the constitution to a very small number of
articles. The impracticability of obtaining the deliberate ap-
probation of a great number of districts to a very com-
plicated code would speedily manifest itself. In reality the
constitution of a state governed either in whole or in part by
a political monopoly must necessarily be complicated. But
what need of complexity in a country where the people are
destined to govern themselves? The whole constitution of
such a country ought scarcely to exceed two articles; first, a
scheme for the division of the whole into parts equal in their
population, and, secondly, the fixing of stated periods for the
election of a national assembly: not to say that the latter of
these articles may very probably be dispensed with.
A second consequence that results from the principle of
which we are treating is as follows. It has already appeared
that the reason is no less cogent for submitting important
legislative articles to the revisal of the districts than for sub-
mitting the constitutional articles themselves. But after a
few experiments of this sort it cannot fail to suggest itself
that the mode of sending laws to the districts for their re-
vision, unless in cases essential to the general safety, is a
proceeding unnecessarily circuitous, and that it would be
better, in as many instances as possible, to suffer the districts
Of Constitutions I35
to make laws for themselves without the intervention of the
national assembly. The justness of this consequence is im-
plicitly assumed in the preceding paragraph, while we stated
the very narrow bounds within which the constitution of an
empire, such as that of France for example, might be cir-
cumscribed. In reality, provided the country were divided
into convenient districts with a power of sending representa-
tives to the general assembly, it does not appear that any ill
consequences would ensue to the common cause from these
districts’ being permitted to regulate their internal affairs in
conformity to their own apprehensions of justice. Thus,
that which was at first a great empire with legislative unity
would speedily be transformed into a confederacy of lesser
republics, with a general congress or Amphictyonic council
answering the purpose of a point of cooperation upon
extraordinary occasions. The ideas of a great empire and
legislative unity are plainly the barbarous remains of the days
of military heroism. In proportion as political power is
brought home to the citizens and simplified into something
of the nature of parish regulation, the danger of misunder-
standing and rivalship will be nearly annihilated. In pro-
portion as the science of government is divested of its
present mysterious appearances, social truth will become
obvious, and the districts pliant and flexible to the dictates of
TeaSO11.
A third consequence sufficiently memorable from the same
principle is the gradual extinction of law. A great assembly
collected from the different provinces of an extensive ter-
ritory and constituted the sole legislator of those by whom
the territory is inhabited immediately conjures up to itself
an idea of the vast multitude of laws that are necessary
for regulating the concerns of those whom it represents. A
I36 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
large city, impelled by the principles of commercial jealousy,
is not slow to digest the volume of its by-laws and exclusive
privileges. But 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 cir-
cumstances and demand of each particular cause.—It was
proper that this consequence should be mentioned in this
place. The benefits that will arise from the abolition of law
will come to be considered in detail in the following book.”
The principal objection that is usually made to the idea of
confederacy considered as the substitute of legislative unity
is the possibility that arises of the members of the con-
federacy detaching themselves from the support of the public
cause. To give this objection every advantage, let us sup-
pose that the seat of the confederacy, like France, is placed
in the midst of surrounding nations, and that the govern-
ments of these nations are anxious by every means of artifice
and violence to suppress the insolent spirit of liberty that has
started up among this neighbour people. It is to be be-
lieved that even under these circumstances the danger is
more imaginary than real. The national assembly, being
precluded by the supposition from the use of force against
the malcontent districts, is obliged to confine itself to ex-
postulation; and it is sufficiently observable that our powers
of expostulation are tenfold increased the moment our hopes
are confined to expostulation alone. They have to describe
with the utmost perspicuity and simplicity the benefits of
independence; to convince the public at large that all they
5 [Second and third editions: “Book VII, Chap. VIII.”]
Of Constitutions I37
intend is to enable every district, and as far as possible every
individual, to pursue unmolested their own ideas of pro-
priety; and that under their auspices there shall be no
tyranny, no arbitrary punishments, such as proceed from
the jealousy of councils and courts, no exactions, almost no
taxation. Some ideas respecting this last subject will
speedily occur. It is not possible but that in a country
rescued from the inveterate evils of despotism the love of
liberty should be considerably diffused. The adherents
therefore of the public cause will be many; the malcontents
few. If a small number of districts were so far blinded as
to be willing to surrender themselves to oppression and
slavery, it is probable they would soon repent. Their de-
sertion would inspire the more enlightened and courageous
with additional energy. It would be a glorious spectacle to
see the champions of the cause of truth declaring that they
desired none but willing supporters. It is not possible that
so magnanimous a principle should not contribute more to
the advantage than the injury of their cause.
CHAPTER VIII
OF NATIONAL EDUCATION
A mode in which government has been accustomed to
interfere for the purpose of influencing opinion is by the
superintendence it has in a greater or less degree exerted in
the article of education. It is worthy of observation that
the idea of this superintendence has obtained the countenance
of several of the most zealous advocates of political reform.
The question relative to its propriety or impropriety is en-
titled on that account to the more deliberate examination.
The arguments in its favour have been already anticipated.
“Can it be justifiable in those persons who are appointed to
the functions of magistracy and whose duty it is to consult
for the public welfare to neglect the cultivation of the in-
fant mind and to suffer its future excellence or depravity
to be at the disposal of fortune? Is it possible for patriotism
and the love of the public to be made the characteristic of a
whole people in any other way so successfully as by render-
ing the early communication of these virtues a national con-
cern ? If the education of our youth be entirely confided
to the prudence of their parents or the accidental benevolence
of private individuals, will it not be a necessary consequence
that some will be educated to virtue, others to vice, and
others again entirely neglected?” To these considerations it
has been added, “That the maxim which has prevailed in the
majority of civilised countries, that ignorance of the law is
138
Of National Education I39
no apology for the breach of it, is in the highest degree in-
iquitous; and that government cannot justly punish us for
our crimes when committed unless it have forewarned us
against their commission, which cannot be adequately done
without something of the nature of public education.”
The propriety or impropriety of any project for this
purpose must be determined by the general consideration of
its beneficial or injurious tendency. If the exertions of the
magistrate in behalf of any system of instruction will stand
the test as conducive to the public service, undoubtedly he
cannot be justified in neglecting them. If on the contrary
they conduce to injury, it is wrong and unjustifiable that
they should be made.
The injuries that result from a system of national educa-
tion are, in the first place, that all public establishments in-
clude in them the idea of permanence. They endeavour it
may be to secure and to diffuse whatever of advantageous
to Society is already known, but they forget that more re-
mains to be known. If they realised the most substantial
benefits at the time of their introduction, they must in-
evitably become less and less useful as they increased in
duration. But to describe them as useless is a very feeble
expression of their demerits. They actively restrain the
flights of mind and fix it in the belief of exploded errors. It
has commonly been observed of universities and extensive
establishments for the purpose of education that the knowl-
edge taught there is a century behind the knowledge which
exists among the unshackled and unprejudiced members of
the same political community. The moment any scheme of
proceeding gains a permanent establishment it becomes im-
pressed as one of its characteristic features with an aversion
to change. Some violent concussion may oblige its con-
I40 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ductors to change an old system of philosophy for a system
less obsolete; and they are then as pertinaciously attached to
this second doctrine as they were to the first. Real intel-
lectual improvement demands that mind should as speedily
as possible be advanced to the height of knowledge already
existing among the enlightened members of the community
and start from thence in the pursuit of farther acquisitions.
But public education has always expended its energies in the
support of prejudice; it teaches its pupils not the fortitude
that shall bring every proposition to the test of examination,
but the art of vindicating such tenets as may chance to be
previously established. We study Aristotle or Thomas
Aquinas or Bellarmine or Chief Justice Coke, not that we
may detect their errors, but that our minds may be fully im-
pregnated with their absurdities. This feature runs through
every species of public establishment, and even in the petty
institution of Sunday schools the chief lessons that are
taught are a superstitious veneration for the church of Eng-
land and to bow to every man in a handsome coat. All this
is directly contrary to the true interest of mind. All this
must be unlearned before we can begin to be wise.
It is the characteristic of mind to be capable of improve-
ment. An individual surrenders the best attribute of man
the moment he resolves to adhere to certain fixed principles
for reasons not now present to his mind but which formerly
were. The instant in which he shuts upon himself the career
of enquiry is the instant of his intellectual decease. He is
no longer a man; he is the ghost of departed man. There
can be no scheme more egregiously stamped with folly than
that of separating a tenet from the evidence upon which its
validity depends. If I cease from the habit of being able
to recall this evidence, my belief is no longer a perception,
Of National Education I4 I
but a prejudice: it may influence me like a prejudice,
but cannot animate me like a real apprehension of truth.
The difference between the man thus guided and the
man that keeps his mind perpetually alive is the difference
between cowardice and fortitude. The man who is in the
best sense an intellectual being delights to recollect the rea-
sons that have convinced him, to repeat them to others that
they may produce conviction in them, and stand more distinct
and explicit in his own mind; and he adds to this a willing-
ness to examine objections, because he takes no pride in con-
sistent error. The man who is not capable of this Salutary
exercise, to what valuable purpose can he be employed 2
Hence it appears that no vice can be more destructive than
that which teaches us to regard any judgment as final and
not open to review. The same principle that applies to in-
dividuals applies to communities. There is no proposition
at present apprehended to be true so valuable as to justify the
introduction of an establishment for the purpose of in-
culcating it on mankind. Refer them to reading, to con-
versation, to meditation; but teach them neither creeds nor
catechisms, neither moral nor political.
Secondly, the idea of national education is founded in an
inattention to the nature of mind. Whatever each man does
for himself is done well; whatever his neighbours or his
country undertake to do for him is done ill. It is our wis-
dom to incite men to act for themselves, not to retain them
in a state of perpetual pupillage. He that learns because he
desires to learn will listen to the instructions he receives and
apprehend their meaning. He that teaches because he de-
sires to teach will discharge his occupation with enthusiasm
and energy. But the moment political institution undertakes
to assign to every man his place, the functions of all will be
I42 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
discharged with supineness and indifference. Universities
and expensive establishments have long been remarked for
formal dulness. Civil policy has given me the power to ap-
propriate my estate to certain theoretical purposes; but it is
an idle presumption to think I can entail my views as I can
entail my fortune. Remove all those obstacles which pre-
vent men from seeing and restrain them from pursuing their
real advantage, but do not absurdly undertake to relieve them
from the activity which this pursuit requires. What I earn,
what I acquire only because I desire to acquire it, I estimate
at its true value; but what is thrust upon me may make
me indolent but cannot make me respectable. It is extreme
folly to endeavour to secure to others, independently of
exertion on their part, the means of being happy.—This
whole proposition of a national education is founded upon a
supposition which has been repeatedly refuted in this work,
but which has recurred upon us in a thousand forms, that un-
patronised truth is inadequate to the purpose of enlightening
mankind.
Thirdly, the project of a national education ought uni-
formly to be discouraged on account of its obvious alliance
with national government. This is an alliance of a more
formidable nature than the old and much contested alliance
of church and state. Before we put so powerful a machine
under the direction of so ambiguous an agent, it behooves us
to consider well what it is that we do. Government will not
fail to employ it to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its
institutions. If we could even suppose the agents of govern-
ment not to propose to themselves an object which will be
apt to appear in their eyes not merely innocent but merito-
rious, the evil would not the less happen. Their views as
institutors of a system of education will not fail to be
Of National Education I43
analogous to their views in their political capacity: the data
upon which their conduct as statesmen is vindicated will be the
data upon which their instructions are founded. It is not true
that our youth ought to be instructed to venerate the con-
stitution, however excellent; they should be instructed to
venerate truth, and the constitution only so far as it cor-
responded with their independent deductions of truth. Had
the scheme of a national education been adopted when des-
potism was most triumphant, it is not to be believed that it
could have forever stifled the voice of truth. But it would
have been the most formidable and profound contrivance for
that purpose that imagination can suggest. Still, in the
countries where liberty chiefly prevails, it is reasonably to
be assumed that there are important errors, and a national
education has the most direct tendency to perpetuate those
errors and to form all minds upon one model.
It is not easy to say whether the remark that government
cannot justly punish offenders unless it have previously in-
formed them what is virtue and what is offence be entitled to
a separate answer. It is to be hoped that mankind will
never have to learn so important a lesson through so cor-
rupt a channel. Government may reasonably and equitably
presume that men who live in society know that enormous
crimes are injurious to the public weal without its being
necessary to announce them as such by laws to be proclaimed
by heralds, or expounded by curates. It has been alleged
that “mere reason may teach me not to strike my neighbour;
but will never forbid my sending a sack of wool from Eng-
land, or printing the French constitution in Spain.” This
objection leads to the true distinction upon the subject. All
real crimes are capable of being discerned without the teach-
ing of law. All supposed crimes, not capable of being so
I44 - An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
discerned, are truly and unalterably innocent. It is true
that my own understanding would never have told me that
the exportation of wool was a vice: neither do I believe it is
a vice now that a law has been made affirming it. It is a
feeble and contemptible remedy for iniquitous punishments
to signify to mankind beforehand that you intend to inflict
them. Nay, the remedy is worse than the evil; destroy me
if you please, but do not endeavour by a national education to
destroy in my understanding the discernment of justice and
injustice. The idea of such an education, or even perhaps of
the necessity of a written law, would never have occurred
if government and jurisprudence had never attempted the
arbitrary conversion of innocence into guilt.
CHAPTER IX
OF PENSIONS AND SALARIES
[Salaries and pensions, the usual “modes of rewarding public
services,” should be abolished. Labour for the public is of a
more unselfish nature than labour for one's own subsistence; its
nature is obscured when rewarded with a salary. “Whether
the salary be large or small, if a salary exist, many will desire
the office for the sake of its appendage. Functions the most
extensive in their consequences will be converted into a trade.”]
Another consideration of great weight in this instance is
that of the source from which salaries are derived: from the
public revenue, from taxes imposed upon the community.
But there is no practicable mode of collecting the super-
fluities of the community. Taxation, to be strictly equal, if
it demand from the man of an hundred a year ten pounds,
ought to demand from the man of a thousand a year nine
hundred and ten. Taxation will always be unequal and op-
pressive, wresting the hard-earned morsel from the gripe of
the peasant, and sparing him most whose superfluities most
defy the limits of justice. I will not say that the man of
clear discernment and an independent mind would rather
starve than be subsisted at the public cost: but I will say that
it is scarcely possible to devise any expedient for his sub-
sistence that he would not rather accept.
Meanwhile the difficulty under this head is by no means
insuperable. The majority of the persons chosen for public
I45
I46 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
employment, under any situation of mankind approaching to
the present, will possess a personal fortune adequate to their
support. Those selected from a different class will probably
be selected for extraordinary talents, which will naturally
lead to extraordinary resources. It has been deemed dis-
honourable to subsist upon private liberality, but this dis-
honour is produced only by the difficulty of reconciling this
mode of subsistence and intellectual independence. It is
free from many of the objections that have been urged
against a public stipend. I ought to receive your superfluity
as my due while I am employed in affairs more important
than that of earning a subsistence; but at the same time to
receive it with a total indifference to personal advantage,
taking only precisely what is necessary for the supply of my
wants. He that listens to the dictates of justice and turns
a deaf ear to the dictates of pride will wish that the con-
stitution of his country should cast him for support on the
virtue of individuals rather than provide for his support at
the public expense. That virtue will, in this as in all other
instances, increase, the more it is called into action. “But
what if he have a wife and children?” Let many aid him
if the aid of one be insufficient. Let him do in his lifetime
what Eudamidas did at his decease, bequeath his daughter to
be subsisted by one friend, and his mother by another. This
is the only true taxation, which he that is able, and thinks
himself able, assesses on himself, not which he endeavours
to discharge upon the shoulders of the poor. It is a striking
example of the power of venal governments in generating
prejudice that this scheme of serving the public functions
without salaries, so common among the ancient republicans,
should by liberal minded men of the present day be deemed
Of Pensions and Salaries I47
impracticable. It is not to be believed that those readers
who already pant for the abolition of government and regula-
tions in all their branches should hesitate respecting so easy
an advance towards this desirable object. Nor let us imagine
that the safety of the community will depend upon the
services of an individual. In the country in which in-
dividuals fit for the public service are rare, the post of honour
will be his, not that fills an official situation, but that from
his closet endeavours to waken the sleeping virtues of man-
kind. In the country where they are frequent, it will not be
difficult by the short duration of the employment to com-
pensate for the slenderness of the means of him that fills it.
It is not easy to describe the advantages that must result
from this proceeding. The public functionary would in
every article of his charge recollect the motives of public
spirit and benevolence. He would hourly improve in the
energy and disinterestedness of his character. The habits
created by a frugal fare and a cheerful poverty, not hid as
now in obscure retreats but held forth to public view and
honoured with public esteem, would speedily pervade the
community and auspiciously prepare them for still farther
improvements.
The objection that it is necessary for him who acts on the
part of the public to make a certain figure, and to live in a
style calculated to excite respect, does not deserve a separate
answer. The whole spirit of this treatise is in direct hostility
to this objection. If therefore it have not been answered
already, it would be vain to attempt an answer in this place.
It is recorded of the burghers of the Netherlands who con-
spired to throw off the Austrian yoke that they came to the
place of consultation each man with his knapsack of pro-
I48 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
visions: who is there that feels inclined to despise this sim-
plicity and honourable poverty? The abolition of salaries
would doubtless render necessary the simplification and
abridgment of public business. This would be a benefit and
not a disadvantage.
It will farther be objected that there are certain func-
tionaries in the lower departments of government, such as
clerks and tax-gatherers, whose employment is perpetual,
and whose subsistence ought for that reason to be made the
result of their employment. If this objection were admitted,
its consequences would be of subordinate importance. The
office of a clerk or a tax-gatherer is considerably similar to
those of mere barter and trade; and therefore to degrade it
altogether to their level would have little resemblance to the
fixing such a degradation upon offices that demand the most
elevated mind. The annexation of a stipend to such employ-
ments, if considered only as a matter of temporary accom-
modation, might perhaps be endured.
But the exception, if admitted, ought to be admitted with
great caution. He that is employed in an affair of public
necessity ought to feel, while he discharges it, its true char-
acter. We should never allow ourselves to undertake an
office of a public nature without feeling ourselves animated
with a public zeal. We shall otherwise discharge our trust
with comparative coldness and neglect. Nor is this all. The
abolition of salaries would lead to the abolition of those
offices to which salaries are thought necessary. If we had
neither foreign wars nor domestic stipends, taxation would
be almost unknown; and if we had no taxes to collect, we
should want no clerks to keep an account of them. In the
simple scheme of political institution which reason dictates
we could scarcely have any burdensome offices to discharge;
Of Pensions and Salaries 149
and if we had any that were so in their abstract nature, they
might be rendered light by the perpetual rotation of their
holders.
If we have no salaries, for a still stronger reason we ought
to have no pecuniary qualifications, or in other words no
regulation requiring the possession of a certain property as a
condition to the right of electing or the capacity of being
elected. It is an uncommon strain of tyranny to call upon
men to appoint for themselves a delegate and at the same time
forbid them to appoint exactly the man whom they may
judge fittest for the office. Qualification in both kinds is the
most flagrant injustice. It asserts the man to be of less
value than his property. It furnishes to the candidate a new
stimulus to the accumulation of wealth; and this passion,
when once set in motion, is not easily allayed. It tells him,
“Your intellectual and moral qualifications may be of the
highest order; but you have not enough of the means of
luxury and vice.” To the non-elector it holds the most
detestable language. It says, “You are poor; you are un-
fortunate; the institutions of society oblige you to be the
perpetual witness of other men's superfluity: because you
are sunk thus low we will trample you yet lower; you shall
not even be reckoned in the lists for a man, you shall be
passed by as one of whom society makes no account and
whose welfare and moral existence she disdains to recollect.”
CHAPTER X
OF THE MODES OF DECIDING A QUESTION ON THE PART OF
THE COMMUNITY
[Decision by sortition or lot had its origin in superstition;
is decision by contingence, not by reason; and is cowardly
evasion of responsibility, since no matter is of absolute indif-
ference. The mode of decision by ballot is “still more cen-
surable,” because it encourages timidity by teaching us “to
draw a veil of concealment over our performance of" our
duty, and by seeming to allow us to withdraw ourselves “from
the consequences of our own actions.”]
If then sortition and ballot be institutions pregnant with
vice, it follows that all social decisions should be made by
open vote; that wherever we have a function to discharge,
we should reflect on the mode in which it ought to be dis-
charged; and that whatever conduct we are persuaded to
adopt, especially in affairs of general concern, should be
adopted in the face of the world.
T
BOOK VII
OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
CHAPTER I
LIMITATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF PUNISHMENT WHICH
RESULT FROM THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY
The subject of punishment is perhaps the most funda-
mental in the science of politics. Men associated for the sake
of mutual protection and benefit. It has already appeared
that the internal affairs of such associations are of infinitely
greater importance than their external." It has appeared that
the action of society in conferring rewards and superintend-
ing opinion is of pernicious effect.” Hence it follows that
government, or the action of the society in its corporate
capacity, can scarcely be of any utility except so far as it is
requisite for the suppression of force by force; for the pre-
vention of the hostile attack of one member of the society
upon the person or property of another, which prevention is
usually called by the name of criminal justice, or punishment.
Before we can properly judge of the necessity or urgency
of this action of government, it will be of some importance
to consider the precise import of the word “punishment.” I
may employ force to counteract the hostility that is actually
committing on me. I may employ force to compel any
member of the society to occupy the post that I conceive most
conducive to the general advantage, either in the mode of
impressing soldiers and sailors, or by obliging a military
* Book V, Chap. XX. [Omitted in this abridgment.]
* Book VI, passim.
153
I54 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
officer or a minister of state to accept or retain his appoint-
ment. I may put an innocent man to death for the common
good, either because he is infected with a pestilential disease,
or because some oracle has declared it essential to the public
safety. None of these, though they consist in the exertion
of force for some moral purpose, comes within the import
of the word punishment. Punishment is generally used to
signify the voluntary infliction of evil upon a vicious being
not merely because the public advantage demands it but
because there is apprehended to be a certain fitness and
propriety in the nature of things that render suffering,
abstractedly from the benefit to result, the suitable con-
comitant of vice.
The justice of punishment therefore, in the strict import
of the word, can only be a deduction from the hypothesis of
freewill, and must be false if human actions be necessary.
Mind, as was sufficiently apparent when we treated of that
subject,” is an agent in no other sense than matter is an
agent. It operates and is operated upon, and the nature,
the force and line of direction of the first is exactly in
proportion to the nature, force and line of direction of the
second. Morality in a rational and designing mind is not
essentially different from morality in an inanimate substance.
A man of certain intellectual habits is fitted to be an assassin;
a dagger of a certain form is fitted to be his instrument. The
one or the other excites a greater degree of disapprobation, in
proportion as its fitness for mischievous purposes appears to
be more inherent and direct. I view a dagger on this account
with more disapprobation than a knife, which is perhaps
equally adapted for the purposes of the assassin, because
the dagger has few or no beneficial uses to weigh against
* Book IV, Chap. VI.
Doctrine of Punishment I 55
those that are hurtful and because it has a tendency by
means of association to the exciting of evil thoughts. I view
the assassin with more disapprobation than the dagger be-
cause he is more to be feared and it is more difficult to change
his vicious structure or take from him his capacity to injure.
The man is propelled to act by necessary causes and ir-
resistible motives, which, having once occurred, are likely
to occur again. The dagger has no quality adapted to the
contraction of habits, and though it have committed a thou-
sand murders, is not at all more likely (unless so far as
those murders, being known, may operate as a slight associ-
ated motive with the possessor) to commit murder again.
Except in the articles here specified, the two cases are
exactly parallel. The assassin cannot help the murder he
commits any more than the dagger.
These arguments are merely calculated to set in a more
perspicuous light a principle which is admitted by many by
whom the doctrine of necessity has never been examined;
that the only measure of equity is utility, and whatever is
not attended with any beneficial purpose is not just. This
is so evident a proposition that few reasonable and reflecting
minds will be found inclined to reject it. Why do I inflict
suffering on another? If neither for his own benefit nor
the benefit of others, can that be right? Will resentment,
the mere indignation and horror I have conceived against
vice, justify me in putting a being to useless torture? “But
suppose I only put an end to his existence.” What, with
no prospect of benefit either to himself or others? The
reason the mind easily reconciles itself to this supposition is
that we conceive existence to be less a blessing than a curse
to a being incorrigibly vicious. But in that case the sup-
position does not fall within the terms of the question: I
I56 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
am in reality conferring a benefit. It has been asked, “If we
conceive to ourselves two beings, each of them solitary, but
the first virtuous and the second vicious, the first inclined
to the highest acts of benevolence if his situation were
changed for the social, the second to malignity, tyranny and
injustice, do we not feel that the first is entitled to felicity in
preference to the second?” If there be any difficulty in the
question, it is wholly caused by the extravagance of the
supposition. No being can be either virtuous or vicious who
has no opportunity of influencing the happiness of others.
He may indeed, though now solitary, recollect or imagine a
social state; but this sentiment and the propensities it gener-
ates can scarcely be vigorous unless he have hopes of being
at some future time restored to that state. The true solitaire
cannot be considered as a moral being unless the morality we
contemplate be that which has relation to his own permanent
advantage. But if that be our meaning, punishment, unless
for reform, is peculiarly absurd. His conduct is vicious
because it has a tendency to render him miserable: shall we
inflict calamity upon him for this reason only because he has
already inflicted calamity upon himself? It is difficult for
us to imagine to ourselves a solitary intellectual being whom
no future accident shall ever render social. It is difficult
for us to separate even in idea virtue and vice from happiness
and misery; and of consequence not to imagine that when
we bestow a benefit upon virtue, we bestow it where it will
turn to account; and when we bestow a benefit upon vice,
we bestow it where it will be unproductive. For these
reasons the question of a solitary being will always be
extravagant and unintelligible, but will never convince.
It has sometimes been alleged that the very course of
nature has annexed suffering to vice and has thus led us to the
Doctrine of Punishment I57
idea of punishment. Arguments of this sort must be listened
to with great caution. It was by reasonings of a similar
nature that our ancestors justified the practice of religious
persecution: “Heretics and unbelievers are the objects of
God's indignation; it must therefore be meritorious in us to
maltreat those whom God has cursed.” We know too little
of the system of the universe, are too liable to error respect-
ing it, and see too small a portion of the whole to entitle us
to form our moral principles upon an imitation of what we
conceive to be the course of nature.
Thus it appears whether we enter philosophically into the
principle of human actions or merely analyse the ideas of
rectitude and justice which have the universal consent of
mankind that, accurately speaking, there is no such thing as
desert. It cannot be just that we should inflict suffering
on any man except so far as it tends to good. Hence it
follows that the strict acceptation of the word “punishment”
by no means accords with any sound principles of reasoning.
It is right that I should inflict suffering in every case where
it can be clearly shown that such infliction will produce an
overbalance of good. But this infliction bears no reference
to the mere innocence or guilt of the person upon whom it is
made. An innocent man is the proper subject of it if it tend
to good. A guilty man is the proper subject of it under
no other point of view. To punish him upon any hypothesis
for what is past and irrecoverable and for the consideration
of that only must be ranked among the wildest conceptions
of untutored barbarism. Every man upon whom discipline
is administered is to be considered as to the rationale of this
discipline as innocent. Xerxes was not more unreasonable
I58 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
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.
It is of the utmost importance that we should bear these
ideas constantly in mind during our whole examination of
the theory of punishment. This theory would in the past
transactions of mankind have been totally different if they
had divested themselves of all emotions of anger and resent-
ment; if they had considered the man who torments another
for what he has done as upon par with the child who beats
the table; if they had figured to their imagination, and then
properly estimated, the man who should shut up in prison
some atrocious criminal and afterwards torture him at stated
periods merely in consideration of the abstract congruity of
crime and punishment without any possible benefit to others
or to himself; if they had regarded infliction as that which
was to be regulated solely by a dispassionate calculation of
the future, without suffering the past, in itself considered, for
a moment to enter into the account.
CHAPTER II
GENERAL DISADVANTAGES OF COERCION
Having thus precluded all ideas of punishment or retri-
bution strictly so called, it belongs to us in the farther dis-
cussion of this interesting subject to think merely of that
coercion which has usually been employed against persons
convicted of past injurious action for the purpose of pre-
venting future mischief. And here we will first consider
what is the quantity of evil which accrues from all such
coercion, and secondly examine the cogency of the various
reasons by which this coercion is recommended. It will
not be possible wholly to avoid the repetition of some of the
reasons which occurred in the preliminary discussion of the
exercise of private judgment.” But those reasonings will
now be extended and derive additional advantage from a
fuller arrangement.
It is commonly said that no man ought to be compelled in
matters of religion to act contrary to the dictates of his
conscience. Religion is a principle which the practice of all
ages has deeply impressed upon the mind. He that dis-
charges what his own apprehensions prescribe to him on the
subject stands approved to the tribunal of his own mind and,
conscious of rectitude in his intercourse with the author of
nature, cannot fail to obtain the greatest of those advantages,
whatever may be their amount, which religion has to bestow.
1 Book II, Chap. VI.
(2. I59
16o An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
It is in vain that I endeavour by persecuting statutes to com-
pel him to resign a false religion for a true. Arguments may
convince, but persecution cannot. The new religion which I
oblige him to profess contrary to his conviction, however
pure and holy it may be in its own nature, has no benefits in
store for him. The sublimest worship becomes transformed
into a source of corruption when it is not consecrated by the
testimony of a pure conscience. Truth is the second object
in this respect, integrity of heart is the first: or rather a
proposition that in its abstract nature is truth itself, converts
into rank falsehood and mortal poison if it be professed with
the lips only and abjured by the understanding. It is then
the foul garb of hypocrisy. Instead of elevating the mind
above sordid temptations, it perpetually reminds the wor-
shipper of the abject pusillanimity to which he has yielded.
Instead of filling him with sacred confidence, it overwhelms
with confusion and remorse.
The inference that has been made from these reasonings is
that criminal law is eminently misapplied in affairs of religion
and that its true province is civil misdemeanours. But this
inference is false. It is only by an unaccountable perversion
of reason that men have been induced to affirm that religion
is the sacred province of conscience, and that moral duty
may be left undefined to the decision of the magistrate.
What, is it of no consequence whether I be the benefactor
of my species or their bitterest enemy? whether I be an
informer or a robber or a murderer? whether I be employed
as a soldier to extirpate my fellow beings or be called upon
as a citizen to contribute my property to their extirpation?
whether I tell the truth with that firmness and unreserve
which ardent philanthropy will not fail to inspire, or suppress
science lest I be convicted of blasphemy, and fact lest I be
General Disadvantages of Coercion 161.
convicted of a libel? whether I contribute my efforts for the
furtherance of political justice or quietly submit to the exile
of a family of whose claims I am an advocate or to the
subversion of liberty for which every man should be ready
to die? Nothing can be more clear than that the value of
religion or of any other species of abstract opinion lies in its
moral tendency. If I should be ready to set at nought the
civil power for the sake of that which is the means, how
much more when it rises in contradiction to the end?
Of all human concerns morality is the most interesting. It
is the perpetual associate of our transactions; there is no
situation in which we can be placed, no alternative that can
be presented to our choice, respecting which duty is silent.
“What is the standard of morality and duty P’’ Justice.
Not the arbitrary decrees that are in force in a particular
climate, but those laws of eternal reason that are equally
obligatory wherever man is to be found. “But the rules of
justice often appear to us obscure, doubtful and contradic-
tory; what criterion shall be applied to deliver us from un-
certainty P’’ There are but two criterions possible, the de-
cisions of other men's wisdom, and the decisions of our own
understanding. Which of these is conformable to the nature
of man? Can we surrender our own understandings?
However we may strain after implicit faith, will not con-
science in spite of ourselves whisper us, “This decree is
equitable, and this decree is founded in mistake?” Will
there not be in the minds of the votaries of superstition a
perpetual dissatisfaction, a desire to believe what is dictated
to them, accompanied with a want of that in which belief
consists, evidence and conviction? If we could surrender our
understandings, what sort of beings should we become?
By the terms of the proposition we should not be rational;
162 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
the nature of things would prevent us from being moral,
for morality is the judgment of reason employed in de-
termining on the effects to result from the different kinds
of conduct we may observe.
Hence it follows that there is no criterion of duty to any
man but in the exercise of his private judgment. Whatever
attempts to prescribe to his conduct and to deter him from
any course of action by penalties and threats is an execrable
tyranny. There may be some men of such inflexible virtue
as to set human ordinances at defiance. It is generally
believed that there are others so depraved that, were it not
for penalties and threats, the whole order of society would
be subverted by their excesses. But what will become of
the great mass of mankind, who are neither so virtuous as
the first nor so degenerate as the second P. They are success-
fully converted by positive laws into latitudinarians and
cowards. They yield like wax to the impression that is
made upon them. Directed to infer the precepts of duty
from the dicta of the magistrate, they are too timid to resist
and too short-sighted to detect the imposition. It is thus
that the mass of mankind have been condemned to a tedious
imbecility.
There is no criterion of duty to any man but in the exercise
of his private judgment. Has coercion any tendency to
enlighten the judgment? Certainly not. Judgment is the
perceived agreement or disagreement of two ideas, the per-
ceived truth or falsehood of any proposition. Nothing can
aid this perception that does not set the ideas in a clearer light,
that does not afford new evidence of the substantialness or
unsubstantialness of the proposition. The direct tendency
of coercion is to set our understanding and our fears, our
duty and our weakness at variance with each other. And
General Disadvantages of Coercion I63
how poor-spirited a refuge does coercion afford 2 If what
you require of me is duty, are there no reasons that will
prove it to be such P If you understand more of eternal
justice than I and are thereby fitted to instruct me, cannot
you convey the superior knowledge you possess from your
understanding into mine? Will you set your wit against
one who is intellectually a child, and because you are better
informed than I, assume, not to be my preceptor, but my
tyrant? Am I not a rational being? Could I resist your
arguments if they were demonstrative? The odious system
of coercion first annihilates the understanding of the subject
and then of him that adopts it. Dressed in the supine pre-
rogatives of a master, he is excused from cultivating the
faculties of a man. What would not man have been long
before this if the proudest of us had no hopes but in argu-
ment, if he knew of no resort beyond, and if he were obliged
to sharpen his faculties and collect his powers as the only
means of effecting his purposes?
Let us reflect for a moment upon the species of argument,
if argument it is to be called, that coercion employs. It
avers to its victim that he must necessarily be in the wrong
because I am more vigorous and more cunning than he.
Will vigour and cunning be always on the side of truth?
Every such exertion implies in its nature a species of contest.
This contest may be decided before it is brought to open trial
by the despair of one of the parties. But it is not always so.
The thief that by main force surmounts the strength of his
pursuers, or by stratagem and ingenuity escapes from their
toils, so far as this argument is valid proves the justice of his
cause. Who can refrain from indignation when he sees
justice thus miserably prostituted? Who does not feel, the
moment the contest begins, the full extent of the absurdity
164 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
that this appeal includes? It is not easy to decide which of
the two is most deeply to be deplored, the magistracy, the
representative of the social system, that declares war against
one of its members in the behalf of justice, or in the behalf
of oppression. In the first we see truth throwing aside
her native arms and her intrinsic advantage, and putting her-
self upon a level with falsehood. In the second we see
falsehood confident in the casual advantage she possesses,
artfully extinguishing the new-born light that would shame
her in the midst of her usurped authority. The exhibition
in both is that of an infant crushed in the merciless grasp
of a giant. No sophistry can be more palpable than that
which pretends to bring the two parties to an impartial
hearing. Observe the consistency of this reasoning. We
first vindicate political coercion because the criminal has
committed an offence against the community at large, and
then pretend, while we bring him to the bar of the com-
munity, the offended party, that we bring him before an
impartial umpire. Thus in England the king by his attorney
is the prosecutor, and the king by his representative is the
judge. How long shall such odious inconsistencies impose
on mankind? The pursuit commenced against the supposed
offender is the posse comitatus, the armed force of the whole,
drawn out in such portions as may be judged necessary;
and when seven millions of men have got one poor, unassisted
individual in their power, they are then at leisure to torture
or to kill him, and to make his agonies a spectacle to glut
their ferocity.
The argument against political coercion is equally good
against the infliction of private penalties between master
and slave and between parent and child. There was in
reality not only more of gallantry but more of reason in the
General Disadvantages of Coercion 165
Gothic system of trial by duel than in these. The trial of
force is over in these, as we have already said, before the
exertion of force is begun. All that remains is the leisurely
infliction of torture, my power to inflict it being placed in
my joints and my sinews. This whole argument may be
subjected to an irresistible dilemma. The right of the
parent over his child lies either in his superior strength or
his superior reason. If in his strength, we have only to
apply this right universally in order to drive all morality
out of the world. If in his reason, in that reason let him
confide. It is a poor argument of my superior reason that I
am unable to make justice be apprehended and felt in the
most necessary cases without the intervention of blows.
Let us consider the effect that coercion produces upon
the mind of him against whom it is employed. It cannot
begin with convincing; it is no argument. It begins with
producing the sensation of pain and the sentiment of distaste.
It begins with violently alienating the mind from the truth
with which we wish it to be impressed. It includes in it a
tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs coercion
against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no
doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his
argument is important, but he really punishes me because his
argument is weak.
CHAPTER III
OF THE PURPOSES OF COERCION
[The argument of this chapter is sufficiently summarised or
indicated at the end of Chapter V (Vol. II, p. 189 f.) except for
one passage, which is printed herewith. After considering coer-
cion for the purpose of restraint, Godwin discusses coercion for
reformation and for example, concluding that whatever be the
end of punishment, injustice is involved. In the two later
editions the word “punishment” is generally substituted for “co-
ercion.”]
The first and most innocent of all classes of coercion is
that which is employed in repelling actual force. This has
but little to do with any species of political institution, but
may nevertheless deserve to be first considered. In this
case I am employed (suppose, for example, a drawn sword
is pointed at my own breast or that of another, with threats
of instant destruction) in preventing a mischief that seems
about inevitably to ensue. In this case there appears to be
no time for experiments. And yet even here meditation
will not leave us without our difficulties. The powers of
reason and truth are yet unfathomed. That truth which
one man cannot communicate in less than a year another can
communicate in a fortnight. The shortest term may have an
understanding commensurate to it. When Marius said with
a stern voice and a commanding countenance to the soldier
that was sent down into his dungeon to assassinate him,
166
Of the Purposes of Coercion 167
“Wretch, have you the temerity to kill Marius!” and with
these few words drove him to flight, it was that he had so
energetic an idea compressed in his mind as to make its way
with irresistible force to the mind of his executioner. If
there were falsehood and prejudice mixed with this idea,
can we believe that truth is not more powerful than they?
It would be well for the human species if they were all in
this respect like Marius, all accustomed to place an intrepid
confidence in the single energy of intellect. Who shall say
what there is that would be impossible to men with these
habits? Who shall say how far the whole species might be
improved were they accustomed to despise force in others
and did they refuse to employ it for themselves?
But the coercion we are here considering is exceedingly
different. It is employed against an individual whose vio-
lence is over. He is at present engaged in no hostility against
the community or any of its members. He is quietly pur-
suing those occupations which are beneficial to himself and
injurious to none. Upon what pretence is this man to be
the subject of violence? For restraint? Restraint from
what? “From some future injury which it is to be feared he
will commit.” This is the very argument which has been
employed to justify the most execrable of all tyrannies. By
what reasonings have the inquisition, the employment of
spies and the various kinds of public censure directed against
opinion been vindicated? Because there is an intimate con-
nection between men's opinions and their conduct: because
immoral sentiments lead by a very probable consequence to
immoral actions. There is not more reason, in many cases
at least, to apprehend that the man who has once committed
robbery will commit it again than the man who dissipates
his property at the gaming-table, or who is accustomed to
168 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
profess that upon any emergency he will not scruple to
have recourse to this expedient. Nothing can be more ob-
vious than that whatever precautions may be allowable with
respect to the future, justice will reluctantly class among
these precautions any violence to be committed on my neigh-
bour. Nor are they oftener unjust than they are superfluous.
Why not arm myself with vigilance and energy, instead of
locking up every man whom my imagination may bid me
fear, that I may spend my days in undisturbed inactivity?
If communities, instead of aspiring, as they have hitherto
done, to embrace a vast territory and to glut their vanity
with ideas of empire, were contented with a small district
with a proviso of confederation in cases of necessity, every
individual would then live under the public eye, and the dis-
approbation of his neighbours, a species of coercion not de-
rived from the caprice of men, but from the system of the
universe, would inevitably oblige him either to reform or to
emigrate.—The sum of the argument under this head is that
all coercion for the sake of restraint is punishment upon
suspicion, a species of punishment the most abhorrent to rea-
son and arbitrary in its application that can be devised.
© s $º O º 42 º º Q
CHAPTER IV
OF THE APPLICATION OF COERCION
A farther consideration calculated to show, not only the
absurdity of coercion for example, but the iniquity of coercion
in general, is that delinquency and coercion are in all cases
incommensurable. No standard of delinquency ever has been
or ever can be discovered. No two crimes were ever alike;
and therefore the reducing them explicitly or implicitly to
general classes, which the very idea of example implies, is
absurd. Nor is it less absurd to attempt to proportion the
degree of suffering to the degree of delinquency, when the
latter can never be discovered. Let us endeavour to clear
in the most satisfactory manner the truth of these proposi-
tions.
Man, like every other machine the operations of which can
be made the object of our senses, may be said, relatively, not
absolutely speaking, to consist of two parts, the external and
the internal. The form which his actions assume is one
thing; the principle from which they flow is another. With
the former it is possible we should be acquainted; respecting
the latter there is no species of evidence that can adequately
inform us. Shall we proportion the degree of suffering to the
former or the latter, to the injury sustained by the com-
munity, or to the quantity of ill intention conceived by the
offender P Some philosophers, sensible of the inscrutability
of intention, have declared in favour of our attending to
I69
I70 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
nothing but the injury sustained. The humane and benevo-
lent Beccaria has treated this as a truth of the utmost im-
portance, “unfortunately neglected by the majority of political
institutors, and preserved only in the dispassionate speculation
of philosophers.” +
It is true that we may in many instances be tolerably in-
formed respecting external actions and that there will at first
sight appear to be no great difficulty in reducing them to
general rules. Murder, according to this system, will be the
exertion of any species of action affecting my neighbour so
as that the consequences terminate in death. The difficulties
of the magistrate are much abridged upon this principle,
though they are by no means annihilated. It is well known
how many subtle disquisitions, ludicrous or tragical accord-
ing to the temper with which we view them, have been in-
troduced to determine in each particular instance whether the
action were or were not the real occasion of the death. It
never can be demonstratively ascertained.
But dismissing this difficulty, how complicated is the in-
iquity of treating all instances alike in which one man has
occasioned the death of another? Shall we abolish the im-
perfect distinctions, which the most odious tyrannies have
hitherto thought themselves compelled to admit, between
chance medley, manslaughter and malice prepense? Shall
we inflict on the man who, in endeavouring to save the life
of a drowning fellow creature, oversets a boat and occasions
the death of a second the same suffering as on him who
from gloomy and vicious habits is incited to the murder
of his benefactor? In reality the injury sustained by the
community is by no means the same in these two cases; the
injury sustained by the community is to be measured by
1 Dei Delitti e delle Pene.
Of the Application of Coercion 17I
the antisocial dispositions of the offender, and if that were
the right view of the subject, by the encouragement afforded
to similar dispositions from his impunity. But this leads us
at once from the external action to the unlimited considera-
tion of the intention of the actor. The iniquity of the writ-
ten laws of society is of precisely the same nature, though not
of so atrocious a degree, in the confusion they actually in-
troduce between varied intentions, as if this confusion were
unlimited. The delinquencies . . . of “one man that com-
mits murder, to remove a troublesome observer of his de-
praved dispositions who will otherwise counteract and expose
him to the world; a second, because he cannot bear the ingen-
uous sincerity with which he is told of his vices; a third,
from his intolerable envy of superior merit; a fourth, be-
cause he knows that his adversary meditates an act pregnant
with extensive mischief and perceives no other mode by
which its perpetration can be prevented; a fifth, in defence of
his father's life or his daughter's chastity; and any of these,
either from momentary impulse or any of the infinite shades
of deliberation”—are delinquencies all of them unequal,
and entitled to a very different censure in the court of rea-
son. Can a system that levels these inequalities and con-
founds these differences be productive of good? That we
may render men beneficent towards each other, shall we
subvert the very nature of right and wrong? Or is not this
system, from whatever pretences introduced, calculated in
the most powerful manner to produce general injury P Can
there be a more flagrant injury than to inscribe as we do in
effect upon our courts of judgment, “This is the Hall of
Justice, in which the principles of right and wrong are daily
and systematically slighted, and offences of a thousand dif-
ferent magnitudes are confounded together, by the insolent
172 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
supineness of the legislator and the unfeeling selfishness of
those who have engrossed the produce of the general labour
to their sole emolument!”
But suppose, secondly, that we were to take the intention
of the offender and the future injury to be apprehended
as the standard of infliction. This would no doubt be a
considerable improvement. This would be the true mode of
reconciling coercion and justice, if for reasons already as-
signed they were not in their own nature incompatible. It
is earnestly to be desired that this mode of administering ret-
ribution should be seriously attempted. It is to be hoped
that men will one day attempt to establish an accurate crite-
rion, and not go on forever, as they have hitherto done, with
a sovereign contempt of equity and reason. This attempt
would lead by a very obvious process to the abolition of all
coercion.
It would immediately lead to the abolition of all criminal
law. An enlightened and reasonable judicature would have
recourse, in order to decide upon the cause before them, to
no code but the code of reason. They would feel the ab-
surdity of other men's teaching them what they should think,
and pretending to understand the case before it happened
better than they who had all the circumstances of the case
under their inspection. They would feel the absurdity of
bringing every error to be compared with a certain number
of measures previously invented, and compelling it to agree
with one of them. But we shall shortly have occasion to
return to this topic.”
The greatest advantage that would result from men's deter-
mining to govern themselves in the suffering to be inflicted
by the motives of the offender and the future injury to be
* Chap. VIII.
Of the Application of Coercion I73
apprehended would consist in their being taught how vain
and iniquitous it is in them to attempt to wield the rod of
retribution. Who is it that in his sober reason will pretend
to assign the motives that influenced me in any article of
my conduct, and upon them to found a grave, perhaps a
capital, penalty against me? The attempt would be pre-
sumptuous and absurd, even though the individual who was
to judge me had made the longest observation of my charac-
ter and been most intimately acquainted with the series of
my actions. How often does a man deceive himself in the
motives of his conduct, and assign it to one principle when
it in reality proceeds from another? Can we expect that a
mere spectator should form a judgment sufficiently correct,
when he who has all the sources of information in his hands
is nevertheless mistaken P Is it not to this hour a dispute
among philosophers whether I be capable of doing good to
my neighbour for his own sake? “To ascertain the inten-
tion of a man it is necessary to be precisely informed of the
actual impression of the objects upon his senses, and of the
previous disposition of his mind, both of which vary in
different persons, and even in the same person at different
times, with a rapidity commensurate to the succession of
ideas, passions and circumstances.”” Meanwhile the in-
dividuals whose office it is to judge of this inscrutable
mystery are possessed of no previous knowledge, utter
strangers to the person accused, and collecting their only
lights from the information of two or three ignorant and
prejudiced witnesses.
What a vast train of actual and possible motives enter into
the history of a man who has been incited to destroy the
life of another? Can you tell how much in these there was
* [Beccaria: Dei Delitti e delle Pene.]
I74 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of apprehended justice and how much of inordinate self-
ishness? how much of sudden passion, and how much
of rooted depravity? how much of intolerable provocation,
and how much of spontaneous wrong? how much of that
sudden insanity which hurries the mind into a certain action
by a sort of incontinence of nature almost without any assign-
able motive, and how much of incurable habit? Consider
, the uncertainty of history. Do we not still dispute
whether Cicero were more a vain or a virtuous man,
whether the heroes of ancient Rome were impelled by
vain glory or disinterested benevolence, whether Voltaire
were the stain of his species or their most generous
and intrepid benefactor? Upon these subjects moderate
men perpetually quote upon us the impenetrableness of the
human heart. Will moderate men pretend that we have not
an hundred times more evidence upon which to found our
judgment in these cases than in that of the man who was
tried last week at the Old Bailey? This part of the subject
will be put in a striking light if we recollect the narratives
that have been written by condemned criminals. In how
different a light do they place the transactions that proved
fatal to them from the construction that was put upon them
by their judges? And yet these narratives were written
under the most awful circumstances, and many of them
without the least hope of mitigating their fate, and with
marks of the deepest sincerity. Who will say that the judge
with his slender pittance of information was more competent
to decide upon the motives than the prisoner after the severest
scrutiny of his own mind? How few are the trials which
an humane and a just man can read, terminating in a verdict
of guilty, without feeling an uncontrollable repugnance
Of the Application of Coercion I75
against the verdict? If there be any sight more humiliating
than all others, it is that of a miserable victim acknowledging
the justice of a sentence against which every enlightened
reasoner exclaims with horror.
But this is not all. The motive, when ascertained, is
only a subordinate part of the question. The point upon
which only society can equitably animadvert, if it had any
jurisdiction in the case, is a point, if possible, still more
inscrutable than that of which we have been treating. A
legal inquisition into the minds of men, considered by itself,
all rational enquirers have agreed to condemn. What we
want to ascertain is, not the intention of the offender, but
the chance of his offending again. For this purpose we
reasonably enquire first into his intention. But when we
have found this, our task is but begun. This is one of our
materials to enable us to calculate the probability of his
repeating his offence or being imitated by others. Was this .
an habitual state of his mind, or was it a crisis in his history
likely to remain an unique? What effect has experience
produced on him, or what likelihood is there that the un-
easiness and suffering that attend the perpetration of eminent
wrong may have worked a salutary change in his mind?
Will he hereafter be placed in circumstances that shall propel
him to the same enormity? Precaution is in the nature of
things a step in the highest degree precarious. Precaution
that consists in inflicting injury on another will at all times
be odious to an equitable mind. Meanwhile be it observed
that all which has been said upon the uncertainty of crime
tends to aggravate the injustice of coercion for the sake of
example. Since the crime upon which I animadvert in one
man can never be the same as the crime of another, it is as
176 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
if I should award a grievous penalty against persons with
one eye to prevent any man in future from putting out his
eyes by design.
One more argument calculated to prove the absurdity of
the attempt to proportion delinquency and suffering to each
other may be derived from the imperfection of evidence.
The veracity of witnesses will be to an impartial spectator a
subject of continual doubt. Their competence, so far as
relates to just observation and accuracy of understanding,
will be still more doubtful. Absolute impartiality it would
be absurd to expect from them. How much will every word
and every action come distorted by the medium through
which it is transmitted? The guilt of a man, to speak in
the phraseology of law, may be proved either by direct or
circumstantial evidence. I am found near to the body of a
man newly murdered. I come out of his apartment with a
bloody knife in my hand or with blood upon my clothes.
If, under these circumstances and unexpectedly charged
with murder, I falter in my speech or betray perturbation
in my countenance, this is an additional proof. Who does
not know that there is not a man in England, however blame-
less a life he may lead, who is secure that he shall not end
it at the gallows? This is one of the most obvious and
universal blessings that civil government has to bestow. In
what is called direct evidence it is necessary to identify the
person of the offender. How many instances are there upon
record of persons condemned upon this evidence who after
their death have been proved entirely innocent? Sir Walter
Raleigh, when a prisoner in the Tower, heard some high
words accompanied with blows under his window. He en-
quired of several eye witnesses who entered his apartment
in succession, into the nature of the transaction. But the
Of the Application of Coercion 177
story they told varied in such material circumstances that
he could form no just idea of what had been done. He
applied this to prove the vanity of history. The parallel
would have been more striking if he had applied it to criminal
suits.
But supposing the external action, the first part of the
question to be ascertained, we have next to discover through
the same garbled and confused medium the intention. How
few men should I choose to entrust with the drawing up a
narrative of some delicate and interesting transaction of my
life? How few, though corporally speaking they were
witnesses of what was done, would justly describe my motives
and properly report and interpret my words? And yet in
an affair that involves my life, my fame and my future
usefulness I am obliged to trust to any vulgar and casual
observer.
A man properly confident in the force of truth would
consider a public libel upon his character as a trivial mis-
fortune. But a criminal trial in a court of justice is in-
expressibly different. Few men thus circumstanced can re-
tain the necessary presence of mind and freedom from
embarrassment. But if they do, it is with a cold and un-
willing ear that their tale is heard. If the crime charged
against them be atrocious, they are half condemned in the
passions of mankind before their cause is brought to a trial.
All that is interesting to them is decided amidst the first
burst of indignation, and it is well if their story be impartially
estimated ten years after their body has mouldered in the
grave. Why, if a considerable time elapse between the trial
and the execution, do we find the severity of the public
changed into compassion? For the same reason that a
master, if he do not beat his slave in the moment of re-
I78 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
sentment, often feels a repugnance to the beating him at
all. Not so much, as is commonly supposed, from forget-
fulness of the offence, as that the sentiments of reason have
time to recur, and he feels in a confused and indefinite
manner the injustice of coercion. Thus every consideration
tends to show that a man tried for a crime is a poor deserted
individual with the whole force of the community conspiring
his ruin. The culprit that escapes, however conscious of
innocence, lifts up his hands with astonishment and can
Scarcely believe his senses, having such mighty odds aganist
him. It is easy for a man who desires to shake off an im-
putation under which he labours, to talk of being put on
his trial; but no man ever seriously wished for this ordeal
who knew what a trial was.
CHAPTER V
OF COERCION CONSIDERED AS A TEMPORARY EXPEDIENT
Thus much for the general merits of coercion considered
as an instrument to be applied in the government of men.
It is time that we should enquire into the arguments by
which it may be apologised as a temporary expedient. No
introduction seemed more proper to this enquiry than such a
review of the subject upon a comprehensive scale, that the
reader might be inspired with a suitable repugnance against
so pernicious a system and prepared firmly to resist its
admission in all cases where its necessity cannot be clearly
demonstrated.
The arguments in favour of coercion as a temporary ex-
pedient are obvious. It may be alleged that “however suitable
an entire immunity in this respect may be to the nature of
mind absolutely considered, it is impracticable with regard
to men as we now find them. The human species is at
present infected with a thousand vices, the offspring of
established injustice. They are full of factitious appetites
and perverse habits: headstrong in evil, inveterate in selfish-
ness, without sympathy and forbearance for the welfare of
others. In time they may become accommodated to the
lessons of reason, but at present they would be found deaf
to her mandates and eager to commit every species of in-
justice.”
One of the remarks that most irresistibly suggest them-
selves upon this statement is that coercion has no proper
I79
180 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
tendency to prepare men for a state in which coercion shall
cease. It is absurd to expect that force should begin to do
that which it is the office of truth to finish, should fit men
by severity and violence to enter with more favourable
auspices into the schools of reason.
But, to omit this gross misrepresentation in behalf of the
supposed utility of coercion, it is of importance in the first
place to observe that there is a complete and unanswerable
remedy to those evils the cure of which has hitherto been
sought in coercion, that is within the reach of every com-
munity whenever they shall be persuaded to adopt it. There
is a state of society, the outline of which has been already
sketched,” that by the mere simplicity of its structure would
infallibly lead to the extermination of offence: a state in
which temptation would be almost unknown, truth brought
down to the level of all apprehensions, and vice sufficiently
checked by the general discountenance and sober condemna-
tion of every spectator. Such are the consequences that
would necessarily spring from an abolition of the craft and
mystery of governing; while on the other hand the in-
numerable murders that are daily committed under the
sanction of legal forms are solely to be ascribed to the per-
nicious notion of an extensive territory; to the dreams of
glory, empire and national greatness, which have hitherto
proved the bane of the human species, without producing
Solid benefit and happiness to a single individual.
Another observation which this consideration immediately
suggests is that it is not, as the objection supposed, by any
means necessary that mankind should pass through a state
of purification and be freed from the vicious propensities
which ill-constituted governments have implanted before they
* Book V, Chap. XXII.
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 181
can be dismissed from the coercion to which they are at
present subjected. In that case their fate would indeed be
hopeless, if it were necessary that the cure should be effected
before we were at liberty to discard those practices to which
the disease owes its most alarming symptoms. But it is the
characteristic of a well-formed society, not only to maintain
in its members those virtues with which they are already
endued, but to extirpate their errors and render them benevo-
lent and just to each other. It frees us from the influence
of those phantoms which before misled us, shows us our true
advantage as consisting in independence and integrity, and
binds us by the general consent of our fellow citizens to the
dictates of reason more strongly than with fetters of iron.
It is not to the sound of intellectual health that the remedy
so urgently addresses itself as to those who are infected with
diseases of the mind. The ill propensities of mankind no
otherwise tend to postpone the abolition of coercion than
as they prevent them from perceiving the advantages of
political simplicity. The moment in which they can be
persuaded to adopt any rational plan for this abolition is the
moment in which the abolition ought to be effected.
A farther consequence that may be deduced from the
principles that have here been delivered is that coercion of
a municipal kind can in no case be the duty of the com-
munity. The community is always competent to change its
institutions, and thus to extirpate offence in a way infinitely
more rational and just than that of coercion. If in this
sense coercion has been deemed necessary as a temporary
expedient, the opinion admits of satisfactory refutation.
Coercion can at no time, either permanently or provisionally,
make part of any political system that is built upon the
principles of reason.
182 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
But though in this sense coercion cannot be admitted so
much as a temporary expedient, there is another sense in
which it must be so admitted. Coercion exercised in the
name of the state upon its respective members cannot be the
duty of the community; but coercion may be the duty of
individuals within the community. The duty of individuals
is, in the first place, to display with all possible perspicuity
the advantages of an improved state of society, and to be
indefatigable in detecting the imperfections of the constitu-
tion under which they live. But, in the second place, it
behooves them to recollect that their efforts cannot be ex-
pected to meet with instant success, that the progress of
knowledge has in all cases been gradual, and that their
obligation to promote the welfare of society during the
intermediate period is not less real than their obligation to
promote its future and permanent advantage. In reality the
future advantage cannot be effectually procured if we be
inattentive to the present security. But as long as nations
shall be so far mistaken as to endure a complex government
and an extensive territory, coercion will be indispensably
necessary to general security. It is therefore the duty of
individuals to take an active share upon occasion in so much
coercion and in such parts of the existing system as shall
be sufficient to prevent the inroad of universal violence and
tumult. It is unworthy of a rational enquirer to say, “These
things are necessary, but I am not obliged to take my share in
them.” It they be necessary, they are necessary for the
general good, of consequence are virtuous, and what no just
man will refuse to perform.
The duty of individuals is in this respect similar to the
duty of independent communities upon the subject of war.
It is well known what has been the prevailing policy of
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 183
princes under this head. Princes, especially the most active
and enterprising among them, are seized with an inextin-
guishable rage for augmenting their dominions. The most
innocent and inoffensive conduct on the part of their neigh-
bours is an insufficient security against their ambition.
They indeed seek to disguise their violence under plausible
pretences; but it is well known that, where no such pretences
occur, they are not on that account disposed to drop their
pursuit. Let us suppose then a land of freemen invaded by
one of these despots. What conduct does it behoove them to
adopt? We are not yet wise enough to make the sword drop
out of the hands of our oppressors by the mere force of
reason. Were we resolved, like Quakers, neither to oppose
nor obey them, much bloodshed might perhaps be avoided,
but a more lasting evil would result. They would fix garri-
sons in our country and torment us with perpetual injustice.
Supposing even it were granted that, if the invaded nation
should conduct itself with unalterable constancy upon the
principles of reason, the invaders would become tired of
their fruitless usurpation, it would prove but little. At
present we have to do, not with nations of philosophers, but
with nations of men whose virtues are alloyed with weakness,
fluctuation and inconstancy. At present it is our duty to
consult respecting the procedure which to such nations would
be attended with the most favourable result. It is therefore
proper that we should choose the least calamitous mode of
obliging the enemy speedily to withdraw himself from our
territories.
The case of individual defence is of the same nature. It
does not appear that any advantage can result from my
forbearance adequate to the disadvantages of my suffering
my own life or that of another, a peculiarly valuable member
184 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of the community as it may happen, to become a prey to
the first ruffian who inclines to destroy it. Forbearance in
this case will be the conduct of a singular individual, and
its effect may very probably be trifling. Hence it appears
that I ought to arrest the villain in the execution of his
designs, though at the expense of a certain degree of coercion.
The case of an offender who appears to be hardened in
guilt and to trade in the violation of social security is clearly
parallel to these. I ought to take up arms against the despot
py whom my country is invaded, because my capacity does
not enable me by arguments to prevail on him to desist, and
because my countrymen will not preserve their intellectual
independence in the midst of oppression. For the same
reason I ought to take up arms against the domestic spoiler,
because I am unable either to persuade him to desist, or the
community to adopt a just political institution, by means of
which security might be maintained consistently with the
abolition of coercion.
To understand the full extent of this duty it is incumbent
upon us to remark that anarchy as it is usually understood
and a well-conceived form of society without government
are exceedingly different from each other. If the govern-
ment of Great Britain were dissolved tomorrow, unless that
dissolution were the result of consistent and digested views
of political justice previously disseminated among the in-
habitants, it would be very far from leading to the abolition
of violence. Individuals, freed from the terrors by which
they had been accustomed to be restrained, and not yet
placed under the happier and more rational restraint of public
inspection or convinced of the wisdom of reciprocal for-
bearance, would break out into acts of injustice, while other
individuals, who desired only that this irregularity should
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 185
cease, would find themselves obliged to associate for its
forcible suppression. We should have all the evils attached
to a regular government at the same time that we were de-
prived of that tranquillity and leisure which are its only
advantages.
It may not be useless in this place to consider more accu-
rately than we have hitherto done the evils of anarchy.
Such a review will afford us a criterion by which to discern
as well the comparative value of different institutions as
the precise degree of coercion which must be employed for
the exclusion of universal violence and tumult.
Anarchy in its own nature is an evil of short duration.
The more horrible are the mischiefs it inflicts, the more does
it hasten to a close. But it is nevertheless necessary that we
should consider both what is the quantity of mischief it
produces in a given period, and what is the scene in which it
promises to close. The first victim that is sacrificed at its
shrine is personal security. Every man who has a secret foe
ought to dread the dagger of that foe. There is no doubt that
in the worst anarchy multitudes of men will sleep in happy
obscurity. But woe to him who by whatever means excites
the envy, the jealousy or the suspicion of his neighbour!
Unbridled ferocity instantly marks him for its prey. This is
indeed the principal evil of such a state, that the wisest, the
brightest, the most generous and bold will often be most
exposed to an immature fate. In such a state we must bid
farewell to the patient lucubrations of the philosopher and
the labour of the midnight oil. All is here, like the society
in which it exists, impatient and headlong. Mind will fre-
quently burst forth, but its appearance will be like the
coruscations of the meteor, not like the mild illumination of
the sun. Men who start forth into sudden energy will
186 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
resemble in temper the state that brought them to this un-
looked-for greatness. They will be rigorous, unfeeling and
fierce; and their ungoverned passions will often not stop at
equality but incite them to grasp at power.
With all these evils we must not hastily conclude that the
mischiefs of anarchy are worse than those which government
is qualified to produce. With respect to personal security
anarchy is certainly not worse than despotism; with this
difference—that despotism is as perennial as anarchy is
transitory. Despotism as it existed under the Roman em-
perors marked out wealth for its victim, and the guilt of
being rich never failed to convict the accused of every other
crime. This despotism continued for centuries. Despotism
as it has existed in modern Europe has been ever full of
jealousy and intrigue, a tool to the rage of courtiers and the
resentment of women. He that dared utter a word against
the tyrant or endeavour to instruct his countrymen in their
interests was never secure that the next moment would not
conduct him to a dungeon. Here despotism wreaked her
vengeance at leisure, and forty years of misery and solitude
were sometimes insufficient to satiate her fury. Nor was
this all. An usurpation that defied all the rules of justice
was obliged to purchase its own safety by assisting tyranny
through all its subordinate ranks. Hence the rights of
nobility, of feudal vassalage, of primogeniture, of fines and
inheritance. When the philosophy of law shall be properly
understood, the true key to its spirit and its history will be
found, not, as some men have fondly imagined, in a desire
to secure the happiness of mankind, but in the venal compact
by which superior tyrants have purchased the countenance
and alliance of the inferior.
There is one point remaining in which anarchy and despo-
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 187
tism are strongly contrasted with each other. Anarchy
awakens mind, diffuses energy and enterprise through the
community, though it does not effect this in the best manner,
as its fruits, forced into ripeness, must not be expected to
have the vigorous stamina of true excellence. But in despo-
tism mind is trampled into an equality of the most odious sort.
Everything that promises greatness is destined to fall under
the exterminating hand of suspicion and envy. In despotism
there is no encouragement to excellence. Mind delights to
expatiate in a field where every species of eminence is within
its reach. A scheme of policy under which all men are fixed
in classes or levelled with the dust affords it no encourage-
ment to enter on its career. The inhabitants of such coun-
tries are but a more vicious species of brutes. Oppression
stimulates them to mischief and piracy, and superior force of
mind often displays itself only in deeper treachery or more
daring injustice.
One of the most interesting questions in relation to an-
archy is that of the manner in which it may be expected to
terminate. The possibilities as to this termination are as
wide as the various schemes of society which the human im-
agination can conceive. Anarchy may and has terminated
in despotism; and in that case the introduction of anarchy will
only serve to afflict us with variety of evils. It may lead
to a modification of despotism, a milder and more equitable
government than that which has gone before.” And it does
not seem impossible that it should lead to the best form of
human society that the most penetrating philosopher is able
* [In the third edition this paragraph ends thus: “It cannot im-
mediately lead to the best form of society, since it necessarily leaves
mankind in a state of ferment, which requires a strong hand to
control, and a slow and wary process to tranquillise.”]
188 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
to conceive. Nay, it has something in it that suggests the
likeness, a distorted and tremendous likeness, of true liberty.
Anarchy has commonly been generated by the hatred of
oppression. It is accompanied with a spirit of independence.
It disengages men from prejudice and implicit faith, and in a
certain degree incites them to an impartial scrutiny into the
reason of their actions.
The scene in which anarchy shall terminate principally
depends upon the state of mind by which it has been pre-
ceded. All mankind were in a state of anarchy—that is,
without government—previously to their being in a state
of policy. It would not be difficult to find in the history of
almost every country a period of anarchy. The people of
England were in a state of anarchy immediately before the
Restoration. The Roman people were in a state of anarchy
at the moment of their secession to the Sacred Mountain.
Hence it follows that anarchy is neither so good nor so ill
a thing in relation to its consequences as it has sometimes
been represented.
It is not reasonable to expect that a short period of anarchy
should do the work of a long period of investigation and
philosophy. When we say that it disengages men from
prejudice and implicit faith, this must be understood with
much allowance. It tends to loosen the hold of these vermin
upon the mind, but it does not instantly convert ordinary
men into philosophers. Some prejudices that were never
fully incorporated with the intellectual habit it destroys, but
other prejudices it arms with fury and converts into instru-
ments of vengeance.”
Little good can be expected from any species of anarchy
that should subsist for instance among American savages.
* [This paragraph is omitted in the third edition.]
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 189
In order to anarchy being rendered a seed plot of future
justice, reflection and enquiry must have gone before, the
regions of philosophy must have been penetrated, and political
truth have opened her school to mankind. It is for
this reason that the revolutions of the present age (for every
total revolution is a species of anarchy) promise much happier
effects than the revolutions of any former period. For the
same reason the more anarchy can be held at bay, the more
fortunate will it be for mankind. Falsehood may gain by
precipitating the crisis; but a genuine and enlightened phil-
anthropy will wait with unaltered patience for the harvest
of instruction. The arrival of that harvest may be slow,
but it is infallible.* If vigilance and wisdom be successful
in their present opposition to anarchy, every benefit will "be
ultimately obtained, untarnished with violence and unstained
with blood.
These observations are calculated to lead us to an accurate
estimate of the mischiefs of anarchy, and prove that there are
forms of coercion and government more injurious in their
tendency than the absence of organisation itself. They also
prove that there are other forms of government which deserve
in ordinary cases to be preferred to anarchy. Now it is
incontrovertibly clear that where one of two evils is inevitable,
the wise and just man will choose the least. Of consequence
the wise and just man, being unable as yet to introduce the
form of society which his understanding approves, will con-
tribute to the support of so much coercion as is necessary
to exclude what is worse, anarchy.
If then constraint as the antagonist of constraint must in
certain cases and under temporary circumstances be admitted,
4 [Third edition: “perhaps infallible.”]
* [Third edition: “may.”]
190 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
it is an interesting enquiry to ascertain which of the three
ends of coercion already enumerated must be proposed by
the individuals by whom coercion is employed. And here it
will be sufficient very briefly to recollect the reasonings that
have been stated under each of these heads.
It cannot be reformation. To reform a man is to change
the sentiments of his mind. Sentiments may be changed
either for the better or the worse. They can only be changed
by the operation of falsehood or the operation of truth.
Punishment we have already found, at least so far as relates
to the individual, is injustice. The infliction of stripes upon
my body can throw no new light upon the question between
us. I can perceive in them nothing but your passion, your
ignorance and your mistake. If you have any new light to
offer, any cogent arguments to introduce, they will not fail,
if adequately presented, to produce their effect. If you be
partially informed, stripes will not supply the deficiency of
your arguments. Whatever be the extent or narrowness of
your wisdom, it is the only instrument by which you can
hope to add to mine. You cannot give that which you do
not possess. When all is done, I have nothing but the
truths you told me by which to derive light to my under-
standing. The violence with which the communication of
them was accompanied may prepossess me against giving
them an impartial hearing, but cannot, and certainly ought
not, to make their evidence appear greater than your state-
ment was able to make it.—These arguments are conclusive
against coercion as an instrument of private or individual
education.
But considering the subject in a political view it may be
said that, however strong may be the ideas I am able to
communicate to a man in order to his reformation, he may be
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 191
restless and impatient of expostulation, and of consequence
it may be necessary to retain him by force till I can properly
have instilled these ideas into his mind. It must be re-
membered that the idea here is not that of precaution to
prevent the mischiefs he might perpetrate in the meantime,
for that belongs to another of the three ends of coercion,
that of restraint. But, separately from this idea, the argu-
ment is peculiarly weak. If the truths I have to communi-
cate be of an energetic and impressive nature, if they stand
forward perspicuous and distinct in my own mind, it will be
strange if they do not at the outset excite curiosity and
attention in him to whom they are addressed. It is my
duty to choose a proper season at which to communicate them,
and not to betray the cause of truth by an ill-timed impa-
tience. This prudence I should infallibly exercise if my ob-
ject were to obtain something interesting to myself; why
should I be less quick-sighted when I plead the cause of jus-
tice and eternal reason? It is a miserable way of preparing
a man for conviction to compel him by violence to hear an
expostulation which he is eager to avoid. These arguments
prove, not that we should lose sight of reformation, if coer-
cion for any other reason appear to be necessary, but that ref-
ormation cannot reasonably be made the object of coercion.
Coercion for the sake of example is a theory that can never
be justly maintained. The coercion proposed to be employed,
considered absolutely, is either right or wrong. If it be
right, it should be employed for its own intrinsic recom-
mendations. If it be wrong, what sort of example does it
display? To do a thing for the sake of example is in other
words to do a thing today in order to prove that I will do a
similar thing tomorrow. This must always be a subordinate
consideration. No argument has been so grossly abused as
192 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
this of example. We found it under the subject of war *
employed to prove the propriety of my doing a thing otherwise
wrong in order to convince the opposite party that I should,
when occasion offered, do something else that was right. He
will display the best example who carefully studies the
principles of justice and assiduously practises them. A
better effect will be produced in human society by my con-
scientious adherence to them than by my anxiety to create
a specific expectation respecting my future conduct. This
argument will be still farther enforced if we recollect what
has already been said respecting the inexhaustible differences
of different cases, and the impossibility of reducing them to
general rules."
The third object of coercion according to the enumeration
already made is restraint. If coercion be in any case to be
admitted, this is the only object it can reasonably propose to
itself. The serious objections to which even in this point
of view it is liable have been stated in another stage of the
enquiry; * the amount of the necessity tending to supersede
these objections has also been considered.
The subject of this chapter is of greater importance in
proportion to the length of time that may possibly elapse
before any considerable part of mankind shall be persuaded
to exchange the present complexity of political institution for
a mode which shall supersede the necessity of coercion. It
is highly unworthy of the cause of truth to suppose that
during this interval I have no active duties to perform, that
I am not obliged to cooperate for the present welfare of the
community as well as for its future regeneration. The
* Book V, Chap. XVI.
7 [Third edition: “Chap. IV.”]
* Chap. III.
Coercion Considered as a Temporary Expedient 193
temporary obligation that arises out of this circumstance
exactly corresponds with what was formerly delivered on
the subject of duty. Duty is the best possible application
of a given power to the promotion of the general good.
But my power depends upon the disposition of the men by
whom I am surrounded. If I were enlisted in an army of
cowards, it might be my duty to retreat, though absolutely
considered it should have been the duty of the army to come
to blows. Under every possible circumstance it is my duty
to advance the general good by the best means which the
circumstances under which I am placed will admit.
CHAPTER VI
SCALE OF COERCION
It is time to proceed to the consideration of certain in-
ferences that may be deduced from the theory of coercion
which has now been delivered; nor can anything be of
greater importance than these inferences will be found to the
virtue, the happiness and improvement of mankind.
And, first, it evidently follows that coercion is an act of
painful necessity, inconsistent with the true character and
genius of mind, the practice of which is temporarily imposed
upon us by the corruption and ignorance that reign among
mankind. Nothing can be more absurd than to look to it
as a source of improvement. It contributes to the generation
of excellence just as much as the keeper of the course con-
tributes to the fleetness of the race. Nothing can be more
unjust than to have recourse to it but upon the most un-
deniable emergency. Instead of multiplying occasions of
coercion and applying it as the remedy of every moral evil,
the true politician will anxiously confine it within the nar-
rowest limits and perpetually seek to diminish the occasions
of its employment. There is but one reason by which it
can in any case be apologised, and that is where the suffering
the offender to be at large shall be notoriously injurious to
the public security.
Secondly, the consideration of restraint as the only jus-
tifiable ground of coercion will furnish us with a simple and
I94
Scale of Coercion I95
satisfactory criterion by which to measure the justice of the
suffering inflicted. *
The infliction of a lingering and tormenting death cannot
be vindicated upon this hypothesis, for such infliction can
only be dictated by sentiments of resentment on the one
hand or by the desire to exhibit a terrible example on the
other.
To deprive an offender of his life in any manner will
appear to be unjust, since it will always be sufficiently prac-
ticable without this to prevent him from farther offence.
Privation of life, though by no means the greatest injury
that can be inflicted, must always be considered as a very
serious injury, since it puts a perpetual close upon the
prospects of the sufferer as to all the enjoyments, the virtues
and the excellence of a human being.
In the story of those whom the merciless laws of Europe
devote to destruction, we sometimes meet with persons who
subsequently to their offence have succeeded to a plentiful
inheritance, or who for some other reason seem to have had
the fairest prospects of tranquillity and happiness opened
upon them. Their story with a little accommodation may
be considered as the story of every offender. If there be
any man whom it may be necessary for the safety of the
whole to put under restraint, this circumstance is a powerful
plea to the humanity and justice of the leading members of
the community in his behalf. This is the man who most
stands in need of their assistance. If they treated him with
kindness instead of supercilious and unfeeling neglect, if
they made him understand with how much reluctance they
had been induced to employ the force of the society against
him, if they presented truth to his mind with calmness,
perspicuity and benevolence, if they employed those pre-
196 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
cautions which an humane disposition would not fail to
suggest, to keep from him the motives of corruption and
obstinacy, his reformation would be almost infallible. These
are the prospects to which his wants and his misfortunes
powerfully entitle him; and it is from these prospects that
the hand of the executioner cuts him off for ever.
It is a mistake to suppose that this treatment of criminals
tends to multiply crimes. On the contrary few men would
enter upon a course of violence with the certainty of being
obliged by a slow and patient process to amputate their errors.
It is the uncertainty of punishment under the existing forms
that multiplies crimes. Remove this uncertainty, and it
would be as reasonable to expect that a man would wilfully
break his leg for the sake of being cured by a skilful surgeon.
Whatever gentleness the intellectual physician may display,
it is not to be believed that men can part with rooted habits
of injustice and vice without the sensation of considerable
Dalí1.
[Corporal punishment has its origin in the corruptness of
political institutions or in the inhumanity of the institutions,
indifferent to the fact that other circumstances would have
brought other results. Except as it is intended for example,
it is absurd, because it attempts expeditiously to “compress the
effect of much reasoning and long confinement that might
otherwise have been necessary into a very short compass.” It
is atrocious; “with what feelings must an enlightened observer
contemplate the furrow of a lash imprinted upon the body of a
man?”]
The justice of coercion is built upon this simple principle:
Every man is bound to employ such means as shall suggest
themselves for preventing evils subversive of general security,
Scale of Coercion I97
it being first ascertained, either by experience or reasoning,
that all milder methods are inadequate to the exigence of the
case. The conclusion from this principle is that we are bound
under certain urgent circumstances to deprive the offender of
the liberty he has abused. Farther than this no circumstance
can authorise us. He whose person is imprisoned (if that
be the right kind of seclusion) cannot interrupt the peace
of his fellows; and the infliction of farther evil, when his
power to injure is removed, is the wild and unauthorised
dictate of vengeance and rage, the wanton sport of unques-
tioned superiority.
When indeed the person of the offender has been first
seized, there is a farther duty incumbent on his punisher,
the duty of reforming him. But this makes no part of the
direct consideration. The duty of every man to contribute
to the intellectual health of his neighbour is of general
application. Beside which it is proper to recollect what has
been already demonstrated, that coercion of no sort is among
the legitimate means of reformation. Restrain the offender
as long as the safety of the community prescribes it, for this
is just. Restrain him not an instant from a simple view to
his own improvement, for this is contrary to reason and
morality.
Meanwhile there is one circumstance by means of which
restraint and reformation are closely connected. The person
of the offender is to be restrained as long as the public
safety would be endangered by his liberation. But the public
safety will cease to be endangered as soon as his propensities
and dispositions have undergone a change. The connection
which thus results from the nature of things renders it
necessary that, in deciding upon the species of restraint to be
imposed, these two circumstances be considered jointly, how
198 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
the personal liberty of the offender may be least intrenched
upon and how his reformation may be best promoted.
The most common method pursued in depriving the
offender of the liberty he has abused is to erect a public jail
in which offenders of every description are thrust together
and left to form among themselves what species of Society
they can. Various circumstances contribute to imbue them
with habits of indolence and vice and to discourage industry,
and no effort is made to remove or soften these circum-
stances. It cannot be necessary to expatiate upon the atro-
ciousness of this system. Jails are to a proverb seminaries
of vice; and he must be an uncommon proficient in the passion
and the practice of injustice, or a man of sublime virtue,
who does not come out of them a much worse man than he
entered.
An active observer of mankind," with the purest intentions,
and who had paid a very particular attention to this subject,
was struck with the mischievous tendency of the reigning
system and called the attention of the public to a scheme of
solitary imprisonment. But this, though free from the de-
fects of the established mode, is liable to very weighty
objections.
It must strike every reflecting mind as uncommonly
tyrannical and severe. It cannot therefore be admitted into
the system of mild coercion which forms the topic of our
enquiry. Man is a social animal. How far he is necessarily
so will appear if we consider the sum of advantages resulting
from the social and of which he would be deprived in the
solitary state. But independently of his original structure
he is eminently social by his habits. Will you deprive the
man you imprison of paper and books, of tools and amuse-
1 Mr. Howard.
Scale of Coercion I99
ments? One of the arguments in favour of solitary im-
prisonment is that it is necessary the offender should be
called off from his wrong habits of thinking and obliged to
enter into himself. This the advocates of solitary imprison-
ment probably believe will be most effectually done the fewer
be the avocations of the prisoner. But let us suppose that he
is indulged in these particulars and only deprived of society.
How many men are there that can derive amusement from
books? We are in this respect the creatures of habit, and it
is scarcely to be expected from ordinary men that they should
mould themselves to any species of employment to which in
their youth they were wholly strangers. But he that is most
fond of study has his moments when study pleases no longer.
The soul yearns with inexpressible longings for the society of
its like. Because the public safety unwillingly commands
the confinement of an offender, must he for that reason
never light up his countenance with a smile? Who can tell
the sufferings of him who is condemned to uninterrupted
solitude 2 Who can tell that this is not, to the majority of
mankind, the bitterest torment that human ingenuity can
inflict? No doubt a mind truly sublime would conquer this
inconvenience; but the powers of such a mind do not enter
into the present question.
From the examination of solitary imprisonment in itself
considered we are naturally led to enquire into its real
tendency as to the article of reformation. To be virtuous
it is requisite that we should consider men and their relation
to each other. As a preliminary to this study is it necessary
that we should be shut out from the society of men? Shall
we be most effectually formed to justice, benevolence and
prudence in our intercourse with each other in a state of
solitude? Will not our selfish and unsocial dispositions be
2OO An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
perpetually increased? What temptation has he to think of
benevolence or justice who has no opportunity to exercise
it? The true soil in which atrocious crimes are found to
germinate is a gloomy and morose disposition. Will his
heart become much either softened or expanded who breathes
the atmosphere of a dungeon? Surely it would be better in
this respect to imitate the system of the universe and, if we
would teach justice and humanity, transplant those we would
teach into a natural and reasonable state of society. Solitude
absolutely considered may instigate us to serve ourselves,
but not to serve our neighbours. Solitude imposed under
too few limitations may be a nursery for madmen and idiots,
but not for useful members of society.
Another idea which has suggested itself with regard to the
relegation of offenders from the community they have in-
jured is that of reducing them to a state of slavery or hard
labour. The true refutation of this system is anticipated in
what has been already said. To the safety of the community
it is unnecessary. As a means to the reformation of the of-
fender it is inexpressibly ill conceived. Man is an intellectual
being. There is no way to make him virtuous but in calling
out his intellectual powers. There is no way to make him vir-
tuous but by making him independent. He must study the
laws of nature and the necessary consequence of actions, not
the arbitrary caprice of his superior. Do you desire that I
should work? Do not drive me to it with the whip; for if
before I thought it better to be idle, this will but increase my
alienation. Persuade my understanding, and render it the
subject of my choice. It can only be by the most deplorable
perversion of reason that we can be induced to believe any
species of slavery, from the slavery of the school-boy to that
Scale of Coercion 2OI
of the most unfortunate negro in our West India planta-
tions, favourable to virtue.
A scheme greatly preferable to any of these, and which has
been tried under various forms, is that of transportation, or
banishment. This scheme under the most judicious mod-
ifications is liable to objection. It would be strange if
any scheme of coercion or violence were not so. But it
has been made appear still more exceptionable than it will
be found in its intrinsic nature by the crude and inco-
herent circumstances with which it has usually been exe-
cuted.
Banishment in its simple form is evidently unjust. The
citizen whose residence we deem injurious in our own
country we have no right to impose upon another.
Banishment has sometimes been joined with slavery. Such
was the practice of Great Britain previously to the defection
of her American colonies. This cannot stand in need of a
separate refutation.
The true species of banishment is removal to a country yet
unsettled. The labour by which the untutored mind is best
weaned from the vicious habits of a corrupt society is the
labour, not which is prescribed by the mandate of a superior,
but which is imposed by the necessity of subsistence. The
first settlement of Rome by Romulus and his vagabonds is a
happy image of this, whether we consider it as a real history
or as the ingenious fiction of a man well acquainted with
the principles of mind. Men who are freed from the in-
jurious institutions of European government and obliged to
begin the world for themselves are in the direct road to be
virtuous.
Two circumstances have hitherto rendered abortive this
2O2 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
reasonable project. First, that the mother country pursues
this species of colony with her hatred. Our chief anxiety
is in reality to render its residence odious and uncomfortable,
with the vain idea of deterring offenders. Our chief anxiety
ought to be to smooth their difficulties and contribute to their
happiness. We should recollect that the colonists are men
for whom we ought to feel no sentiments but those of love
and compassion. If we were reasonable, we should regret
the cruel exigence that obliges us to treat them in a manner
unsuitable to the nature of mind; and having complied with
the demand of that exigence, we should next be anxious to
confer upon them every benefit in our power. But we are
unreasonable. We harbour a thousand savage feelings of
resentment and vengeance. We thrust them out to the
remotest corner of the world. We subject them to perish
by multitudes with hardship and hunger. Perhaps to the
result of mature reflection banishment to the Hebrides would
appear as effectual as banishment to the Antipodes.
Secondly, it is absolutely necessary upon the principles
here explained that these colonists, after having been
sufficiently provided in the outset, should be left to themselves.
We do worse than nothing if we pursue them into their
obscure retreat with the inauspicious influence of our Euro-
pean institutions. It is a mark of the profoundest ignorance
of the nature of man to suppose that, if left to themselves,
they would universally destroy each other. On the contrary,
new situations make new minds. The worst criminals when
turned adrift in a body and reduced to feel the churlish fang
of necessity conduct themselves upon reasonable principles
and often proceed with a sagacity and public spirit that
might put the proudest monarchies to the blush.
Scale of Coercion 2O3
Meanwhile let us not forget the inherent vices of coercion,
which present themselves from whatever point the subject
is viewed. Colonisation seems to be the most eligible of
those expedients which have been stated, but it is attended
with considerable difficulties. The community judges of a
certain individual that his residence cannot be tolerated
among them consistently with the general safety. In denying
him his choice among other communities do they not exceed
their commission? What treatment shall be awarded him
if he return from the banishment to which he was sentenced P
—These difficulties are calculated to bring back the mind to
the absolute injustice of coercion, and to render us inex-
pressibly anxious for the advent of that policy by which it
shall be abolished.
To conclude. The observations of this chapter are relative
to a theory which affirmed that it might be the duty of
individuals, but never of communities, to exert a certain
species of political coercion; and which founded this duty
upon a consideration of the benefits of public security.
Under these circumstances then every individual is bound
to judge for himself and to yield his countenance to no other
coercion than that which is indispensably necessary. He will
no doubt endeavour to meliorate those institutions with
which he cannot persuade his countrymen to part. He will
decline all concern in the execution of such as abuse the plea
of public security to the most atrocious purposes. Laws
may easily be found in almost every code which, on account
of the iniquity of their provisions, are suffered to fall into
disuse by general consent. Every lover of justice will uni-
formly in this way contribute to the repeal of all laws that
wantonly usurp upon the independence of mankind either
2O4. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
by the multiplicity of their restrictions or severity of their
sanctions.
[Chapter VII, “Of Evidence,” is brief, and principally con-
cerned with establishing that the reason men are punished for
past conduct rather than for declared intention is the notorious
uncertainty of evidence.]
CHAPTER VIII
OF LAW
A farther article of great importance in the trial of offences
is that of the method to be pursued by us in classing them
and the consequent apportioning the degree of animadversion
to the cases that may arise. This article brings us to the
direct consideration of law, which is without doubt one of
the most important topics upon which human intellect can be
employed. It is law which has hitherto been regarded in
countries calling themselves civilised as the standard by
which to measure all offences and irregularities that fall un-
der public animadversion. Let us fairly investigate the mer-
its of this choice.
The comparison which has presented itself to those by
whom the topic has been investigated has hitherto been be-
tween law on one side and the arbitrary will of a despot on
the other. But if we would fairly estimate the merits of law,
we should first consider it as it is in itself, and then, if
necessary, search for the most eligible principle that may be
substituted in its place.
It has been recommended as “affording information to
the different members of the community respecting the
principles which will be adopted in deciding upon their
actions.” It has been represented as the highest degree of
iniquity “to try men by an ea post facto law, or indeed in
any other manner than by the letter of a law formally made
and sufficiently promulgated.”
205
206 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
How far it will be safe altogether to annihilate this prin-
ciple we shall presently have occasion to enquire. It is ob-
vious at first sight to remark that it is of most importance
in a country where the system of jurisprudence is most
capricious and absurd. If it be deemed criminal in any
Society to wear clothes of a particular texture or buttons
of a particular composition, it is natural to exclaim that it
is high time the jurisprudence of that society should inform
its members what are the fantastic rules by which they mean
to proceed. But if a society be contented with the rules of
justice and do not assume to itself the right of distorting or
adding to those rules, there law is evidently a less necessary
institution. The rules of justice would be more clearly and
effectually taught by an actual intercourse with human society
unrestrained by the fetters of prepossession than they can be
by catechisms and codes."
One result of the institution of law is that the institution
once begun can never be brought to a close. Edict is heaped
upon edict, and volume upon volume. This will be most
the case where the government is most popular and its
proceedings have most in them of the nature of deliberation.
Surely this is no slight indication that the principle is wrong,
and that of consequence the farther we proceed in the path
it marks out to us, the more shall we be bewildered. No
task can be more hopeless than that of effecting a coalition
between a right principle and a wrong. He that seriously
and sincerely attempts it will perhaps expose himself to
more palpable ridicule than he who instead of professing
two opposite systems should adhere to the worst.
There is no maxim more clear than this, Every case is a
rule to itself. No action of any man was ever the same as
1 Book VI, Chap. VIII, IVol. II, p. 143].
Of Law 2O7
any other action, had ever the same degree of utility or injury.
It should seem to be the business of justice to distinguish
the qualities of men and not, which has hitherto been the
practice, to confound them. But what has been the result
of an attempt to do this in relation to law As new cases
occur, the law is perpetually found deficient. How should
it be otherwise? Lawgivers have not the faculty of un-
limited prescience and cannot define that which is infinite.
The alternative that remains is either to wrest the law to
include a case which was never in the contemplation of the
author or to make a new law to provide for this particular
case. Much has been done in the first of these modes. The
quibbles of lawyers and the arts by which they refine and
distort the sense of the law are proverbial. But though
much is done, everything cannot be thus done. The abuse
would sometimes be too palpable. Not to say that the very
education that enables the lawyer, when he is employed for
the prosecutor, to find out offences the lawgiver never meant
enables him, when he is employed for the defendant, to find
out subterfuges that reduce the law to a nullity. It is there-
fore perpetually necessary to make new laws. These laws,
in order to escape evasion, are frequently tedious, minute
and circumlocutory. The volume in which justice records
her prescriptions is forever increasing, and the world would
not contain the books that might be written.
The consequence of the infinitude of law is its uncertainty.
This strikes directly at the principle upon which law is
founded. Laws were made to put an end to ambiguity,
and that each man might know what he had to depend upon.
How well have they answered this purpose? Let us instance
in the article of property. Two men go to law for a certain
estate. They would not go to law if they had not both of
208 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
them an opinion of their success. But we may suppose
them partial in their own case. They would not continue
to go to law if they were not both promised success by their
lawyers. Law was made that a plain man might know
what he had to depend upon, and yet the most skilful
practitioners differ about the event of my suit. It will some-
times happen that the most celebrated pleader in the kingdom,
or the first counsel in the service of the crown, shall assure
me of infallible success five minutes before another law
officer, styled the keeper of the king's conscience, by some
unexpected juggle decides it against me. Would the issue
have been equally uncertain it I had had nothing to trust to
but the plain, unperverted sense of a jury of my neighbours,
founded in the ideas they entertained of general justice?
Lawyers have absurdly maintained that the expensiveness of
law is necessary to prevent the unbounded multiplication of
suits; but the true source of this multiplication is uncertainty.
Men do not quarrel about that which is evident, but that
which is obscure.
He that would study the laws of a country accustomed to
legal security must begin with the volumes of the statutes.
He must add a strict enquiry into the common or unwritten
law; and he ought to digress into the civil, the ecclesiastical
and canon law. To understand the intention of the authors
of a law he must be acquainted with their characters and
views, and with the various circumstances to which it owed
its rise and by which it was modified while under deliberation.
To understand the weight and interpretation that will be
allowed to it in a court of justice he must have studied the
whole collection of records, decisions and precedents. Law
was originally devised that ordinary men might know what
they had to depend upon, and there is not at this day a
Of Law 209
lawyer existing in Great Britain presumptuous and vain-
glorious enough to pretend that he has mastered the code.
Nor must it be forgotten that time and industry, even were
they infinite, would not suffice. It is a labyrinth without
end; it is a mass of contradictions that cannot be extricated.
Study will enable the lawyer to find in it plausible, perhaps
unanswerable, arguments for any side of almost any question;
but it would argue the utmost folly to suppose that the study
of law can lead to knowledge and certainty.
A farther consideration that will demonstrate the absurdity
of law in its most general acceptation is that it is of the
nature of prophecy. Its task is to describe what will be
the actions of mankind and to dictate decisions respecting
them. Its merits in this respect have already been decided
under the head of promises.” The language of such a pro-
cedure is, “We are so wise that we can draw no additional
knowledge from circumstances as they occur; and we pledge
ourselves that, if it be otherwise, the additional knowledge
we acquire shall produce no effect upon our conduct.” It
is proper to observe that this subject of law may be con-
sidered in some respects as more properly belonging to the
topic of the preceding book. Law tends no less than creeds,
catechisms and tests to fix the human mind in a stagnant
condition, and to substitute a principle of permanence in
the room of that unceasing perfectibility which is the only
salubrious element of mind. All the arguments therefore
which were employed upon that occasion may be applied to
the subject now under consideration.
The fable of Procrustes presents us with a faint shadow
of the perpetual effort of law. In defiance of the great
principle of natural philosophy that there are not so much
* Book III, Chap. III.
2IO An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
as two atoms of matter of the same form through the whole
universe, it endeavours to reduce the actions of men, which
are composed of a thousand evanescent elements, to one
standard. We have already seen the tendency of this en-
deavour in the article of murder.” It was in the contempla–
tion of this system of jurisprudence that the strange maxim
was invented that “strict justice would often prove the highest
injustice.” “ There is 'no more real justice in endeavouring
to reduce the actions of men into classes than there was in the
scheme to which we have just alluded of reducing all men to
the same stature. If on the contrary justice be a result
flowing from the contemplation of all the circumstances of
each individual case, if the only criterion of justice be general
utility, the inevitable consequence is that the more we have of
justice, the more we shall have of truth, virtue and happiness.
From all these considerations we cannot hesitate to con-
clude universally that law is an institution of the most
pernicious tendency.
The subject will receive some additional elucidation if we
consider the perniciousness of law in its immediate relation
to those who practise it. If there ought to be no such thing
as law, the profession of a lawyer is no doubt entitled to our
disapprobation. A lawyer can scarcely fail to be a dishonest
man. This is less a subject for censure than for regret.
Men are the creatures of the necessities under which they
are placed. He that is habitually goaded by the incentives
of vice will not fail to be vicious. He that is perpetually
conversant in quibbles, false colours and Sophistry cannot
equally cultivate the generous emotions of the soul and the
* Book II, Chap. VI, IVol. I, p. 80]. Book VII, Chap. IV, [Vol.
II, p. 170].
* Summum jus summa injuria.
Of Law 2 II
nice discernment of rectitude. If a single individual can
be found who is but superficially tainted with the contagion,
how many men, on the other hand, in whom we saw the
promise of the sublimest virtues have by this trade been
rendered indifferent to consistency or accessible to a bribe?
Be it observed that these remarks apply principally to men
eminent or successful in their profession. He that enters
into an employment carelessly and by way of amusement
is much less under its influence (though he will not escape)
than he that enters into it with ardour and devotion.
Let us however suppose a circumstance which is perhaps
altogether impossible, that a man shall be a perfectly honest
lawyer. He is determined to plead no cause that he does
not believe to be just and to employ no argument that he
does not apprehend to be solid. He designs, as far as his
sphere extends, to strip law of its ambiguities and to speak
the manly language of reason. This man is no doubt highly
respectable so far as relates to himself, but it may be ques-
tioned whether he be not a more pernicious member of
society than the dishonest lawyer. The hopes of mankind
in relation to their future progress depends upon their ob-
serving the genuine effects of erroneous institutions. But
this man is employed in softening and masking these effects.
His conduct has a direct tendency to postpone the reign of
sound policy and to render mankind tranquil in the midst
of imperfection and ignorance. . . .
The true principle which ought to be substituted in the
room of law is that of reason exercising an uncontrolled
jurisdiction upon the circumstances of the case. To this
principle no objection can arise on the score of wisdom. It
is not to be supposed that there are not men now existing
whose intellectual accomplishments rise to the level of law.
212 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
Law we sometimes call the wisdom of our ancestors. But
this is a strange imposition. It was as frequently the dictate
of their passion, of timidity, jealousy, a monopolising spirit,
and a lust of power that knew no bounds. Are we not
obliged perpetually to revise and remodel this misnamed
wisdom of our ancestors? to correct it by a detection of
their ignorance and a condemnation of their intolerance?
But if men can be found among us whose wisdom is equal
to the wisdom of law, it will scarcely be maintained that
the truths they have to communicate will be the worse for
having no authority but that which they derive from the
reasons that support them.
It may however be alleged that “if there be little difficulty
in securing a current portion of wisdom, there may never-
theless be something to be feared from the passions of men.
Law may be supposed to have been constructed in the tranquil
serenity of the soul, a suitable monitor to check the inflamed
mind with which the recent memory of ills might induce us
to proceed to the exercise of coercion.” This is the most
considerable argument that can be adduced in favour of the
prevailing system, and therefore deserves a mature examina-
tion.
The true answer to this objection is that nothing can be
improved but in conformity to its nature. If we consult
for the welfare of man, we must bear perpetually in mind the
structure of man. It must be admitted that we are imperfect,
ignorant, the slaves of appearances. These defects can be
removed by no indirect method, but only by the introduction
of knowledge. A specimen of the indirect method we have
in the doctrine of spiritual infallibility. It was observed
that men were liable to error, to dispute forever without
coming to a decision, to mistake in their most important
Of Law 213
interests. What was wanting was supposed to be a criterion
and a judge of controversies. What was attempted was to
endue truth with a visible form and then repair to the oracle
we had erected.
The case respecting law is exactly parallel to this. Men
were aware of the deceitfulness of appearances and they
sought a talisman to guard them from imposition. Suppose
I were to determine at the commencement of every day upon
a certain code of principles to which I would conform the
conduct of the day, and at the commencement of every year
the conduct of the year. Suppose I were to determine that
no circumstances should be allowed by the light they afforded
to modify my conduct, lest I should become the dupe of
appearance and the slave of passion. This is a just and
accurate image of every system of permanence. Such sys-
tems are formed upon the idea of stopping the perpetual
motion of the machine lest it should sometimes fall into
disorder.
This consideration must sufficiently persuade an impartial
mind that, whatever inconveniences may arise from the
passions of men, the introduction of fixed laws cannot be the
genuine remedy. Let us consider what would be the opera-
tion and progressive state of these passions provided men
were trusted to the guidance of their own discretion. Such
is the discipline that a reasonable state of society employs
with respect to man in his individual capacity; why should
it not be equally valid with respect to men acting in a col-
lective capacity? Inexperience and zeal would prompt me
to restrain my neighbour whenever he is acting wrong, and
by penalties and inconveniences designedly interposed, to
cure him of his errors. But reason evinces the folly of this
proceeding and teaches me that if he be not accustomed to
2I4 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
depend upon the energies of intellect, he will never rise to the
dignity of a rational being. As long as a man is held in
the trammels of obedience and habituated to look to some
foreign guidance for the direction of his conduct, his under-
standing and the vigour of his mind will sleep. Do I desire
to raise him to the energy of which he is capable? I must
teach him to feel himself, to bow to no authority, to examine
the principles he entertains, and render to his mind the
reason of his conduct.
The habits which are thus salutary to the individual will be
equally salutary in the transactions of communities. Men
are weak at present because they have always been told they
are weak and must not be trusted with themselves. Take
them out of their shackles, bid them enquire, reason and
judge, and you will soon find them very different beings.
Tell them that they have passions, are occasionally hasty,
intemperate and injurious, but they must be trusted with
themselves. Tell them that the mountains of parchment in
which they have been hitherto entrenched are fit only to im-
pose upon ages of superstition and ignorance; that hence-
forth we will have no dependence but upon their spontaneous
justice; that if their passions be gigantic, they must rise
with gigantic energy to subdue them; that if their decrees
be iniquitous, the iniquity shall be all their own. The effect
of this disposition of things will soon be visible; mind will
rise to the level of its situation; juries and umpires will be
penetrated with the magnitude of the trust reposed in them.
It may be no uninstructive spectacle to survey the pro-
gressive establishment of justice in the state of things which
is here recommended. At first it may be a few decisions
will be made uncommonly absurd or atrocious. But the
authors of these decisions will be confounded with the un-
Of Law 2I5
popularity and disgrace in which they have involved them-
selves. In reality, whatever were the original source of
law, it soon became cherished as a cloak for oppression.
Its obscurity was of use to mislead the inquisitive eye of the
sufferer. Its antiquity served to divert a considerable part
of the odium from the perpetrator of the injustice to the
author of the law, and still more to disarm that odium by the
influence of superstitious awe. It was well known that
unvarnished, barefaced oppression could not fail to be the
victim of its own operations.
To this statement it may indeed be objected that bodies of
men have often been found callous to censure, and that the
disgrace, being amicably divided among them all, is intoler-
able to none. In this observation there is considerable force,
but it is inapplicable to the present argument. To this species
of abuse one of two things is indispensably necessary, either
numbers or secrecy. To this abuse therefore it will be a
sufficient remedy that each jurisdiction be considerably
limited, and all transactions conducted in an open and ex-
plicit manner.—To proceed.
The judicial decisions that were made immediately after
the abolition of law would differ little from those during its
empire. They would be the decisions of prejudice and habit.
But habit, having lost the centre about which it revolved,
would diminish in the regularity of its operations. Those
to whom the arbitration of any question was entrusted would
frequently recollect that the whole case was committed to their
deliberation, and they could not fail occasionally to examine
themselves respecting the reason of those principles which
had hitherto passed uncontroverted. Their understandings
would grow enlarged in proportion as they felt the importance
of their trust and the unbounded freedom of their investiga-
216 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
tion. Here then would commence an auspicious order of
things, of which no understanding of man at present in
existence can foretell the result, the dethronement of im-
plicit faith and the inauguration of unclouded justice.
Some of the conclusions of which this state of things would
be the harbinger have been already seen in the judgment that
would be made of offences against the community." Offences
arguing infinite variety in the depravity from which they
sprung would no longer be confounded under some general
name. Juries would grow as perspicacious in distinguishing
as they are now indiscriminate in confounding the merit of
actions and characters.
Let us consider the effects of the abolition of law as it
respects the article of property. As soon as the minds of
men became somewhat weaned from the unfeeling uniformity
of the present system, they would begin to enquire after
equity. In this situation let us suppose a litigated succession
brought before them to which there were five heirs, and that
the sentence of their old legislation had directed the division
of this property into five equal shares. They would begin
to enquire into the wants and situation of the claimants.
The first we will suppose to have a fair character and be
prosperous in the world: he is a respectable member of
Society, but farther wealth would add little either to his
usefulness or his enjoyment. The second is a miserable
object, perishing with want and overwhelmed with calamity.
The third, though poor, is yet tranquil; but there is a
situation to which his virtue leads him to aspire, and in
which he may be of uncommon service, but which he cannot
with propriety accept without a capital equal to two-fifths of
* Book II, Chap. VI, IVol. I, p. 80]. Book VII, Chap. IV, IVol.
II, p. 170].
Of Law 217
the whole succession. One of the claimants is an unmarried
woman past the age of childbearing. Another is a widow,
unprovided, and with a numerous family depending on her
succour. The first question that would suggest itself to un-
prejudiced persons having the allotment of this succession
referred to their unlimited decision would be What justice
is there in the indiscriminate partition which has hitherto
prevailed? This would be one of the early suggestions that
would produce a shock in the prevailing system of property.
To enquire into the general issue of these suggestions is the
principal object of the following book.
An observation which cannot have escaped the reader in the
perusal of this chapter is that law is merely relative to the
exercise of political force and must perish when the necessity
for that force ceases, if the influence of truth do not still
Sooner extirpate it from the practice of mankind.
CHAPTER IX
OF PARDONS
There is one other topic which belongs to the subject of
the present book, but which may be dismissed in a very few
words because, though it has unhappily been in almost all
cases neglected in practice, it is a point that seems to admit
of uncommonly simple and irresistible evidence: I mean the
subject of pardons.
The very word to a reflecting mind is fraught with ab-
surdity. What is the rule that ought in all cases to prescribe
to my conduct? Surely justice; understanding by justice the
greatest utility of the whole mass of beings that may be in-
fluenced by my conduct. What then is clemency? It can
be nothing but the pitiable egotism of him who imagines he
can do something better than justice. Is it right that I should
suffer constraint for a certain offence? The rectitude of my
suffering must be founded in its tendency to promote the
general welfare. He therefore that pardons me, iniquitously
prefers the imaginary interest of an individual and utterly
neglects what he owes to the whole. He bestows that which
I ought not to receive and which he has no right to give.
Is it right on the contrary that I should not undergo the
suffering in question? Will he by rescuing me from suffer-
ing do a benefit to me and no injury to others? He will then
be a notorious delinquent if he allow me to suffer. There
is indeed a considerable defect in this last supposition. If,
218
Of Pardons 2I9
while he benefits me, he do no injury to others, he is in-
fallibly performing a public service. If I suffered in the
arbitrary manner which the supposition includes, the whole
would sustain an unquestionable injury in the injustice that
was perpetrated. And yet the man who prevents this
odious injustice has been accustomed to arrogate to himself
the attribute of clement and the apparently sublime, but in
reality tyrannical, name of forgiveness. For if he do more
than has been here described, instead of glory, he ought
to take shame to himself, as an enemy to the interest of
human kind. If every action, and especially every action
in which the happiness of a rational being is concerned, be
susceptible of a certain rule, then caprice must be in all cases
excluded: there can be no action which, if I neglect, I shall
have discharged my duty, and if I perform, I shall be entitled
to applause.
º * Q º © º º &
From the manner in which pardons are dispensed in-
evitably flows the uncertainty of punishment. It is too
evident that punishment is inflicted by no certain rules, and
of consequence the lives of a thousand victims are immolated
in vain. Not more than one half or one third of the offenders
whom the law condemns to death in this metropolis are
made to suffer the sentence that is pronounced. Is it possible
that each offender should not flatter himself that he shall be
among the number that escapes? Such a system, to speak
it truly, is a lottery of death, in which each man draws his
ticket for reprieve or execution, as undefinable accidents shall
decide.
It may be asked whether the abolition of law would not
produce equal uncertainty? By no means. The principles
220 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of king and council in such cases are very little understood,
either by themselves or others. The principles of a jury
of his neighbours commissioned to pronounce upon the whole
of the case the criminal easily guesses. He has only to
appeal to his own sentiments and experience. Reason is a
thousand times more explicit and intelligible than law; and
when we were accustomed to consult her, the certainty of
her decisions would be such as men practised in our present
courts are totally unable to conceive.
What are the sentiments in this respect that are alone
worthy of a rational being? Give me that and that only
which without injustice you cannot refuse. More than jus-
tice it would be disgraceful for me to ask and for you to
bestow. I stand upon the foundation of right. This is a
title which brute force may refuse to acknowledge, but which
all the force in the world cannot annihilate. By resist-
ing this plea you may prove yourself unjust, but in yield-
ing to it you grant me but my due. If, all things con-
sidered, I be the fit subject of a benefit, the benefit is
merited; merit in any other sense is contradictory and ab-
surd. If you bestow upon me unmerited advantage, you are
a recreant from the general good. I may be base enough
to thank you; but if I were virtuous, I should condemn you.
BOOK VIII
OF PROPERTY
CHAPTER I
GENUINE SYSTEM OF PROPERTY DELINEATED
The subject of property is the keystone that completes the
fabric of political justice. According as our ideas respecting
it are crude or correct, they will enlighten us as to the con-
sequences of a simple form of society without government,
and remove the prejudices that attach us to complexity.
There is nothing that more powerfully tends to distort our
judgment and opinions than erroneous notions concerning
the goods of fortune. Finally, the period that shall put an
end to the system of coercion and punishment is intimately
connected with the circumstance of property's being placed
upon an equitable basis.
Various abuses of the most incontrovertible nature have
insinuated themselves into the administration of property.
Each of these abuses might usefully be made the subject
of a separate investigation. We might enquire into the
vexations of this sort that are produced by the dreams of
national greatness or magistratical vanity. This would lead
us to a just estimate of the different kinds of taxation, landed
or mercantile, having the necessaries or the luxuries of
life for their subject of operation. We might examine into
the abuses which have adhered to the commercial system;
monopolies, charters, patents, protecting duties, prohibitions
and bounties. We might remark upon the consequences that
flow from the feudal system and the system of ranks;
223
224. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
seignorial duties, fines, conveyances, entails, estates free-
hold, copyhold and manorial, vassalage and primogeniture.
We might consider the rights of the church, first fruits and
tithes; and we might enquire into the propriety of the regula-
tion by which a man, after having possessed as sovereign a
considerable property during his life, is permitted to dispose
of it at his pleasure at the period which the laws of nature
seem to have fixed as the termination of his authority.
All these enquiries would tend to show the incalculable im-
portance of this subject. But excluding them all from the
present enquiry, it shall be the business of what remains
of this work to consider, not any particular abuses which
have incidentally risen out of the administration of property,
but those general principles by which it has in almost all
cases been directed, and which, if erroneous, must not only be
regarded as the source of the abuses above enumerated, but
of others of innumerable kinds, too multifarious and subtle
to enter into so brief a catalogue.
What is the criterion that must determine whether this or
that substance capable of contributing to the benefit of a
human being ought to be considered as your property or mine?
To this question there can be but one answer—Justice. Let
us then recur to the principles of justice.*
To whom does any article of property, suppose a loaf of
bread, justly belong? To him who most wants it, or to whom
the possession of it will be most beneficial. Here are six
men famished with hunger, and the loaf is, absolutely con-
sidered, capable of satisfying the cravings of them all. Who
is it that has a reasonable claim to benefit by the qualities
with which this loaf is endowed? They are all brothers
perhaps, and the law of primogeniture bestows it exclusively
1 Book II, Chap. II.
Genuine System of Property Delineated 225
on the eldest. But does justice confirm this award? The
laws of different countries dispose of property in a thousand
different ways; but there can be but one way which is most
conformable to reason.
It would have been easy to put a case much stronger than
that which has just been stated. I have an hundred loaves
in my possession, and in the next street there is a poor man
expiring with hunger to whom one of these loaves would
be the means of preserving his life. If I withhold this loaf
from him, am I not unjust? If I impart it, am I not
complying with what justice demands? To whom does the
loaf justly belong?
I suppose myself in other respects to be in easy circum-
stances, and that I do not want this bread as an object of
barter or sale, to procure me any of the other necessaries of
a human being. Our animal wants have long since been
defined, and are stated to consist of food, clothing and
shelter. If justice have any meaning, nothing can be more
iniquitous than for one man to possess superfluities, while
there is a human being in existence that is not adequately
supplied with these.
Justice does not stop here. Every man is entitled, so far
as the general stock will suffice, not only to the means of
being, but of well-being. It is unjust if one man labour
to the destruction of his health or his life that another man
may abound in luxuries. It is unjust if one man be de-
prived of leisure to cultivate his rational powers while
another man contributes not a single effort to add to the
common stock. The faculties of one man are like the
faculties of another man. Justice directs that each man,
unless perhaps he be employed more beneficially to the public,
should contribute to the cultivation of the common harvest,
226 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of which each man consumes a share. This reciprocity
indeed, as was observed when that subject was the matter
of separate consideration, is of the very essence of justice.
How the latter branch of it, the necessary labour, is to be
secured while each man is admitted to claim his share of the
produce we shall presently have occasion to enquire.
This subject will be placed in a still more striking light if
we reflect for a moment on the nature of luxuries. The
wealth of any state may intelligibly enough be considered as
the aggregate of all the incomes which are annually consumed
within that state without destroying the materials of an equal
consumption in the ensuing year. Considering this income as
teing, what in almost all cases it will be found to be, the
produce of the industry of the inhabitants, it will follow
that in civilized countries the peasant often does not con-
sume more than the twentieth part of the produce of his
labour, while his rich neighbour consumes perhaps the prod-
uce of the labour of twenty peasants. The benefit that
arises to this favoured mortal ought surely to be very
extraordinary.
But nothing is more evident than that the condition of this
man is the reverse of beneficial. The man of an hundred
pounds per annum, if he understand his own happiness, is
a thousand times more favourably circumstanced. What
shall the rich man do with his enormous wealth? Shall he
eat of innumerable dishes of the most expensive viands, or
pour down hogsheads of the most highly flavoured wines?
A frugal diet will contribute infinitely more to health, to a
clear understanding, to cheerful spirits, and even to the
gratification of the appetites. Almost every other expense
is an expense of ostentation. No man but the most sordid
epicure would long continue to maintain even a plentiful
Genuine System of Property Delineated 227
table if he had no spectators, visitors or servants to behold
his establishment. For whom are our sumptuous palaces
and costly furniture, our equipages, and even our very
clothes? The nobleman who should for the first time let his
imagination loose to conceive the style in which he would
live if he had nobody to observe, and no eye to please but
his own, would no doubt be surprised to find that vanity
had been the first mover in all his actions.
The object of this vanity is to procure the admiration and
applause of beholders. We need not here enter into the
intrinsic value of applause. Taking it for granted that it is
as estimable an acquisition as any man can suppose it, how
contemptible is the source of applause to which the rich man
has recourse? “Applaud me because my ancestor has left
me a great estate.” What merit is there in that? The first
effect then of riches is to deprive their possessor of the
genuine powers of understanding and render him incapable
of discerning absolute truth. They lead him to fix his
affections on objects not accommodated to the wants and
the structure of the human mind, and of consequence entail
upon him disappointment and unhappiness. The greatest
of all personal advantages are independence of mind, which
makes us feel that our satisfactions are not at the mercy
either of men or of fortune, and activity of mind, the cheer-
fulness that arises from industry perpetually employed about
objects of which our judgment acknowledges the intrinsic
value.
In this case we have compared the happiness of the man
of extreme opulence with that of the man of one hundred
pounds per annum. But the latter side of this alternative
was assumed merely in compliance with existing prejudices.
Even in the present state of human society we perceive that
228 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
a man who should be perpetually earning the necessary
competence by a very moderate industry, and with his pur-
suits uncrossed by the peevishness or caprice of his neigh-
bours, would not be less happy than if he were born to that
competence. In the state of society we are here contemplat-
ing, where, as will presently appear, the requisite industry
will be of the lightest kind, it will be the reverse of a mis-
fortune to any man to find himself necessarily stimulated to
a gentle activity, and in consequence to feel that no reverse
of fortune could deprive him of the means of subsistence
and contentment.
But it has been alleged that we find among different men
very different degrees of labour and industry, and that it is
not just they should receive an equal reward. It cannot in-
deed be denied that the attainments of men in virtue and
usefulness ought by no means to be confounded. How far
the present system of property contributes to their being
equitably treated it is very easy to determine. The present
system of property confers on one man immense wealth in
consideration of the accident of his birth. He that from
beggary ascends to opulence is usually known not to have
effected this transition by methods very creditable to his
honesty or his usefulness. The most industrious and active
member of society is frequently with great difficulty able
to keep his family from starving.
But, to pass over these iniquitous effects of the unequal
distribution of property, let us consider the nature of the
reward which is thus proposed to industry. If you be
industrious, you shall have an hundred times more food than
you can eat and an hundred times more clothes than you
can wear. Where is the justice of this? If I be the greatest
benefactor the human species ever knew, is that a reason
Genuine System of Property Delineated 229
for bestowing on me what I do not want, especially when
there are thousands to whom my superfluity would be of
the greatest advantage? With this superfluity I can pur-
chase nothing but gaudy ostentation and envy, nothing but
the pitiful pleasure of returning to the poor under the name
of generosity that to which reason gives them an irresistible
claim, nothing but prejudice, error and vice.
The doctrine of the injustice of accumulated property has
been the foundation of all religious morality. The object
of this morality has been to excite men by individual virtue
to repair this injustice. The most energetic teachers of re-
ligion have been irresistibly led to assert the precise truth
upon this interesting subject. They have taught the rich
that they hold their wealth only as a trust, that they are
strictly accountable for every atom of their expenditure, that
they are merely administrators and by no means proprietors
in chief.” The defect of this system is that they rather ex-
cite us to palliate our injustice than to forsake it.
No truth can be more simple than that which they in-
culcate. There is no action of any human being, and cer-
tainly no action that respects the disposition of property, that
is not capable of better and worse, and concerning which
reason and morality do not prescribe a specific conduct. He
that sets out with acknowledging that other men are of the
same nature as himself, and is capable of perceiving the pre-
cise place he would hold in the eye of an impartial spectator,
must be fully sensible that the money he employs in procur-
ing an object of trifling or no advantage to himself, and
which might have been employed in purchasing substantial
and indispensable benefit to another, is unjustly employed.
*See Swift's Sermon on Mutual Subjection, quoted Book II,
Chap. II.
230 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
He that looks at his property with the eye of truth will find
that every shilling of it has received its destination from
the dictates of justice. He will at the same time however
be exposed to considerable pain in consequence of his own
ignorance as to the precise disposition that justice and public
utility require.
Does any man doubt of the truth of these assertions?
Does any man doubt that when I employ a sum of money
small or great in the purchase of an absolute luxury for
myself, I am guilty of vice? It is high time that this subject
should be adequately understood. It is high time that we
should lay aside the very names of justice and virtue, or that
we should acknowledge that they do not ‘authorise us to
accumulate luxuries upon ourselves while we see others
in want of the indispensable means of improvement and
happiness.
But while religion inculcated on magkind the impartial
nature of justice, its teachers have tºº. apt to treat the
practice of justice, not as a debt, which it ought to be con-
sidered, but as an affair of spontaneous generosity and bounty.
They have called upon the rich to be clement and merciful to
the poor. The consequence of this has been that the rich,
when they bestowed the most slender pittance of their enor-
mous wealth in acts of charity, as they were called, took
merit to themselves for what they gave, instead of consider-
ing themselves as delinquents for what they withheld.
Religion is in reality in all its parts an accommodation to
the prejudices and weaknesses of mankind. Its authors com-
municated to the world as much truth as they calculated that
the 'world would be willing to receive. But it is time that
we should lay aside the instruction intended only for children
Genuine System of Property Delineated 231
in understanding,” and contemplate the nature and principles
of things. If religion had spoken out and told us it was
just that all men should receive the supply of their wants,
we should presently have been led to suspect that a gratuitous
distribution to be made by the rich was a very indirect and
ineffectual way of arriving at this object. The experience
of all ages has taught us that this system is productive only of
a very precarious supply. The principal object which it
seems to propose is to place this supply in the disposal of
a few, enabling them to make a show of generosity with
what is not truly their own, and to purchase the gratitude
of the poor by the payment of a debt. It is a system of
clemency and charity instead of a system of justice. It fills
the rich with unreasonable pride by the spurious denomina-
tions with which it decorates their acts, and the poor with
servility by leading them to regard the slender comforts
they obtain, not as their incontrovertible due, but as the good
pleasure and the grace of their opulent neighbours.
* I Cor. III. 1, 2.
CHAPTER II
BENEFITS ARISING FROM THE GENUINE SYSTEM OF PROPERTY
Having seen the justice of an equal distribution of prop-
erty, let us next consider the benefits with which it would
be attended. And here with grief it must be confessed that,
however great and extensive are the evils that are produced
by monarchies and courts, by the imposture of priests and the
iniquity of criminal laws, all these are imbecile and impotent
compared with the evils that arise out of the established
system of property.
Its first effect is that which we have already mentioned, a
sense of dependence. It is true that courts are mean-
spirited, intriguing and servile, and that this disposition is
transferred by contagion from them to all ranks of society.
But property brings home a servile and truckling spirit by
no circuitous method to every house in the nation. Observe
the pauper fawning with abject vileness upon his rich bene-
factor, and speechless with sensations of gratitude for hav-
ing received that which he ought to have claimed with an
erect mien and with a consciousness that his claim was ir-
resistible. Observe the servants that follow in a rich man’s
train, watchful of his looks, anticipating his commands,
not daring to reply to his insolence, all their time and their
efforts under the direction of his caprice. Observe the
tradesman, how he studies the passions of his customers, not
to correct, but to pamper them, the vileness of his flattery
232
Benefits from Genuine System of Property 233
and the systematical constancy with which he exaggerates the
merit of his commodities. Observe the practices of a pop-
ular election, where the great mass are purchased.by obse-
quiousness, by intemperance and bribery, or driven by un-
manly threats of poverty and persecution. Indeed “the age
of chivalry is" not “gone”!" The feudal spirit still sur-
vives, that reduced the great mass of mankind to the rank
of slaves and cattle for the service of a few.
We have heard much of visionary and theoretical improve-
ments. It would indeed be visionary and theoretical to
expect virtue from mankind while they are thus subjected
to hourly corruption and bred from father to son to sell their
independence and their conscience for the vile rewards that
oppression has to bestow. No man can be either useful to
others or happy to himself who is a stranger to the grace of
firmness and who is not habituated to prefer the dictates
of his own sense of rectitude to all the tyranny of command
and allurements of temptation. Here again, as upon a
former occasion, religion comes in to illustrate our thesis.
Religion was the generous ebullition of men who let their
imagination loose on the grandest subjects and wandered
without restraint in the unbounded field of enquiry. It is
not to be wondered at therefore if they brought home im-
perfect ideas of the sublimest views that intellect can fur-
nish. In this instance religion teaches that the true perfec-
tion of man is to divest himself of the influence of passions;
that he must have no artificial wants, no sensuality, and no
fear. But to divest the human species under the present
system of the influence of passions is an extravagant specu-
lation. The enquirer after truth and the benefactor of man-
kind will be desirous of removing from them those external
1 Burke's Reflections.
234 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
impressions by which their evil propensities are cherished.
The true object that should be kept in view is to extirpate
all ideas of condescension and superiority, to oblige every
man to feel that the kindness he exerts is what he is bound
to perform, and the assistance he asks what he has a right
to claim.
A second evil that arises out of the established system of
property is the perpetual spectacle of injustice it exhibits.
This consists partly in luxury and partly in caprice. There
is nothing more pernicious to the human mind than luxury.
Mind, being in its own nature essentially active, necessarily
fixes on some object public or personal, and in the latter
case on the attainment of some excellence, or something
which shall command the esteem and deference of others.
No propensity,” absolutely considered, can be more valuable
than this. But the established system of property directs
it into the channel of the acquisition of wealth. The osten-
tation of the rich perpetually goads the spectator to the de-
sire of opulence. Wealth, by the sentiments of servility and
dependence it produces, makes the rich man stand forward
as the only object of general esteem and deference. In vain
are sobriety, integrity and industry, in vain the sublimest
powers of mind and the most ardent benevolence if their
possessor be narrowed in his circumstances. To acquire
wealth and to display it is therefore the universal passion.
The whole structure of human society is made a system of
the narrowest selfishness. If self-love and benevolence
were apparently reconciled as to their object, a man might
set out with the desire of eminence and yet every day become
more generous and philanthropical in his views. But the
passion we are here describing is accustomed to be gratified
* [Second and third editions: “Few propensities,” etc.]
Benefits from Genuine System of Property 235
at every step by inhumanly trampling upon the interest of
others. Wealth is . by overreaching our neighbours
and is spent in insulting them.T *******~~~~~~~~~~
-The spectacle of injustice which the established system of
property exhibits consists partly in caprice. If you would
cherish in any man the love of rectitude, you must take care
that its principles be impressed on him not only by words,
but actions. It sometimes happens during the period of edu-
cation that maxims of integrity and consistency are re-
peatedly enforced, and that the preceptor gives no quarter
to the base suggestions of selfishness and cunning. But how
is the lesson that has been read to the pupil confounded and
reversed when he enters upon the scene of the world? If
he ask, “Why is this man honoured?” the ready answer is
“Because he is rich.” If he enquire farther, “Why is he
rich P” the answer in most cases is “From the accident of
birth, or from a minute and sordid attention to the cares
of gain.” The system of accumulated property is the off-
spring of civil policy; and civil policy, as we are taught
to believe, is the production of accumulated wisdom. Thus
the wisdom of legislators and senates has been employed to
secure a distribution of property the most profligate and un-
principled, that bids defiance to the maxims of justice and
the nature of man. Humanity weeps over the distresses of
the peasantry of all civilised nations; and when she turns
from this spectacle to behold the luxury of their lords, gross,
imperious and prodigal, her sensations certainly are not less
acute. This spectacle is the school in which mankind have
been educated. They have been accustomed to the sight of
injustice, oppression and iniquity till their feelings are made
callous and their understandings incapable of apprehending
the nature of true virtue.

236 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
In beginning to point out the evils of accumulated property
we compared the extent of those evils with the correspond-
ent evils of monarchies and courts. No circumstances under
the latter have excited a more pointed disapprobation than
pensions and pecuniary corruption, by means of which hun-
dreds of individuals are rewarded, not for serving, but be-
traying the public, and the hard earnings of industry are
employed to fatten the servile adherents of despotism. But
the rent roll of the lands of England is a much more for-
midable pension list than that which is supposed to be em-
ployed in the purchase of ministerial majorities. All riches,
and especially all hereditary riches, are to be considered as
the salary of a sinecure office, where the labourer and the
manufacturer perform the duties, and the principal spends
the income in luxury and idleness.” Hereditary wealth is
in reality a premium paid to idleness, an immense annuity
expended to retain mankind in brutality and ignorance. The
* This idea is to be found in Ogilvie’s Essay on the Right of Prop-
erty in Land, published about two years ago, Part I, Sect. iii, par. 38,
39. The reasonings of this author have sometimes considerable
merit, though he has by no means gone to the source of the evil.
It might be amusing to some readers to recollect the authorities,
if the citation of authorities were a proper mode of reasoning, by
which the system of accumulated property is openly attacked. The
best known is Plato in his treatise of a Republic. His steps have
been followed by Sir Thomas More in his Utopia. Specimens of
very powerful reasoning on the same side may be found in Gul-
liver's Travels, particularly Part IV, Chap. VI. Mably, in his
book De la Législation, has displayed at large the advantages of
equality, and then quits the subject in despair from an opinion of the
incorrigibleness of human depravity. Wallace, the contemporary and
antagonist of Hume, in a treatise entitled Various Prospects of Man-
kind, Nature and Providence, is copious in his eulogium of the same
System, and deserts it only from fear of the earth becoming too
populous. . . . The great practical authorities are Crete, Sparta, Peru
and Paraguay. It would be easy to swell this list if we added ex-
Benefits from Genuine System of Property 237
poor are kept in ignorance by the want of leisure. The rich
are furnished indeed with the means of cultivation and liter-
ature, but they are paid for being dissipated and indolent.
The most powerful means that malignity could have in-
vented are employed to prevent them from improving their
talents and becoming useful to the public.
This leads us to observe, thirdly, that the established
system of property is the true levelling system with respect
to the human species, by as much as the cultivation of in-
tellect and truth is more valuable and more characteristic
of man than the gratifications of vanity or appetite. Ac-
cumulated property treads the powers of thought in the dust,
extinguishes the sparks of genius, and reduces the great
mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares; beside de-
priving the rich, as we have already said, of the most
salubrious and effectual motives to activity. If superfluity
were banished, the necessity for the greater part of the man-
ual industry of mankind would be superseded; and the rest,
being amicably shared among all the active and vigorous
members of the community, would be burthensome to none.
Every man would have a frugal yet wholesome diet; every
man would go forth to that moderate exercise of his corporal
functions that would give hilarity to the spirits; none would
be made torpid with fatigue, but all would have leisure to
cultivate the kindly and philanthropical affections of the
amples where an approach only to these principles was attempted,
and authors who have incidentally confirmed a doctrine so interesting
and clear as never to have been wholly eradicated from any human
understanding.
It would be trifling to object that the systems of Plato and others
are full of imperfections. This indeed rather strengthens their
authority, since the evidence of the truth they maintained was so
great as still to preserve its hold on their understandings, though
they knew not how to remove the difficulties that attended it.
238 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
Soul and to let loose his faculties in the search of intellectual
improvement. What a contrast does this scene present us
with the present state of human society, where the peasant
and the labourer work till their understandings are benumbed
with toil, their sinews contracted and made callous by being
forever on the stretch, and their bodies invaded with in-
firmities and surrendered to an untimely grave? What is
the fruit of this disproportioned and unceasing toil? At
evening they return to a family famished with hunger, ex-
posed half-naked to the inclemencies of the sky, hardly
sheltered, and denied the slenderest instruction, unless in a
few instances where it is dispensed by the hands of ostenta-
tious charity and the first lesson communicated is unprin-
cipled servility. All this while their rich neighbour—but
we visited him before.
How rapid and sublime would be the advances of intellect
if all men were admitted into the field of knowledge | At
present ninety-nine persons in an hundred are no more ex-
cited to any regular exertions of general and curious thought
than the brutes themselves. What would be the state of
public mind in a nation where all were wise, all had laid
aside the shackles of prejudice and implicit faith, all adopted
with fearless confidence the suggestions of truth, and the
lethargy of the soul was dismissed for ever? It is to be
presumed that the inequality of mind would in a certain de-
gree be permanent; but it is reasonable to believe that the
geniuses of such an age would far surpass the grandest
exertions of intellect that are at present known. Genius
would not be depressed with false wants and niggardly
patronage. It would not exert itself with a sense of neglect
and oppression rankling in its bosom. It would be freed
from those apprehensions that perpetually recall us to the
Benefits from Genuine System of Property 239
thought of personal emolument, and of consequence would
expatiate freely among sentiments of generosity and public
good.
From ideas of intellectual let us turn to moral improve-
ment. And here it is obvious that all the occasions of
crime would be cut off for ever. . . .
The fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance,
one man's possessing in abundance that of which another
man is destitute. We must change the nature of mind be-
fore we can prevent it from being powerfully influenced
by this circumstance, when brought strongly home to its per-
ceptions by the nature of its situation. Man must cease to
have senses, the pleasures of appetite and vanity must cease
to gratify, before he can look on tamely at the monopoly of
these pleasures. He must cease to have a sense of justice
before he can clearly and fully approve this mixed scene of
superfluity and distress. It is true that the proper method
of curing this inequality is by reason and not by violence.
But the immediate tendency of the established system is to
persuade men that reason is impotent. The injustice of
which they complain is upheld by force, and they are too
easily induced by force to attempt its correction. All they
endeavour is the partial correction of an injustice which edu-
cation tells them is necessary, but more powerful reason af-
firms to be tyrannical.
Force grew out of monopoly. It might accidentally have
occurred among savages whose appetites exceeded their
supply, or whose passions were inflamed by the presence
of the object of their desire; but it would gradually have
died away as reason and civilisation advanced. Accumu-
lated property has fixed its empire, and henceforth all is an
open contention of the strength and cunning of one party
240 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
against the strength and cunning of the other. In this
case the violent and premature struggles of the necessitous
are undoubtedly an evil. They tend to defeat the very cause
in the success of which they are most deeply interested; they
tend to procrastinate the triumph of truth. But the true
crime is in the malevolent and partial propensities of men,
thinking only of themselves and despising the emolument of
others; and of these the rich have their share.
The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility and the
spirit of fraud, these are the immediate growth of the es-
tablished system of property. These are alike hostile to in-
tellectual and moral improvement. The other vices of envy,
malice and revenge are their inseparable companions. In a
state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty and
where all shared alike the bounties of nature these senti-
ments 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 rest-
less wants, each would lose his own individual existence in
the thought of the general good. No man would be an
enemy to his neighbour, for they would have nothing for
which to contend; and of consequence philanthropy would
resume the empire which reason assigns her. Mind would
be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal sup-
port and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is
congenial to her. Each man would assist the enquiries of
all.
Let us fix our attention for a moment upon the revolu-
tion of principles and habits that immediately grow out of
an unequal distribution of property. Till it was thus dis-
tributed men felt what their wants required and sought the
supply of those wants. All that was more than this was
Benefits from Genuine System of Property 241
regarded as indifferent. But no sooner is accumulation in-
troduced than they begin to study a variety of methods for
disposing of their superfluity with least emolument to their
neighbour, or in other words by which it shall appear to be
most their own. They do not long continue to buy com-
modities before they begin to buy men. He that possesses
or is the spectator of superfluity soon discovers the hold
which it affords us on the minds of others. Hence the pas-
sions of vanity and ostentation. Hence the despotic man-
ners of them who recollect with complacence the rank they
occupy, and the restless ambition of those whose attention
is engrossed by the possible future.
Ambition is of all the passions of the human mind the
most extensive in its ravages. It adds district to district,
and kingdom to kingdom. It spreads bloodshed and calamity
and conquest over the face of the earth. But the passion
itself, as well as the means of gratifying it, is the produce
of the prevailing system of property.” It is only by means
of accumulation that one man obtains an unresisted sway
over multitudes of others. It is by means of a certain dis-
tribution of income that the present governments of the world
are retained in existence. Nothing more easy than to plunge
nations so organised into war. But if Europe were at pres-
ent covered with inhabitants all of them possessing com-
petence and none of them superfluity, what could induce its
different countries to engage in hostility? If you would lead
men to war, you must exhibit certain allurements. If you
be not enabled by a system, already prevailing and which de-
rives force from prescription, to hire them to your purposes,
you must bring over each individual by dint of persuasion.
How hopeless a task by such means to excite mankind to
* Book V, Chap. XVI.
242 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
murder each other It is clear then that war in every horrid
form is the growth of unequal property. As long as this
source of jealousy and corruption shall remain, it is vision-
ary to talk of universal peace. As soon as the Source shall
be dried up, it will be impossible to exclude the consequence.
It is property " that forms men into one common mass and
makes them fit to be played upon fike a brute machine.
Were this stumbling block removed, each man would be
united to his neighbour in love and mutual kindness a thou-
sand times more than now ; but each man would think and
judge for himself. Let then the advocates for the prevail-
ing system at least consider what it is for which they plead
and be well assured that they have arguments in its favour
which will weigh against these disadvantages.
There is one other circumstance which, though inferior
to those above enumerated, deserves to be mentioned. This
is population. It has been calculated that the average cul-
tivation of Europe might be improved so as to maintain five
times her present number of inhabitants.” There is a prin-
ciple in human society by which population is perpetually
kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. Thus
among the wandering tribes of America and Asia we never
find through the lapse of ages that population has so in-
creased as to render necessary the cultivation of the earth.
Thus among the civilised nations of Europe by means of
territorial monopoly the sources of subsistence are kept
within a certain limit, and if the population became over-
stocked, the lower ranks of the inhabitants would be still
more incapable of procuring for themselves the necessaries
of life. There are no doubt extraordinary concurrences of
*
* [Second and third editions: “It is accumulation,” etc.]
° Ogilvie, Part I, Sect. iii, par. 35.
Benefits from Genuine System of Property 243
circumstances by means of which changes are occasionally
introduced in this respect, but in ordinary cases the standard
of population is held in a manner stationary for centuries.
Thus the established system of property may be considered as
strangling a considerable portion of our children in their
cradle. Whatever may be the value of the life of man, or
rather whatever would be his capability of happiness in a
free and equal state of society, the system we are here oppos-
ing may be considered as arresting upon the threshold of
existence four fifths of that value and that happiness.
CHAPTER III
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE ADMIRABLE
EFFECTS OF LUXURY
These ideas of justice and improvement are as old as
literature and reflection themselves. They have suggested
themselves in detached parts to the inquisitive in all ages,
though they have perhaps never been brought together so
as sufficiently to strike the mind with their consistency and
beauty. But after having furnished an agreeable dream,
they have perpetually been laid aside as impracticable. We
will proceed to examine the objections upon which this sup-
posed impracticability has been founded; and the answer to
these objections will gradually lead us to such a development
of the proposed system as by its completeness and the regular
adjustment of its parts will be calculated to carry convic-
tion to the most prejudiced mind.
There is one objection that has chiefly been cultivated on
English ground, and to which we will give the priority of ex-
amination. It has been affirmed “that private vices are
public benefits.” But this principle, thus coarsely stated by
one of its original advocates," was remodelled by his more
elegant successors.” They observed “that the true measure
* Mandeville; Fable of the Bees. [Second and third editions: “It
is not however easy to determine whether he is seriously, or only
ironically, the defender of the present system of society. . . . No
author has displayed in stronger terms the deformity of existing
abuses. . . .”]
* Coventry, in a treatise entitled Philemon to Hydaspes; Hume:
Essays, Part II, Essay II.
244
Objection from the Effects of Luxury 245
of virtue and vice was utility, and consequently that it was
an unreasonable calumny to state luxury as a vice. Lux-
ury,” they said, “whatever might be the prejudices that
cynics and ascetics had excited against it, was the rich and
generous soil that brought to perfection the true prosperity
of mankind. Without luxury men must always have re-
mained solitary savages. It is luxury by which palaces are
built and cities peopled. How could there have been high
population in any country without the various arts in which
the swarms of its inhabitants are busied ? The true bene-
factor of mankind is not the scrupulous devotee who by his
charities encourages insensibility and sloth; is not the surly
philosopher who reads them lectures of barren morality; but
the elegant voluptuary who employs thousands in sober and
healthful industry to procure dainties for his table, who
unites distant nations in commerce to supply him with furni-
ture, and who encourages the fine arts and all the sublimities
of invention to furnish decorations for his residence.”
I have brought forward this objection rather that nothing
material might appear to be omitted than because it requires
a separate answer. The true answer has been anticipated.
It has been seen that the population of any country is meas-
ured by its cultivation. If therefore sufficient motives can
be furnished to excite men to agriculture, there is no doubt
that population may be carried on to any extent that the
land can be made to maintain. But agriculture, when once
begun, is never found to stop in its career but from positive
discountenance. It is territorial monopoly that obliges men
unwillingly to see vast tracts of land lying waste, or negli-
gently and imperfectly cultivated, while they are subjected
to the miseries of want. If land were perpetually open to
him who was willing to cultivate it, it is not to be believed
246 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
but that it would be cultivated in proportion to the wants of
the community, nor by the same reason would there be any
effectual check to the increase of population.
Undoubtedly the quantity of manual labour would be
greatly inferior to that which is now performed by the in-
habitants of any civilised country, since at present perhaps
one twentieth part of the inhabitants performs the agricul-
ture which supports the whole. But it is by no means to be
admitted that this leisure would be found a real calamity.
As to what sort of a benefactor the voluptuary is to man-
kind, this was sufficiently seen when we treated of the effects
of dependence and injustice. To this species of benefit all
the crimes and moral evils of mankind are indebted for their
perpetuity. If mind be to be preferred to mere animal ex-
istence, if it ought to be the wish of every reasonable en-
quirer not merely that man but that happiness should be
propagated, then is the voluptuary the bane of the human
species.
CHAPTER IV
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE
ALLUREMENTS OF SLOTH
Another objection which has been urged against the system
which counteracts the accumulation of property is “that it
would put an end to industry. We behold in commercial
countries the miracles that are operated by the love of gain.
Their inhabitants cover the sea with their fleets, astonish
mankind by the refinement of their ingenuity, hold vast conti-
nents in subjection in distant parts of the world by their
arms, are able to defy the most powerful confederacies,
and, oppressed with taxes and debts, seem to acquire fresh
prosperity under their accumulated burthens. Shall we
lightly part with a system that seems pregnant with such in-
exhaustible motives? Shall we believe that men will cul-
tivate assiduously what they have no assurance they shall be
permitted to apply to their personal emolument? It will per-
haps be found with agriculture as it is with commerce,
which then flourishes best when subjected to no control, but
when placed under rigid restraints, languishes and expires.
Once establish it as a principle in society that no man is to
apply to his personal use more than his necessities require
and you will find every man become indifferent to those ex-
ertions which now call forth the energy of his faculties.
Man is the creature of sensations; and when we endeavour
to strain his intellect and govern him by reason alone, we do
247
248 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
but show our ignorance of his nature. Self-love is the
genuine source of our actions, and if this should be found to
bring vice and partiality along with it, yet the system that
should endeavour to supersede it would be at best no more
than a beautiful romance. If each man found that, with-
out being compelled to exert his own industry, he might lay
claim to the superfluity of his neighbour, indolence would
perpetually usurp his faculties, and such a society must either
starve or be obliged in its own defence to return to that
system of injustice and sordid interest which theoretical
reasoners will for ever arraign to no purpose.”
This is the principal objection that prevents men from
yielding without resistance to the accumulated evidence that
has already been adduced. In reply, it may be observed in
the first place that the equality for which we are pleading is
an equality that would succeed to a state of great intellectual
improvement. So bold a revolution cannot take place in
human affairs till the general mind has been highly culti-
vated. The present age of mankind is greatly enlightened,
but it is to be feared is not yet enlightened enough. Hasty
and undigested tumults may take place under the idea of an
equalisation of property; but it is only a calm and clear con-
viction of justice, of justice mutually to be rendered and re-
ceived, of happiness to be produced by the desertion of our
most rooted habits, that can introduce an invariable system
of this sort. Attempts without this preparation will be pro-
ductive only of confusion. Their effect will be momentary,
and a new and more barbarous inequality will succeed. Each
man with unaltered appetite will watch his opportunity to
gratify his love of power or his love of distinction by usurp-
ing on his inattentive neighbours.
Is it to be believed then that a state of so great intellectual
Objection from Allurements of Sloth 249
improvement can be the forerunner of barbarism? Sav-
ages, it is true, are subject to the weakness of indolence.
But civilised and refined states are the scene of peculiar
activity. It is thought, acuteness of disquisition and ardour
of pursuit that set the corporeal faculties at work. Thought
begets thought. Nothing * can put a stop to the progressive
advances of mind but oppression. But here, so far from
being oppressed, every man is equal, every man independent
and at his ease. It has been observed that the establishment
of a republic is always attended with public enthusiasm and
irresistible enterprise. Is it to be believed that equality,
the true republicanism, will be less effectual? It is true
that in republics this spirit sooner or later is found to lan-
guish. Republicanism is not a remedy that strikes at the
root of the evil. Injustice, oppression and misery can find
an abode in those seeming happy seats. But what shall stop
the progress of ardour and improvement where the monopoly
of property is unknown 2
This argument will be strengthened if we reflect on the
amount of labour that a state of equal property will require.
What is this quantity of exertion from which we are sup-
posing many members of the community to shrink? It is
so light a burthen as rather to assume the appearance of agree-
able relaxation and gentle exercise than of labour. In this
community scarcely any can be expected in consequence
of their situation or avocations to consider themselves as ex-
empted from manual industry. There will be no rich men
to recline in indolence and fatten upon the labour of their
fellows. The mathematician, the poet and the philosopher
will derive a new stock of cheerfulness and energy from the
recurring labour that makes them feel they are men. There
* [Second and third editions: “Nothing perhaps can,” etc.]
250 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
will be no persons employed in the manufacture of trinkets
and luxuries; and none in directing the wheels of the com-
plicated machine of government, tax-gatherers, beadles, ex-
cisemen, tide-waiters, clerks and secretaries. There will be
neither fleets nor armies, neither courtiers nor footmen. It
is the unnecessary employments that at present occupy the
great mass of the inhabitants of every civilised nation, while
the peasant labours incessantly to maintain them in a state
more pernicious than idleness.
It has been computed that not more than one twentieth of
the inhabitants of England are employed seriously and sub-
stantially in the labours of agriculture. Add to this that the
nature of agriculture is such as necessarily to give full oc-
cupation in some parts of the year and to leave others com-
paratively unemployed. We may consider these latter
periods as equivalent to a labour which, under the direction
of sufficient skill, might suffice in a simple state of society
for the fabrication of tools, for weaving, and the occupa-
tion of tailors, bakers and butchers. The object in the
present state of society is to multiply labour; in another state
it will be to simplify it. A vast disproportion of the wealth
of the community has been thrown into the hands of a few,
and ingenuity has been continually upon the stretch to find
out ways in which it may be expended. In the feudal times
the great lord invited the poor to come and eat of the produce
of his estate upon condition of their wearing his livery and
forming themselves in rank and file to do honour to his well-
born guests. Now that exchanges are more facilitated, we
have quitted this inartificial mode, and oblige the men we
maintain out of our incomes to exert their ingenuity and in-
dustry in return. Thus in the instance just mentioned we
pay the tailor to cut our clothes to pieces that he may sew
Objection from Allurements of Sloth 25I
them together again, and to decorate them with stitching and
various ornaments, without which experience would speedily
show that they were in no respect less useful. We are
imagining in the present case a state of the most rigid sim-
plicity.
From the sketch which has been here given it seems by no
means impossible that the labour of every twentieth man in
the community would be sufficient to maintain the rest in
all the absolute necessaries of human life. If then this
labour, instead of being performed by so small a number,
were amicably divided among them all, it would occupy the
twentieth part of every man's time. Let us compute that
the industry of a labouring man engrosses ten hours in every
day, which, when we have deducted his hours of rest, recre-
ation and meals, seems an ample allowance. It follows that
half an hour a day seriously employed in manual labour by
every member of the community would sufficiently supply
the whole with necessaries. Who is there that would shrink
from this degree of industry? Who is there that sees the
incessant industry exerted in this city and this island and
would believe that with half an hour's industry per diem
we should be every way happier and better than we are at
present? Is it possible to contemplate this fair and gen-
erous picture of independence and virtue, where every man
would have ample leisure for the noblest energies of mind,
without feeling our very souls refreshed with admiration and
hope?
When we talk of men's sinking into idleness if they be
not excited by the stimulus of gain, we have certainly very
little considered the motives that at present govern the hu-
man mind. We are deceived by the apparent mercenariness
of mankind, and imagine that the accumulation of wealth is
252 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
their great object. But the case is far otherwise. The pres-
ent ruling passion of the human mind is the love of distinc-
tion. There is no doubt a class in society that are perpetu-
ally urged by hunger and need, and have no leisure for mo-
tives less gross and material. But is the class next above
them less industrious than they? I exert a certain species
of industry to supply my immediate wants; but these wants
are soon supplied. The rest is exerted that I may wear
a better coat, that I may clothe my wife with gay attire,
that I may not merely have a shelter but a handsome habi-
tation, not merely bread or flesh to eat but that I may set it
out with a suitable decorum. How many of these things
would engage my attention if I lived in a desert island and
had no spectators of my economy? If I survey the ap-
pendages of my person, is there one article that is not an
appeal to the respect of my neighbours or a refuge against
their contempt? It is for this that the merchant braves the
dangers of the ocean and the mechanical inventor brings
forth the treasures of his meditation. The soldier advances
even to the cannon's mouth, the statesman exposes himself to
the rage of an indignant people because they cannot bear to
pass through life without distinction and esteem. Exclu-
sively of certain higher motives that will presently be men-
tioned, this is the purpose of all the great exertions of man-
kind. The man who has nothing to provide for but his
animal wants scarcely ever shakes off the lethargy of his
mind; but the love of praise hurries us on to the most incred-
ible achievements. Nothing is more common than to find
persons who surpass the rest of their species in activity in-
excusably remiss in the melioration of their pecuniary af-
fairs.
In reality those by whom this reasoning has been urged
Objection from Allurements of Sloth 253
have mistaken the nature of their own objection. They did
not sincerely believe that men could be roused into action
only by the love of gain; but they imagined that in a state
of equal property men would have nothing to occupy their
attention. What degree of truth there is in this idea we
shall presently have occasion to estimate.
Meanwhile it is sufficiently obvious that the motives which
arise from the love of distinction are by no means cut off
by a state of society incompatible with the accumulation of
property. Men no longer able to acquire the esteem or avoid
the contempt of their neighbours by circumstances of dress
and furniture will divert the passion for distinction into an-
other channel. They will avoid the reproach of indolence
as carefully as they now avoid the reproach of poverty. The
only persons who at present neglect the effect which their
appearance and manners may produce are those whose faces
are ground with famine and distress. But in a state of
equal society no man will be oppressed, and of consequence
the more delicate affections of the soul will have time to ex-
pand themselves. The general mind having, as we have
already shown, arrived at a high pitch of improvement, the
impulse that carries it out into action will be stronger than
ever. The fervour of public spirit will be great. Leisure
will be multiplied, and the leisure of a cultivated understand-
ing is the precise period in which great designs, designs the
tendency of which is to secure applause and esteem, are con-
ceived. In tranquil leisure it is impossible for any but the
sublimest mind to exist without the passion for distinction.
This passion, no longer permitted to lose itself in indirect
channels and useless wanderings, will seek the noblest course
and perpetually fructify.the seeds of public good. Mind,
though it will perhaps at no time arrive at the termination of
254 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
its possible discoveries and improvements, will nevertheless
advance with a rapidity and firmness of progression of which
we are at present unable to conceive the idea.
The love of fame is no doubt a delusion. This like every
other delusion will take its turn to be detected and abjured.
It is an airy phantom, which will indeed afford us an im-
perfect pleasure so long as we worship it, but will always in
a considerable degree disappoint us and will not stand the
test of examination. We ought to love nothing but good, a
pure and immutable felicity, the good of the majority, the
good of the general. If there be anything more substantial
than all the rest, it is justice, a principle that rests upon this
single postulatum, that man and man are beings of the same
nature and susceptible, under certain limitations, of the same
advantages. Whether the benefit proceed from you or me,
so it be but conferred, is a pitiful distinction. Justice has
the farther advantage, which serves us as a countercheck to
prove the goodness of this species of arithmetic, of producing
the only solid happiness to the man by whom it is practised
as well as the good of all. But fame cannot benefit me any
more than serve the best purposes to others. The man who
acts from the love of it may produce public good, but if he
do, it is from indirect and spurious views. Fame is an un-
substantial and delusive pursuit. If it signify an opinion
entertained of me greater than I deserve, to pursue it is
vicious. If it be the precise mirror of my character, it is
desirable only as a means, inasmuch as I may perhaps be
able to do most good to the persons who best know the ex-
tent of my capacity and the rectitude of my intentions.
The love of fame, when it perishes in minds formed un-
der the present system, often gives place to a greater degen-
eracy. Selfishness is the habit that grows out of monopoly.
Objection from Allurements of Sloth 255
When therefore this selfishness ceases to seek its gratifica-
tion in public exertion, it too often narrows itself into some
frigid conception of personal pleasure, perhaps sensual, per-
haps intellectual. But this cannot be the process where
monopoly is banished. Selfishness has there no kindly cir-
cumstances to foster it. Truth, the overpowering truth of
general good, then seizes us irresistibly. It is impossible we
should want motives so long as we see clearly how multi-
tudes and ages may be benefited by our exertions, how
causes and effects are connected in an endless chain so that
no honest effort can be lost, but will operate to good centuries
after its author is consigned to the grave. This will be the
general passion, and all will be animated by the example of
all.
CHAPTER V
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE IM-
POSSIBILITY OF ITS BEING RENDERED PERMANENT
Let us proceed to another objection. It has sometimes
been said by those who oppose the doctrine here maintained
“that equality might perhaps contribute to the improvement
and happiness of mankind if it were consistent with the
nature of man that such a principle should be rendered per-
manent, but that every expectation of that kind must prove
abortive. Confusion would be introduced under the idea of
equality today, but the old vices and monopolies would re-
turn tomorrow. All that the rich would have purchased by
the most generous sacrifice would be a period of barbarism,
from which the ideas and regulations of civil society must
commence as from a new infancy. The nature of man can-
not be changed. There would at least be some vicious and
designing members of society who would endeavour to se-
cure to themselves indulgences beyond the rest. Mind would
not be reduced to that exact uniformity which a state of equal
property demands, and the variety of sentiments which must
always in some degree prevail would inevitably subvert the
refined systems of speculative perfection.”
No objection can be more essential than that which is here
adduced. It highly becomes us in so momentous a subject
to resist all extravagant speculations; it would be truly to
be lamented, if, while we parted with that state of society
256
Impossibility of its Being Permanent 257
through which mind has been thus far advanced, we were re-
plunged into barbarism by the pursuit of specious appear-
ances. But what is worst of all is that if this objection be
true, it is to be feared there is no remedy. Mind must go
forward. What it sees and admires, it will sometime or
other seek to attain. Such is the inevitable law of our na-
ture. But it is impossible not to see the beauty of equality
and to be charmed with the benefits it seems to promise.
The consequence is sure. Man, according to the system of
these reasoners, is prompted to advance for some time with
success; but after that time, in the very act of pursuing
farther improvement, he necessarily plunges beyond the com-
pass of his powers and has then his petty career to begin
afresh. The objection represents him as a foul abortion,
with just understanding enough to see what is good but with
too little to retain him in the practice of it.—Let us con-
sider whether equality, once established, would be so pre-
carious as it is here represented.
In answer to this objection it must first be remembered
that the state of equalisation we are here supposing is not the
result of accident, of the authority of a chief magistrate, or
the over-earnest persuasion of a few enlightened thinkers,
but is produced by the serious and deliberate conviction of
the community at large. We will suppose for the present
that it is possible for such a conviction to take place among
a given number of persons living in society with each other;
and if it be possible in a small community, there seems to be
no sufficient reason to prove that it is impossible in one of
larger and larger dimensions. The question we have here to
examine is concerning the probability, when the conviction
has once been introduced, of its becoming permanent.
The conviction rests upon two intellectual impressions, one
258 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
of justice and the other of happiness. Equalisation of prop-
erty cannot begin to assume a fixed appearance in human
society till the sentiment becomes deeply wrought into the
mind that the genuine wants of any man constitute his only
just claim to the appropriating any species of commodity.
If the general sense of mankind were once so far enlight-
ened as to produce a perpetual impression of this truth, of
so forcible a sort as to be exempt from all objections and
doubt, we should look with equal horror and contempt at the
idea of any man's accumulating a property he did not want.
All the evils that a state of monopoly never fails to engender
would stand forward in our minds, together with all the ex-
isting happiness that attended upon a state of freedom. We
should feel as much alienation of thought from the con-
suming uselessly upon ourselves what would be beneficial to
another, or from the accumulating property for the purpose
of obtaining some kind of ascendancy over the mind of our
neighbours, as we now feel from the commission of murder.
No man will dispute that a state of equal property once estab-
lished would greatly diminish the evil propensities of man.
But the crime we are now supposing is more atrocious than
any that is to be found in the present state of society. Man
perhaps is incapable under any circumstance of perpetrating
an action of which he has a clear and undoubted perception
that it is contrary to the general good. But be this as it will,
it is hardly to be believed that any man for the sake of some
imaginary gratification to himself would wantonly injure
the whole if his mind were not first ulcerated with the im-
pression of the injury that society by its ordinances is com-
mitting against him. The case we are here considering is
that of a man who does not even imagine himself injured,
and yet wilfully subverts a state of happiness to which no
Impossibility of its Being Permanent 259
description can do justice to make room for the return of
all those calamities and vices with which mankind have been
infested from the earliest page of history.
The equalisation we are describing is farther indebted for
its empire in the mind to the ideas with which it is attended
of personal happiness. It grows out of a simple, clear and
unanswerable theory of the human mind that we first stand
in need of a certain animal subsistence and shelter, and after
that, that our only true felicity consists in the expansion of
our intellectual powers, the knowledge of truth, and the
practice of virtue. It might seem at first sight as if this
theory omitted a part of the experimental history of mind,
the pleasures of sense and the pleasures of delusion. But
this omission is apparent, not real. However many are the
kinds of pleasure of which we are susceptible, the truly
prudent man will sacrifice the inferior to the more exquisite.
Now no man who has ever produced or contemplated the
happiness of others with a liberal mind will deny that this
exercise is infinitely the most pleasurable of all sensations.
But he that is guilty of the smallest excess of sensual pleas-
ures, by so much diminishes his capacity of obtaining this
highest pleasure. Not to add, if that be of any importance,
that rigid temperance is the reasonable means of tasting sen-
sual pleasures with the highest relish. This was the system
of Epicurus and must be the system of every man who ever
speculated deeply on the nature of human happiness. For
the pleasures of delusion, they are absolutely incompatible
with our highest pleasure. If we would either promote or
enjoy the happiness of others, we must seek to know in
what it consists. But knowledge is the irreconcilable foe of
delusion. In proportion as mind rises to its true element
and shakes off those prejudices which are the authors of our
26O An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
misery, it becomes incapable of deriving pleasure from flat-
tery, fame or power, or indeed from any source that is not
compatible with, or in other words does not make a part of
the common good. The most palpable of all classes of
knowledge is that I am, personally considered, but an atom
in the ocean of mind.—The first rudiment therefore of that
Science of personal happiness which is inseparable from a
state of equalisation is that I shall derive infinitely more
pleasure from simplicity, frugality and truth than from
luxury, empire and fame. What temptation has a man en-
tertaining this opinion and living in a state of equal property
to accumulate?
This question has been perpetually darkened by the doc-
trine, so familiar to writers of morality, of the independent
operations of reason and passion. Such distinctions must al-
ways darken. Of how many parts does mind consist? Of
none. It consists merely of a series of thought succeeding
thought from the first moment of our existence to its termi-
nation. This word passion, which has produced such ex-
tensive mischief in the philosophy of mind and has no real
archetype, is perpetually shifting its meaning. Sometimes
it is applied universally to all those thoughts which, being
peculiarly vivid and attended with great force of argument
real or imaginary, carry us out into action with uncommon
energy. Thus we speak of the passion of benevolence, pub-
lic spirit or courage. Sometimes it signifies those vivid
thoughts only which upon accurate examination appear to be
founded in error. In the first sense the word might have
been unexceptionable. Vehement desire is the result of a
certain operation of the understanding and must always be
in a joint ratio of the supposed clearness of the proposition
and importance of the practical effects. In the second
Impossibility of its Being Permanent 261
sense, the doctrine of the passions would have been exceed-
ingly harmless if we had been accustomed to put the def-
inition instead of the thing defined. It would then have been
found that it merely affirmed that the human mind must al-
ways be liable to precisely the same mistakes as we observe
in it at present, or in other words affirmed the necessary
permanence in opposition to the necessary perfectibility of
intellect. Who is there indeed that sees not, in the case
above stated, the absurdity of supposing a man, so long as he
has a clear view of justice and interest lying on one side of
a given question, to be subject to errors that irresistibly com-
pel him to the other P The mind is no doubt liable to fluctu-
ation. But there is a degree of conviction that would render
it impossible for us any longer to derive pleasure from
intemperance, dominion or fame, and this degree in the in-
cessant progress of thought must one day arrive.
This proposition of the permanence of a system of equal
property, after it has once been brought into action by the
energies of reason and conviction, will be placed out of the
reach of all equitable doubt if we proceed to form to our-
selves an accurate picture of the action of this system. Let
us suppose that we are introduced to a community of men
who are accustomed to an industry proportioned to the wants
of the whole, and to communicate instantly and uncondition-
ally, each man to his neighbour, that for which the former
has not and the latter has immediate occasion. Here the
first and simplest motive to personal accumulation is in-
stantly cut off. I need not accumulate to protect myself
against accidents, sickness or infirmity, for these are claims
the validity of which is not regarded as a subject of doubt,
and with which every man is accustomed to comply. I can
accumulate in a considerable degree nothing but what is
262 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
perishable, for exchange being unknown, that which I can-
not personally consume adds nothing to the sum of my
wealth.-Meanwhile it should be observed that, though ac-
cumulation for private purposes under such a system would
be in the highest degree irrational and absurd, this by no
means precludes such accumulation as may be necessary to
provide against public contingencies. If there be any truth
in the preceding reasonings, this kind of accumulation will
be unattended with danger. Add to this that the perpetual
tendency of wisdom is to preclude contingency. It is well
known that dearths are principally owing to the false pre-
cautions and false timidity of mankind; and it is reasonable
to suppose that a degree of skill will hereafter be produced
which will gradually annihilate the failure of crops and other
similar accidents.
It has already appeared that the principal and uninter-
mitting motive to private accumulation is the love of dis-
tinction and esteem. This motive is also withdrawn. As
accumulation can have no rational object, it would be viewed
as a mark of insanity, not a title to admiration. Men would
be accustomed to the simple principles of justice and know
that nothing was entitled to esteem but talents and virtue.
Habituated to employ their superfluity to supply the wants of
their neighbour and to dedicate the time which was not neces-
Sary for manual labour to the cultivation of intellect, with
what sentiments would they behold the man who was foolish
enough to sew a bit of lace upon his coat or affix any other
ornament to his person? In such a community property
would perpetually tend to find its level. It would be inter-
esting to all to be informed of the person in whose hands a
certain quantity of any commodity was lodged, and every
man would apply with confidence to him for the supply of his
Impossibility of its Being Permanent 263
wants in that commodity. Putting therefore out of the
question every kind of compulsion, the feeling of depravity
and absurdity that would be excited with relation to the
man who refused to part with that for which he had no real
need would operate in all cases as a sufficient discouragement
to so odious an innovation. Every man would conceive that
he had a just and complete title to make use of my super-
fluity. If I refused to listen to reason and expostulation on
this head, he would not stay to adjust with me a thing so
vicious as exchange, but would leave me in order to seek
the supply from some rational being. Accumulation, instead
as now of calling forth every mark of respect, would tend
to cut off the individual who attempted it from all the bonds
of society and sink him in neglect and oblivion. The in-
fluence of accumulation at present is derived from the idea
of eventual benefit in the mind of the observer; but the ac-
cumulator then would be in a case still worse than that of
the miser now, who, while he adds thousands to his heap,
cannot be prevailed upon to part with a superfluous farthing
and is therefore the object of general desertion.
CHAPTER VI
OF THE OBJECTION TO THIS SYSTEM FROM THE IN-
FLEXIBILITY OF ITS RESTRICTIONS
An objection that has often been urged against a system
of equal property is “that it is inconsistent with personal
independence. Every man according to this scheme is a
passive instrument in the hands of the community. He must
eat and drink, and play and sleep at the bidding of others.
He has no habitation, no period at which he can retreat into
himself and not ask another's leave. He has nothing that
he can call his own, not even his time or his person. Under
the appearance of a perfect freedom from oppression and
tyranny he is in reality subjected to the most unlimited
slavery.”
To understand the force of this objection it is necessary
that we should distinguish two sorts of independence, one
of which may be denominated natural and the other moral.
Natural independence, a freedom from all constraint except
that of reason and argument presented to the understanding,
is of the utmost importance to the welfare and improvement
of mind. Moral independence on the contrary is always
injurious. The dependence which is essential in this respect
to the wholesome temperament of society includes in it
articles that are no doubt unpalatable to a multitude of the
present race of mankind, but that owe their unpopularity
only to weakness and vice. It includes a censure to be
264
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 265
exercised by every individual over the actions of another,
a promptness to enquire into them and to judge them. Why
should I shrink from this P What could be more beneficial
than for each man to derive every possible assistance for
correcting and moulding his conduct from the perspicacity
of his neighbours? The reason why this species of censure
is at present exercised with illiberality is because it is
exercised clandestinely and we submit to its operation with
impatience and aversion. Moral independence is always
injurious; for, as has abundantly appeared in the course of
the present enquiry, there is no situation in which I can be
placed where it is not incumbent upon me to adopt a certain
species of conduct in preference to all others, and of con-
sequence where I shall not prove an ill member of society
if I act in any other than a particular manner. The
attachment that is felt by the present race of mankind to
independence in this respect, the desire to act as they please
without being accountable to the principles of reason, is
highly detrimental to the general welfare.
But if we ought never to act independently of the principles
of reason and in no instance to shrink from the candid
examination of another, it is nevertheless essential that we
should at all times be free to cultivate the individuality and
follow the dictates of our own judgment. If there be any-
thing in the scheme of equal property that infringes this
principle, the objection is conclusive. If the scheme be, as it
has often been represented, a scheme of government, con-
straint and regulation, it is no doubt in direct hostility with
the principles of this work.
But the truth is that a system of equal property requires
no restrictions or superintendence whatever. There is no
need of common labour, common meals or common maga-
266 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
zines. These are feeble and mistaken instruments for re-
straining the conduct without making conquest of the judg-
ment. If you cannot bring over the hearts of the community
to your party, expect no success from brute regulations.
If you can, regulation is unnecessary. Such a system was
well enough adapted to the military constitution of Sparta,
but it is wholly unworthy of men who are enlisted in no
cause but that of reason and justice. Beware of reducing
men to the state of machines. Govern them through no
medium but that of inclination and conviction.
Why should we have common meals? Am I obliged to be
hungry at the same time that you are? Ought I to come at a
certain hour from the museum where I am working, the
recess where I meditate, or the observatory where I remark
the phenomena of nature to a certain hall appropriated to the
office of eating instead of eating, as reason bids me, at the
time and place most suited to my avocations? Why have
common magazines? For the purpose of carrying our pro-
visions a certain distance that we may afterwards bring them
back again? Or is this precaution really necessary, after all
that has been said in praise of equal society and the omnip-
otence of reason, to guard us against the knavery and
covetousness of our associates? If it be, for God’s sake
let us discard the parade of political justice and go over to
the standard of those reasoners who say that man and the
practice of justice are incompatible with each other.
Once more let us be upon our guard against reducing men
to the condition of brute machines. The objectors of the
last chapter were partly in the right when they spoke of the
endless variety of mind. It would be absurd to say that
we are not capable of truth, of evidence and agreement. In
these respects, so far as mind is in a state of progressive
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 267
improvement, we are perpetually coming nearer to each other.
But there are subjects about which we shall continually
differ, and ought to differ. The ideas, the associations and
the circumstances of each man are properly his own; and
it is a pernicious system that would lead us to require all
men, however different their circumstances, to act in many
of the common affairs of life by a precise general rule.
Add to this that by the doctrine of progressive improvement
we shall always be erroneous, though we shall every day
become less erroneous. The proper method for hastening
the decay of error is not by brute force or by regulation,
which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce y
men to intellectual uniformity, but on the contrary by teach-
ing every man to think for himself.
From these principles it appears that everything that is
usually understood by the term “cooperation” is in some de-
gree an evil. A man in solitude is obliged to sacrifice or
postpone the execution of his best thoughts to his own con-
venience. How many admirable designs have perished in the
conception by means of this circumstance? The true remedy
is for men to reduce their wants to the fewest possible,
and as much as possible to simplify the mode of supplying
them. It is still worse when a man is also obliged to consult
the convenience of others. If I be expected to eat or to
work in conjunction with my neighbour, it must either be at
a time most convenient to me, or to him, or to neither
of us. We cannot be reduced to a clockwork uniformity.
Hence it follows that all supererogatory cooperation is
carefully to be avoided, common labour and common meals.
But what shall we say to cooperation that seems to be
dictated by the nature of the work to be performed? It
ought to be diminished. At present it is unreasonable to
268 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
doubt that the consideration of the evil of cooperation is in
certain urgent cases to be postponed to that urgency.
Whether by the nature of things cooperation of some sort
will always be necessary is a question that we are scarcely
competent to decide. At present, to pull down a tree, to cut
a canal, to navigate a vessel requires the labour of many.
Will it always require the labour of many? When we look at
the complicated machines of human contrivance, various sorts
of mills, of weaving engines, of steam engines, are we not
astonished at the compendium of labour they produce? Who
shall say where this species of improvement must stop? At
present such inventions alarm the labouring part of the
community; and they may be productive of temporary dis-
tress, though they conduce in the sequel to the most important
interests of the multitude. But in a state of equal labour
their utility will be liable to no dispute. Hereafter it is by
no means clear that the most extensive operations will not
be within the reach of one man; or, to make use of a
familiar instance, that a plough may not be turned into a
field and perform its office without the need of superintend-
ence. It was in this sense that the celebrated Franklin
conjectured that “mind would one day become omnipotent
over matter.”
The conclusion of the progress which has here been
sketched is something like a final close to the necessity of
manual labour. It is highly instructive in such cases to ob-
serve how the sublime geniuses of former times anticipated
what seems likely to be the future improvement of mankind.
It was one of the laws of Lycurgus that no Spartan should
be employed in manual labour. For this purpose under his
system it was necessary that they should be plentifully
supplied with slaves devoted to drudgery. Matter, or, to
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 269
speak more accurately, the certain and unintermitting laws of
the universe, will be the Helots of the period we are con-
templating. We shall end in this respect, oh immortal legis-
lator at the point from which you began.
To these prospects perhaps the objection will once again
be repeated that men delivered from the necessity of manual
labour will sink into supineness. What narrow views of the
nature and capacities of mind do such objections imply?
The only thing necessary to put intellect into action is motive.
Are there no motives equally cogent with the prospect of
hunger? Whose thoughts are most active, most rapid and
unwearied, those of Newton or the ploughman? When the
mind is stored with prospects of intellectual greatness and
utility, can it sink into torpor P
To return to the subject of cooperation. It may be a
curious speculation to attend to the progressive steps by which
this feature of human society may be expected to decline.
For example: shall we have concerts of music? The miser-
able state of mechanism of the majority of the performers
is so conspicuous as to be even at this day a topic of
mortification and ridicule. Will it not be practicable here-
after for one man to perform the whole? Shall we have
theatrical exhibitions? This seems to include an absurd and
vicious cooperation. It may be doubted whether men will
hereafter come forward in any mode gravely to repeat words
and ideas not their own It may be doubted whether any
musical performer will habitually execute the compositions
of others! We yield supinely to the superior merit of our
predecessors because we are accustomed to indulge the in-
activity of our own faculties. All formal repetition of
other men's ideas seems to be a scheme for imprisoning for
so long a time the operations of our own mind. It borders
270 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
perhaps in this respect upon a breach of sincerity, which
requires that we should give immediate utterance to every
useful and valuable idea that occurs to our thoughts.
Having ventured to state these hints and conjectures, let
us endeavour to mark the limits of individuality. Every
man that receives an impression from any external object
has the current of his own thoughts modified by force; and
yet without external impressions we should be nothing. We
ought not, except under certain limitations, to endeavour to
free ourselves from their approach. Every man that reads
the composition of another suffers the succession of his
ideas to be in a considerable degree under the direction of
his author. But it does not seem as if this would ever form
a sufficient objection against reading. One man will always
have stored up reflections and facts that another wants; and
mature and digested discourse will perhaps always, in equal
circumstances, be superior to that which is extempore. Con-
versation is a species of cooperation, one or the other party
always yielding to have his ideas guided by the other; and
yet conversation and the intercourse of mind with mind
seem to be the most fertile sources of improvement. It
is here as it is with punishment. He that in the gentlest
manner undertakes to reason another out of his vices will
probably occasion pain, but this species of punishment ought
upon no account to be superseded.
Another article which belongs to the subject of cooperation
is cohabitation. A very simple process will lead us to a
right decision in this instance. Science is most effectually
cultivated when the greatest number of minds are employed
in the pursuit of it. If an hundred men spontaneously en-
gage the whole energy of their faculties upon the solution of
a given question, the chance of success will be greater than
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 271
if only ten men were so employed. By the same reason the
chance will be also increased in proportion as the intellectual
Operations of these men are individual, in proportion as their
conclusions are directed by the reason of the thing, un-
influenced by the force either of compulsion or sympathy.
All attachments to individuals except in proportion to their
merits are plainly unjust. It is therefore desirable that we
should be the friends of man rather than of particular men,
and that we should pursue the chain of our own reflections
with no other interruption than information or philanthropy
requires.
This subject of cohabitation is particularly interesting as it
includes in it the subject of marriage. It will therefore be
proper to extend our enquiries somewhat further upon this
head. Cohabitation is not only an evil as it checks the in-
dependent progress of mind; it is also inconsistent with the
imperfections and propensities of man. It is absurd to
expect that the inclinations and wishes of two human beings
should coincide through any long period of time. To oblige
them to act and to live together is to subject them to some
inevitable portion of thwarting, bickering and unhappiness.
This cannot be otherwise so long as man has failed to reach
the standard of absolute perfection. The supposition that I
must have a companion for life is the result of a complica-
tion of vices. It is the dictate of cowardice and not of
fortitude. It flows from the desire of being loved and
esteemed for something that is not desert.
But the evil of marriage as it is practised in European
countries lies deeper than this. The habit is for a thoughtless
and romantic youth of each sex to come together, to see each
other for a few times and under circumstances full of de-
lusion, and then to vow to each other eternal attachment.
272 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
What is the consequence of this? In almost every instance
they find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make
the best of an irretrievable mistake. They are presented
with the strongest imaginable temptation to become the
dupes of falsehood. They are led to conceive it their wisest
policy to shut their eyes upon realities, happy if by any
perversion of intellect they can persuade themselves that they
were right in their first crude opinion of their companion.
The institution of marriage is a system of fraud, and men
who carefully mislead their judgments in the daily affair of
their life must always have a crippled judgment in every
other concern. We ought to dismiss our mistake as soon as
it is detected, but we are taught to cherish it. We ought to
be incessant in our search after virtue and worth; but we
are taught to check our enquiry and shut our eyes upon
the most attractive and admirable objects. Marriage is law,
and the worst of all laws. Whatever our understandings
may tell us of the person from whose connection we should
derive the greatest improvement, of the worth of one woman
and the demerits of another, we are obliged to consider what
is law and not what is justice.
Add to this that marriage * is an affair of property, and the
worst of all properties. So long as two human beings are
forbidden by positive institution to follow the dictates of their
own mind, prejudice is alive and vigorous. So long as I
seek to engross one woman to myself and to prohibit my
neighbour from proving his superior desert and reaping the
fruits of it, I am guilty of the most odious of all monopolies.
Over this imaginary prize men watch with perpetual jealousy,
and one man will find his desires and his capacity to cir-
* [Second and third editions: “. . . marriage, as now under-
stood, is a monopoly, and the worst of monopolies.”]
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 273
cumvent as much excited as the other is excited to traverse
his projects and frustrate his hopes. As long as this state
of society continues, philanthropy will be crossed and checked
in a thousand ways, and the still augmenting stream of abuse
will continue to flow.
The abolition of marriage will be attended with no evils.”
We are apt to represent it to ourselves as the harbinger of
brutal lust and depravity. But it really happens in this as
in other cases that the positive laws which are made to
restrain our vices, irritate and multiply them. Not to say
that the same sentiments of justice and happiness which in a
state of equal property would destroy the relish for luxury
would decrease our inordinate appetites of every kind and
lead us universally to prefer the pleasures of intellect to the
pleasures of sense.
The intercourse of the sexes will in such a state fall under
the same system as any other species of friendship. Ex-
clusively of all groundless and obstinate attachments, it will
be impossible for me to live in the world without finding
one man of a worth superior to that of any other whom
I have an opportunity of observing. To this man I shall
feel a kindness in exact proportion to my apprehension of
his worth. The case will be precisely the same with respect
to the female sex. I shall assiduously cultivate the inter-
course of that woman whose accomplishments shall strike
me in the most powerful manner. “But it may happen that
* [Second edition: “The abolition of marriage in the form now
practised will be attended with no evils.” Third edition: “The
abolition of the present system of marriage appears to involve no
evils.” The discussion of cooperation, cohabitation, and marriage
is, like other parts of the work, rephrased with diminishing positive-
ness in the later editions. In the third it is relegated to an ap-
pendix.]
274 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
other men will feel for her the same preference that I do.”
This will create no difficulty. We may all enjoy her con-
versation; and we shall all be wise enough to consider the
sensual intercourse as a very trivial object. This, like every
other affair in which two persons are concerned, must be
regulated in each successive instance by the unforced consent
of either party. It is a mark of the extreme depravity of
our present habits that we are inclined to suppose the sensual
intercourse anywise material to the advantages arising from
the purest affection. Reasonable men now eat and drink,
not from the love of pleasure, but because eating and drink-
ing are essential to our healthful existence. Reasonable
men then will propagate their species, not because a certain
sensible pleasure is annexed to this action, but because it is
right the species should be propagated; and the manner in
which they exercise this function will be regulated by the
dictates of reason and duty.
Such are some of the considerations that will probably
regulate the commerce of the sexes. It cannot be definitively
affirmed whether it will be known in such a state of society
who is the father of each individual child. But it may be
affirmed that such knowledge will be of no importance. It
is aristocracy, self-love and family pride that teach us to
set a value upon it at present. I ought to prefer no human
being to another because that being is my father, my wife or
my son, but because, for reasons which equally appeal to all
understandings, that being is entitled to preference. One
among the measures which will successively be dictated by
the spirit of democracy, and that probably at no great dis-
, tance, is the abolition of surnames.
Let us consider the way in which this state of society will
modify education. It may be imagined that the abolition of
Infleribility of its Restrictions 275
marriage would make it in a certain sense the affair of the
public; though, if there be any truth in the reasonings of this
work, to provide for it by the positive institutions of a com-
munity would be extremely inconsistent with the true prin-
ciples of the intellectual system.* Education may be re-
garded as consisting of various branches. First, the per-
sonal cares which the helpless state of an infant requires.
These will probably devolve upon the mother, unless, by
frequent parturition or by the very nature of these cares,
that were found to render her share of the burthen unequal,
and then it would be amicably and willingly participated
by others. Secondly, food and other necessary supplies.
These, as we have already seen, would easily find their true
level and spontaneously flow from the quarter in which they
abounded to the quarter that was deficient.” Lastly, the
term “education” may be used to signify instruction. The
task of instruction under such a form of society as that we
are contemplating will be greatly simplified and altered from
what it is at present. It will then be thought no more
legitimate to make boys slaves than to make men so. The
business will not then be to bring forward so many adepts
in the egg-shell, that the vanity of parents may be flattered
by hearing their praises. No man will then think of vexing
with premature learning the feeble and inexperienced, for
fear that when they came to years of discretion, they should
refuse to be learned. Mind will be suffered to expand itself
in proportion as occasion and impression shall excite it, and
not tortured and enervated by being cast in a particular
mould. No creature in human form will be expected to
learn anything but because he desires it and has some con-
8 Book VI, Chap. VIII.
4 Chap. V, [Vol. II, p. 262].
276 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ception of its utility and value; and every man in proportion
to his capacity will be ready to furnish such general hints
and comprehensive views as will suffice for the guidance
and encouragement of him who studies from a principle of
desire.
Before we quit this part of the subject it will be necessary
to obviate an objection that will suggest itself to some readers.
They will say “that man was formed for society and
reciprocal kindness, and therefore is by his nature little
adapted to the system of individuality which is here deline-
ated. The true perfection of man is to blend and unite
his own existence with that of another, and therefore a
system which forbids him all partialities and attachments
tends to degeneracy and not to improvement.”
No doubt man is formed for society. But there is a way
in which for a man to lose his own existence in that of others
that is eminently vicious and detrimental. Every man ought
to rest upon his own centre and consult his own under-
standing. Every man ought to feel his independence, that he
can assert the principles of justice and truth without being
obliged treacherously to adapt them to the peculiarities of
his situation and the errors of others.
No doubt man is formed for society. But he is formed
for, or in other words his faculties enable him to serve, the
whole and not a part. Justice obliges us to sympathise with
a man of merit more fully than with an insignificant and
corrupt member of society. But all partialities strictly so
called tend to the injury of him who feels them, of mankind
in general, and even of him who is their object. The spirit
of partiality is well expressed in the memorable saying of
Themistocles, “God forbid that I should sit upon a bench of
justice where my friends found no more favour than
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 277
strangers!” In fact, as has been repeatedly seen in the
course of this work, we sit in every action of our lives upon
a bench of justice, and play in humble imitation the part of
the unjust judge whenever we indulge the smallest atom of
partiality.
As a genuine state of society is incompatible with all laws
and restrictions, so it cannot have even this restriction, that
no man shall amass property. The security against accu-
mulation, as has already been said, lies in the perceived ab-
surdity and inutility of accumulation. The practice, if it
can be conceived in a state of society where the principles of
justice were adequately understood, would not even be
dangerous. The idea would not create alarm, as it is apt
to do in prospect among the present advocates of political
justice. Men would feel nothing but their laughter or their
pity excited at so strange a perversity of human intellect.
What would denominate anything my property? The
fact that it was necessary to my welfare. My right would
be coeval with the existence of that necessity. The word
“property” would probably remain; its signification only
would be modified. The mistake does not so properly lie in
the idea itself as in the source from which it is traced. What
I have, if it be necessary for my use, is truly mine; what I
have, though the fruit of my own industry, if unnecessary, it
is an usurpation for me to retain.
Force in such a state of society would be unknown; I
should part with nothing without a full consent. Caprice
would be unknown; no man would covet that which I used
unless he distinctly apprehended that it would be more
beneficial in his possession than it was in mine. My apart-
278 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
ment would be as sacred to a certain extent as it is at present.
No man would obtrude himself upon me to interrupt the
course of my studies and meditations. No man would feel
the whim of occupying my apartment while he could provide
himself another as good of his own. That which was my
apartment yesterday would probably be my apartment today.
We have few pursuits that do not require a certain degree
of apparatus, and it would be for the general good that I
should find in ordinary cases the apparatus ready for my
use today that I left yesterday. But though the idea of
property thus modified would remain, the jealousy and self-
ishness of property would be gone. Bolts and locks would
be unknown. Every man would be welcome to make every
use of my accommodations that did not interfere with my
own use of them. Novices as we are, we may figure to our-
selves a thousand disputes where property was held by so
slight a tenure. But disputes would in reality be impossible.
They are the offspring of a misshapen and disproportioned
love of ourselves. Do you want my table? Make one for
yourself; or if I be more skilful in that respect than you, I
will make one for you. Do you want it immediately? Let
us compare the urgency of your wants and mine, and let
justice decide.
These observations lead us to the consideration of one
additional difficulty, which relates to the division of labour.
Shall each man make all his tools, his furniture and ac-
commodations? This would perhaps be a tedious operation.
Every man performs the task to which he is accustomed
more skilfully and in a shorter time than another. It is
reasonable that you should make for me that which perhaps
I should be three or four times as long making and should
make imperfectly at last. Shall we then introduce barter
Inflexibility of its Restrictions 279
and exchange? By no means. The abstract spirit of ex-
change will perhaps govern; every man will employ an equal
portion of his time in manual labour. But the individual
application of exchange is of all practices the most per-
nicious. The moment I require any other reason for supply-
ing you than the cogency of your claim—the moment, in
addition to the dictates of benevolence, I demand a prospect
of advantage to myself—there is an end of that political
justice and pure society of which we treat. No man will
have a trade. It cannot be supposed that a man will con-
struct any species of commodity but in proportion as it is
wanted. The profession paramount to all others and in
which every man will bear his part will be that of man, and
in addition perhaps that of cultivator.
The division of labour, as it has been treated by com-
mercial writers, is for the most part the offspring of avarice.
It has been found that ten persons can make two hundred
and forty times as many pins in a day as one person.”
This refinement is the growth of luxury. The object is to
see into how vast a surface the industry of the lower classes
may be beaten, the more completely to gild over the indolent
and the proud. The ingenuity of the merchant is whetted
by new improvements of this sort to transport more of the
wealth of the powerful into his own coffers. The possibility
of effecting a compendium of labour by this means will be
greatly diminished when men shall learn to deny themselves
superfluities. The utility of such a saving of labour where
labour is so little will scarcely balance against the evils of so
extensive a cooperation. From what has been said under
this head it appears that there will be a division of labour
if we compare the society in question with the state of the
5 Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chap. I.
**.
280 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
solitaire and the savage. But it will produce an extensive
composition" of labour if we compare it with that to which
we are at present accustomed in civilised Europe.
[Chapter VII, “Of the Objection to This System From the
Principle of Population,” is omitted as being more than ordi-
narily conjectural, and as being altogether superseded by the
more careful considerations of the subject made later by
Malthus, his followers, and his refuters, including Godwin
himself. Of the speculation on the possibility of bodily im-
mortality contained in this chapter and regularly resurrected by
his opponents to prove Godwin an absurdly utopian dreamer,
Godwin says, “What follows must be considered in some degree
as a deviation into the land of conjecture. If it be false, it
leaves the great system to which it is appended in all sound
reason as impregnable as ever. If this do not lead to the true
remedy [i.e., of over-population], it does not follow that there
is no remedy. The great object of enquiry will still remain
open, however defective may be the suggestions that are now to
be offered.”]
* [Second and third editions: “simplification.”]
CHAPTER VIII
OF THE MEANS OF INTRODUCING THE GENUINE
SYSTEM OF PROPERTY
Having thus stated explicitly and without reserve the
great branches of this illustrious picture, there is but one
subject that remains. In what manner shall this interesting
improvement of human society be carried into execution?
Are there not certain steps that are desirable for this pur-
pose? Are there not certain steps that are inevitable? Will
not the period that must first elapse, necessarily be stained
with a certain infusion of evil?
No idea has excited greater horror in the minds of a multi-
tude of persons than that of the mischiefs that are to ensue
from the dissemination of what they call levelling principles.
They believe “that these principles will inevitably ferment in
the minds of the vulgar and that the attempt to carry them
into execution will be attended with every species of calam-
ity.” They represent to themselves “the uninformed and
uncivilised part of mankind as let loose from all restraint
and hurried into every kind of excess. Knowledge and taste,
the improvements of intellect, the discoveries of sages, the
beauties of poetry and art are trampled under foot and ex-
tinguished by barbarians. It is another inundation of Goths
and Vandals, with this bitter aggravation, that the viper that
stings us to death was warmed in our own bosoms.”
They conceive of the scene as “beginning in massacre.”
281
282 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
They suppose “all that is great, preeminent and illustrious as
ranking among the first victims. Such as are distinguished
by peculiar elegance of manners or energy of diction and
composition, will be the inevitable objects of envy and
jealousy. Such as intrepidly exert themselves to succour the
persecuted or to declare to the public those truths which they
are least inclined but which are most necessary for them to
hear will be marked out for assassination.”
Let us not, from any partiality to the system of equality
delineated in this book, shrink from the picture here ex-
hibited. Massacre is the too possible attendant upon revolu-
tion, and massacre is perhaps the most hateful scene, allowing
for its momentary duration, that any imagination can suggest.
The fearful, hopeless expectation of the defeated and the
bloodhound fury of their conquerors is a complication of
mischief that all which has been told of infernal regions
cannot surpass. The cold-blooded massacres that are per-
petrated under the name of criminal justice fall short of
these in their most frightful aggravations. The ministers
and instruments of law have by custom reconciled their
minds to the dreadful task they perform, and bear their
respective parts in the most shocking enormities without
being sensible to the passions allied to those enormities.
But the instruments of massacre are actuated with all the
sentiments of fiends. Their eyes emit flashes of cruelty and
rage. They pursue their victims from street to street and
from house to house. They tear them from the arms of their
fathers and their wives. They glut themselves with bar-
barity and insult, and utter shouts of horrid joy at the
spectacle of their tortures.
We have now contemplated the tremendous picture; what
is the conclusion it behooves us to draw? Must we shrink
Means of Introducing 283
from reason, from justice, from virtue and happiness?
Suppose that the inevitable consequence of communicating
truth were the temporary introduction of such a scene as
has just been described, must we on that account refuse to
communicate it? The crimes that were perpetrated would
in no just estimate appear to be the result of truth, but of
the error which had previously been infused. The impartial
enquirer would behold them as the last struggles of expiring
despotism, which, if it had survived, would have produced
mischiefs scarcely less atrocious in the hour of their com-
mission and infinitely more calamitous by the length of their
duration. If we would judge truly, even admitting the
unfavourable supposition above stated, we must contrast a
moment of horror and distress with ages of felicity. No
imagination can sufficiently conceive the mental improvement
and the tranquil virtue that would succeed were property
Once permitted to rest upon its genuine basis.
And by what means suppress truth and keep alive the
Salutary intoxication, the tranquillising insanity of mind
which some men desire? Such has been too generally the
policy of government through every age of the world. Have
we slaves? We must assiduously retain them in ignorance.
Have we colonies and dependencies? The great effort of
our care is to keep them from being too populous and pros-
perous. Have we subjects? It is “by impotence and misery
that we endeavour to render them supple: plenty is fit for
nothing but to make them unmanageable, disobedient and
mutinous.” ". If this were the true philosophy of social
institutions, well might we shrink from it with horror. How
tremendous an abortion would the human species be found
if all that tended to make them wise tended to make them
1 Book V, Chap. III, IVol. I, p. 21.I].
284 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
unprincipled and profligate? But this it is impossible for
any one to believe who will lend the subject a moment's im-
partial consideration. Can truth, the perception of justice
and a desire to execute it be the source of irretrievable ruin
to mankind? It may be conceived that the first opening and
illumination of mind will be attended with disorder. But
every just reasoner must confess that regularity and happi-
ness will succeed to this confusion. To refuse the remedy,
were this picture of its operation ever so true, would be as
if a man who had dislocated a limb should refuse to undergo
the pain of having it replaced. If mankind have hitherto
lost the road of virtue and happiness, that can be no just
reason why they should be suffered to go wrong forever.
We must not refuse a conviction of error, or even the tread-
ing over again some of the steps that were the result of it.
Another question suggests itself under this head. Can we
suppress truth? Can we arrest the progress of the enquiring
mind? If we can, it will only be done by the most un-
mitigated despotism. Mind has a perpetual tendency to rise.
It cannot be held down but by a power that counteracts its
genuine tendency through every moment of its existence.
Tyrannical and sanguinary must be the measures employed
for this purpose. Miserable and disgustful must be the
scene they produce. Their result will be thick darkness of
the mind, timidity, servility, hypocrisy. This is the alterna-
tive, so far as there is any alternative in their power, be-
tween the opposite measures of which the princes and
governments of the earth have now to choose: they must
either suppress enquiry by the most arbitrary stretches of
power, or preserve a clear and tranquil field in which every
man shall be at liberty to discover and vindicate his opinion.
No doubt it is the duty of governments to maintain the
Means of Introducing 285
most unalterable neutrality in this important transaction.
No doubt it is the duty of individuals to publish truth without
diffidence or reserve, to publish it in its genuine form without
seeking aid from the meretricious arts of publication. The
more it is told, the more it is known in its true dimensions
and not in parts, the less is it possible that it should coalesce
with or leave room for the pernicious effects of error. The
true philanthropist will be eager, instead of suppressing
discussion, to take an active share in the scene, to exert the
full strength of his faculties in discovery, and to contribute
by his exertions to render the operations of thought at once
perspicuous and profound.
It being then sufficiently evident that truth must be told
at whatever expense, let us proceed to consider the precise
amount of that expense, to enquire how much of confusion
and violence is inseparable from the transit which mind has to
accomplish. And here it plainly appears that mischief is
by no means inseparable from the progress. In the mere
circumstance of our acquiring knowledge and accumulating
one truth after another there is no direct tendency to dis-
order. Evil can only spring from the clash of mind with
mind, from one body of men in the community outstripping
another in their ideas of improvement and becoming im-
patient of the opposition they have to encounter.
In this interesting period in which mind shall arrive as it
were at the true crisis of its story, there are high duties
incumbent upon every branch of the community. First,
upon those cultivated and powerful minds that are fitted to
be precursors to the rest in the discovery of truth. They
are bound to be active, indefatigable and disinterested. It
is incumbent upon them to abstain from inflammatory lan-
guage, from all expressions of acrimony and resentment.
286 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
It is absurd in any government to erect itself into a court
of criticism in this respect and to establish a criterion of
liberality and decorum; but for that very reason it is doubly
incumbent on those who communicate their thoughts to the
public to exercise a rigid censure over themselves. The
tidings of liberty and equality are tidings of good will to all
orders of men. They free the peasant from the iniquity that
depresses his mind, and the privileged from the luxury and
despotism by which he is corrupted. Let those who bear
these tidings not stain their benignity by showing that that
benignity has not yet become the inmate of their hearts.
Nor is it less necessary that they should be urged to tell the
whole truth without disguise. No maxim can be more perni-
cious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of
the times and to tell only so much as we imagine our con-
temporaries will be able to bear. This practice is at present
almost universal and it is the mark of a very painful degree
of depravity. We retail and mangle truth. We impart it to
our fellows, not with the liberal measure with which we have
received it, but with such parsimony as our own miserable
prudence may chance to prescribe. We pretend that truths
fit to be practised in one country—nay, truths which we
confess to be eternally right—are not fit to be practised in
another. That we may deceive others with a tranquil con-
science we begin with deceiving ourselves. We put shackles
upon our minds and dare not trust ourselves at large in the
pursuit of truth. This practice took its commencement from
the machinations of party and the desire of one wise and
adventurous leader to carry a troop of weak, timid and
selfish supporters in his train. There is no reason why I
should not declare in any assembly upon the face of the earth
that I am a republican. There is no more reason why, being
Means of Introducing 287
a republican under a monarchical government, I should
enter into a desperate faction to invade the public tran-
quillity than if I were monarchical under a republic. Every
community of men, as well as every individual, must govern
itself according to its ideas of justice. What I should desire
is, not by violence to change its institutions, but by reason to
change its ideas. I have no business with factions or
intrigue, but simply to promulgate the truth and to wait the
tranquil progress of conviction. If there be any assembly
that cannot bear this, of such an assembly I ought to be no
member. It happens much oftener than we are willing to
imagine that “the post of honour” or, which is better, the
post of utility “is a private station.””
The dissimulation here censured, beside its ill effects upon
him who practises it, and by degrading and unnerving his
character upon society at large, has a particular ill con-
sequence with respect to ibe point we are considering. It
lays a mine and prepares an explosion. This is the tendency
of all unnatural restraint. Meanwhile the unfettered pro-
gress of truth is always salutary. Its advances are gradual
and each step prepares the general mind for that which is to
follow. They are sudden and unprepared emanations of
truth that have the greatest tendency to deprive men of their
sobriety and self-command. Reserve in this respect is cal-
culated at once to give a rugged and angry tone to the
multitude whenever they shall happen to discover what is
thus concealed, and to mislead the depositaries of political
power. It sooths them into false security and prompts them
to maintain an inauspicious obstinacy.
Having considered what it is that belongs in such a crisis to
the enlightened and wise, let us next turn our attention to a
2 Addison's Cato, Act IV.
288 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
very different class of society, the rich and great. And here
in the first place it may be remarked that it is a very false
calculation that leads us universally to despair of having
these for the advocates of equality. Mankind are not so
miserably selfish as satirists and courtiers have supposed.
We never engage in any action without enquiring what is
the decision of justice respecting it. We are at all times
anxious to satisfy ourselves that what our inclinations lead
us to do is innocent and right to be done.” Since therefore
justice occupies so large a share in the contemplations of the
human mind, it cannot reasonably be doubted that a strong
and commanding view of justice would prove a powerful
motive to influence our choice. But that virtue which for
whatever reason we have chosen soon becomes recommended
to us by a thousand other reasons. We find in it reputation,
eminence, self-complacence and the divine pleasures of an
approving mind.
The rich and great are far from callous to views of general
felicity when such views are brought before them with that
evidence and attraction of which they are susceptible. From
one dreadful disadvantage their minds are free. They have
not been soured with unrelenting tyranny or narrowed by
the perpetual pressure of distress. They are peculiarly
qualified to judge of the emptiness of that pomp and those
gratifications which are always most admired when they are
seen from a distance. They will frequently be found con-
siderably indifferent to these things, unless confirmed by
habit and rendered inveterate by age. If you show them
the attractions of gallantry and magnanimity in resigning
them, they will often be resigned without reluctance. Wher-
ever accident of any sort has introduced an active mind,
8 Book II, Chap. III, IVol. I, p. 51].
Means of Introducing 289
there enterprise is a necessary consequence; and there are
few persons so inactive as to sit down forever in the supine
enjoyment of the indulgences to which they were born. The
same spirit that has led forth the young nobility of successive
ages to encounter the hardships of a camp might easily be
employed to render them champions of the cause of equality;
nor is it to be believed that the circumstance of superior
virtue and truth in this latter exertion will be without its
effect.
But let us suppose a considerable party of the rich and
great to be actuated by no view but to their emolument and
ease. It is not difficult to show them that their interest in
this sense will admit of no more than a temperate and yield-
ing resistance. Much no doubt of the future tranquillity or
confusion of mankind depends upon the conduct of this
party. To them I would say: “It is in vain for you to fight
against truth. It is like endeavouring with the human hand
to stop the inroad of the ocean. Retire betimes. Seek your
safety in concession. If you will not go over to the standard
of political justice, temporise at least with an enemy whom
you cannot overcome. Much, inexpressibly much, depends
upon you. If you be wise, if you be prudent, if you would
secure at least your lives and your personal ease amidst the
general shipwreck of monopoly and folly, you will be un-
willing to irritate and defy. Unless by your rashness, there
will be no confusion, no murder, not a drop of blood will be
spilt, and you will yourselves be made happy. If you brave
the storm and call down every species of odium on your
heads, still it is possible, still it is to be hoped that the gen-
eral tranquillity may be maintained. But should it prove
otherwise, you will have principally to answer for all the
consequences that shall ensue.
290 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
“Above all, do not be lulled into a rash and headlong se-
curity. We have already seen how much the hypocrisy and
instability of the wise and enlightened of the present day—
those who confess much and have a confused view of still
more, but dare not examine the whole with a steady and
unshrinking eye—are calculated to increase this security.
But there is a danger still more palpable. Do not be misled
by the unthinking and seeming general cry of those who
have no fixed principles. Addresses have been found in
every age a very uncertain criterion of the future conduct of
a people. Do not count upon the numerous train of your
adherents, retainers and servants. They afford a very feeble
dependence. They are men, and cannot be dead to the in-
terests and claims of mankind. Some of them will adhere
to you as long as a sordid interest seems to draw them in
that direction. But the moment yours shall appear to be the
losing cause, the same interest will carry them over to the
enemy's standard. They will disappear like the morning
dew.
“May I not hope that you are capable of receiving im-
pression from another argument? Will you feel no com-
punction at the thought of resisting the greatest of all ben-
efits? Are you content to be regarded by the most enlight-
ened of your contemporaries and to be handed down to the
remotest posterity as the obstinate adversaries of philan-
thropy and justice? Can you reconcile it to your own minds
that for a sordid interest, for the cause of general corrup-
tion and abuse, you should be found active in stifling truth
and strangling the new-born happiness of mankind?”
Would to God it were possible to carry home this argument
to the enlightened and accomplished advocates of aristocracy!
Would to God they could be persuaded to consult neither
Means of Introducing 29I
passion, nor prejudice, nor the flights of imagination in de-
ciding upon so momentous a question “We know that truth
does not stand in need of your alliance to secure her triumph.
We do not fear your enmity. But our hearts bleed to see
such gallantry, such talents and such virtue enslaved to
prejudice and enlisted in error. It is for your sakes that
we expostulate, and for the honour of human nature.” “
To the general mass of the adherents of the cause of
justice it may be proper to say a few words. “If there be
any force in the arguments of this work, thus much at least
we are authorised to deduce from them, that truth is ir-
resistible. . . .
“Let then this axiom of the omnipotence of truth be the
rudder of our undertakings. Let us not precipitately en-
deavour to accomplish that today which the dissemination of
truth will make unavoidable tomorrow. Let us not anxiously
watch for occasions and events: the ascendancy of truth is
* [A note in the third edition adds to this paragraph (somewhat
altered in that edition): “While this sheet is in the press . . . I
receive the intelligence of the death of Burke, who was principally
in the author's mind while he penned the preceding sentences. In
all that is most exalted in talents, I regard him as the inferior of
no man that ever adorned the face of the earth; and in the long
record of human genius I can find for him very few equals. . . . His
principal defect consisted in this: that the false estimate as to the
things entitled to our deference and admiration which could alone
render the aristocracy with whom he lived unjust to his worth in
some degree infected his own mind. He therefore sought wealth
and plunged in expense instead of cultivating the simplicity of inde-
pendence; and he entangled himself with a petty combination of
political men, instead of reserving his illustrious talents unwarped
for the advancement of intellect and the service of mankind. He
has unfortunately left us a memorable example of the power of a
corrupt system of government to undermine and divert from their
genuine purposes the noblest faculties that have yet been exhibited
to the observation of the world.”]
292 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
independent of events. Let us anxiously refrain from vio-
lence: force is not conviction and is extremely unworthy of
the cause of justice. Let us admit into our bosoms neither
contempt, animosity, resentment nor revenge. The cause of
justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should over-
flow with universal good will. We should love this cause,
for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind. We
should love it, for there is not a man that lives who in the
natural and tranquil progress of things will not be made
happier by its approach. The most powerful cause by which
it has been retarded is the mistake of its adherents, the air
of ruggedness, brutishness and inflexibility which they have
given to that which in itself is all benignity. Nothing less
than this could have prevented the great mass of enquirers
from bestowing upon it a patient examination. Be it the
care of the now increasing advocates of equality to remove
this obstacle to the success of their cause. We have but two
plain duties, which, if we set out right, it is not easy to mis-
take. The first is an unwearied attention to the great instru-
ment of justice, reason. We must divulge our sentiments
with the utmost frankness. We must endeavour to impress
them upon the minds of others. In this attempt we must
give way to no discouragement. We must sharpen our in-
tellectual weapons; add to the stock of our knowledge; be
pervaded with a sense of the magnitude of our cause; and
perpetually increase that calm presence of mind and self-
possession which must enable us to do justice to our prin-
ciples. Our second duty is tranquillity.”
It will not be right to pass over a question that will in-
evitably suggest itself to the mind of the reader. If an
equalisation of property be to take place, not by law, regula-
tion or public institution, but only through the private con-
Means of Introducing 293
viction of individuals, in what manner shall it begin? In
answering this question it is not necessary to prove so simple
a proposition as that all republicanism, all equalisation of
ranks and immunities, strongly tends towards an equalisation
of property. Thus in Sparta this last principle was com-
pletely admitted. In Athens the public largesses were so
great as almost to exempt the citizens from manual labour,
and the rich and eminent only purchased a toleration for their
advantages by the liberal manner in which they opened their
stores to the public. In Rome agrarian laws, a wretched and
ill-chosen substitute for equality but which grew out of the
same spirit, were perpetually agitated. If men go on to
increase in discernment, and this they certainly will with
peculiar rapidity, when the ill-constructed governments which
now retard their progress are removed, the same arguments
which showed them the injustice of ranks will show them the
injustice of one man's wanting that which while it is in the
possession of another conduces in no respect to his well-
being.
It is a common error to imagine that this injustice will be
felt only by the lower orders who suffer from it; and hence
it would appear that it can only be corrected by violence.
But in answer to this it may in the first place be observed
that all suffer from it, the rich who engross as well as the
poor who want. Secondly, it has been clearly shown in the
course of the present work that men are not so entirely gov-
erned by self-interest as has frequently been supposed. It
has been shown, if possible still more clearly, that the
selfish are not governed solely by sensual gratification or the
love of gain, but that the desire of eminence and distinction
is in different degrees an universal passion. Thirdly and
principally, the progress of truth is the most powerful of
294 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice,
all causes. Nothing can be more absurd than to imagine
that theory, in the best sense of the word, is not essentially
connected with practice. That which we can be persuaded
clearly and distinctly to approve will inevitably modify our
conduct. Mind is not an aggregate of various faculties con-
tending with each other for the mastery, but on the contrary
the will is in all cases correspondent to the last judgment of
the understanding. When men shall distinctly and habitu-
ally perceive the folly of luxury and when their neighbours
are impressed with a similar disdain, it will be impossible that
they should pursue the means of it with the same avidity as
before.
It will not be difficult perhaps to trace in the progress of
modern Europe from barbarism to refinement a tendency
towards the equalisation of property. In the feudal times,
as now in India and other parts of the world, men were born
to a certain station, and it was nearly impossible for a peas-
ant to rise to the rank of a noble. Except the nobles there
were no men that were rich, for commerce, either external
or internal, had scarcely an existence. Commerce was one
engine for throwing down this seemingly impregnable barrier
and shocking the prejudices of nobles, who were sufficiently
willing to believe that their retainers were a different species
of beings from themselves. Learning was another and more
powerful engine. In all ages of the church we see men of the
basest origin rising to the highest eminence. Commerce
proved that others could rise to wealth beside those who were
cased in mail; but learning proved that the low-born were
capable of surpassing their lords. The progressive effect of
these ideas may easily be traced by the attentive observer.
Long after learning began to unfold its powers, its votaries
still submitted to those obsequious manners and servile dedi-
Means of Introducing 295
cations which no man reviews at the present day without
astonishment. It is but lately that men have known that in-
tellectual excellence can accomplish its purposes without a
patron. At present, among the civilised and well-informed
a man of slender wealth but of great intellectual powers and
a firm and virtuous mind is constantly received with atten-
tion and deference; and his purse-proud neighbour who
should attempt to treat him superciliously is sure to be dis-
countenanced in his usurpation. The inhabitants of distant
villages, where long-established prejudices are slowly de-
stroyed, would be astonished to see how comparatively small
a share wealth has in determining the degree of attention
with which men are treated in enlightened circles.
These no doubt are but slight indications. It is with
morality in this respect as it is with politics. The progress
is at first so slow as for the most part to elude the observa-
tion of mankind; nor can it indeed be adequately perceived
but by the contemplation and comparison of events during a
considerable portion of time. After a certain interval the
scene is more fully unfolded and the advances appear more
rapid and decisive. While wealth was everything, it was to
be expected that men would acquire it, though at the expense
of character and integrity. Absolute and universal truth
had not yet shown itself so decidedly as to be able to enter
the lists with what dazzled the eye or gratified the sense. In
proportion as the monopolies of ranks and companies are
abolished, the value of superfluities will not fail to decline.
In proportion as republicanism gains ground, men will come
to be estimated for what they are, not for what force has
given and force may take away.
Let us reflect for a moment on the gradual consequences of
this revolution of opinion. Liberality of dealing will be
296 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
among its earliest results, and of consequence accumulation
will become less frequent and less enormous. Men will not
be disposed, as now, to take advantage of each other's dis-
tresses and to demand a price for their aid, not measured by
a general standard, but by the wants of an individual. They
will not consider how much they can extort, but how much it
is reasonable to require. The master tradesman who em-
ploys labourers under him will be disposed to give a more
ample reward to their industry, which he is at present en-
abled to tax chiefly by the neutral circumstance of having
provided a capital. Liberality on the part of his employer
will complete in the mind of the artisan what ideas of
political justice will probably have begun. He will no longer
spend the little surplus of his earnings in that dissipation
which is at present one of the principal causes that subject
him to the arbitrary pleasure of a superior. He will escape
from the irresolution of slavery and the fetters of despair
and perceive that independence and ease are scarcely less
within his reach than that of any other member of the com-
munity. This is a natural step towards the still farther
progression in which the labourer will receive entire what-
ever the consumer may be required to pay, without having a
middleman, an idle and useless monopoliser, as he will then
be found, to fatten upon his spoils.
The same sentiments that lead to liberality of dealing will
also lead to liberality of distribution. The trader who is un-
willing to grow rich by extorting from his employer or his
workmen will also refuse to become rich by the not inferior
injustice of withholding from his poor neighbour the supply
he wants. The habit which was created in the former case
of being contented with moderate gains is closely connected
with the habit of being contented with slender accumulation.
Means of Introducing 297
He that is not anxious to add to his heap will not be reluctant
by a benevolent distribution to prevent its increase. Wealth
was once almost the single object of pursuit that presented
itself to the gross and uncultivated mind. Various objects
will hereafter divide men's attention, the love of liberty, the
love of equality, the pursuits of art and the desire of knowl-
edge. These objects will not, as now, be confined to a few,
but will gradually be laid open to all. The love of liberty
obviously leads to the love of man: the sentiment of ben-
evolence will be increased and the narrowness of the selfish
affections will decline. The general diffusion of truth will
be productive of general improvement, and men will daily
approximate towards those views according to which every
object will be appreciated at its true value. Add to which
that the improvement of which we speak is general, not in-
dividual. The progress is the progress of all. Each man
will find his sentiments of justice and rectitude echoed, en-
couraged and strengthened by the sentiments of his neigh-
bours. Apostasy will be made eminently improbable because
the apostate will incur, not only his own censure, but the
censure of every beholder.
One remark will suggest itself upon these considerations.
If the inevitable progress of improvement insensibly lead
towards an equalisation of property, what need was there
of proposing it as a specific object to men's consideration?
The answer to this objection is easy. The improvement in
question consists in a knowledge of truth. But our knowl-
edge will be very imperfect so long as this great branch of
universal justice fails to constitute a part of it. All truth
is useful; can this truth, which is perhaps more fundamental
than any, be without its benefits? Whatever be the object
towards which mind spontaneously advances, it is of no mean
298 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
importance to us to have a distinct view of that object. Our
advances will thus become accelerated. It is a well-known
principle of morality that he who proposes perfection to
himself, though he will inevitably fall short of what he pur-
sues, will make a more rapid progress than he who is con-
tented to aim only at what is imperfect. The benefits to
be derived in the interval from a view of equalisation as one
of the great objects towards which we are tending are ex-
ceedingly conspicuous. Such a view will strongly conduce
to make us disinterested now. It will teach us to look with
contempt upon mercantile speculations, commercial pros-
perity, and the cares of gain. It will impress us with a just
apprehension of what it is of which man is capable and in
which his perfection consists, and will fix our ambition and
activity upon the worthiest objects. Mind cannot arrive at
any great and illustrious attainment, however much the na-
ture of mind may carry us towards it, without feeling some
presages of its approach; and it is reasonable to believe that
the earlier these presages are introduced and the more dis-
tinct they are made, the more auspicious will be the event.
FINIS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and its influence on
general virtue and happiness. 2 vols. I793. Second edition,
corrected. 2 vols. 1796. [“Morals” substituted for “general
virtue” in the title..] First American, from the second London
edition, corrected, Philadelphia. 2 vols. 1796. Third edition,
corrected. 2 vols. 1798. (A fourth edition, 1843, is mentioned
in Max Beer: History of British Socialism.)
H. S. Salt: Godwin’s “Political Justice.” A Reprint of the
Essay on “Property” [with an introduction]. 1890.
C. Kegan Paul: William Godwin : His Friends and Con-
temporaries. 2 vols. [The authoritative biography, with let-
ters.] 1876.
H. N. Brailsford: Shelley, Godwin, and their Circle. [1913]
Raymond Gourg: William Godwin : Sa Vie, Ses Oeuvres
Principales. 1908.
Pierre Ramus: William Godwin, der Theoretiker des kom-
munistischen Anarchismus. Eine biographische Studie mit
Auszügen aus seiner Schriften. I907.
Henri Roussin: William Godwin. Igi 3.
William Hazlitt: The Spirit of the Age. (Vol. IV of
Works, edited by A. R. Waller and A. Glover, 1904.) Also
“Mr. Godwin,” from Edinburgh Review, April 1803, (in Vol.
X of Works.)
Leslie Stephen: History of English Thought in the Eigh-
teenth Century. 2 vols. 3rd ed. Igo2.
A. K. Rogers: “Godwin and Political Justice.” Interna-
tional Journal of Ethics. Oct. 1911 (Vol. XXII, p. 50).
299
INDEX
Addison, Joseph, II 287 n
Agincourt, I 8
Alexander, I 6, 195
Alfred, King, I 195
Allen, B. Sprague, I xxiiin
America, I 7, 134; II 250
Amphictyonic council, II 69
Anarchy, I xxi, xxvif, 4; II 48,
184-189; its evils, II 184f;
contrasted with despotism, II
186f; its termination, II 187f
Apollo, II 34
Appius Claudius, II 17
Aquinas, Thomas, II 140
Aristides, II 24, 25
Aristocracy, compared with mon-
archy, I 253f; II 14; its na-
ture, II 3, 5, 14-21 ; its injus-
tice, II Io, 12f; its intolerance,
II I4; kinds of, II 15f; among
the Romans, II 16ff; its foun-
dation, II 18; its distribution
of property, II 18-2I
Aristotle, II 140
Assassination, I I5of
Assemblies, II 63-68; their con-
vocation, I 252; their organi-
sation, II 49ff; their authority,
II 69f
Aurungzebe, I 7
Bacchus, I 6
JBanishment, II 201f
Bartholomew, Saint, massacre
of, I 7, 52
Beccaria, Cesare di, II I70, 173 m.
Bellarmine, Roberto, II 140
Blake, William, I xv, xvii, xviii
Brailsford, H. N., I xxv.
Brutus, I 151; II 17, 8o
Burke, Edmund, I xvii, Io n,
65, II6,t, 239 n; II 29I n; Re-
flections on the Revolution in
France, I xvii, 239 n; II 36 n,
37 m, 233 m; Vindication of
Natural Society, I Ion
Caesar, Julius, I 6, 15I, 231
Caligula, I 93
Calvin, John, I 53, 54
Cambridge History of English
Literature, I xxvi, xxxiv.
Cambyses, I 6
Camillus, II 17
Cato, I 231; II 17, 80, 99, 100
Charlemagne, I 7
Charles I, of England, I 8, 103,
I29, I34
Christ, Jesus, I xxii, 50, 67; II
I03
Church of England, II 92, 93,
I40
Cicero, I 231 n, II 5, 17, 174
Cincinnatus, II 17
Clairmont (Godwin),
X1V
Mrs., I
3OI
3O2
Index
Clement, Jacques, I 52
Climate, its influence, I 28ff, 32f
Coercion, its general disadvan-
tages, II I59-165; its purposes,
II 166-168, 190ff; its applica-
tion, II 169-178; as a tempo-
rary expedient, II 179-193; its
scale, II 194-204; in self-de-
fence, II 166f, 183f
Cohabitation, II 27Of
Coke, Sir Edward, II 140
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, I
xiv:ſ, xviii
Commerce, political interference
with, II 81; and the feudal
system, II 294
Commons, English House of, II
5.I
Condorcet, I xxii, xxv
Confucius, I 67; II IOS
Conscience, its province, I 75f;
in religious matters, II I59f;
in the conduct of life, II 16of
Constitutions, II 128-137
Contract, Social, I 92-96, IoIff
Cooperation, II 267f, 269ff
Coriolanus, II I7
Corresponding Society, I xvii,
xviii
Coventry, II 244 n
Cressy, I 8
Crime, II 143f, 154f; effect of
punishment on, II 196; source
of, II 239
Cromwell, Oliver, I 93
Cyrus, I 6
Damiens, Robert François, I 52
Darius, I 6
Decii, II 17
Democracy, II 21-29, 68; de-
fined, II 22; its supposed evils,
II 21ff; in Athens, II 24f, 26f;
its moral tendency, II 26; and
war, II 4of, 48
De Quincey, Thomas, I xxviif
Despotism, I 213–217; its char-
acter, I Io; compared with an-
archy, II 186f; with revolu-
tion, II 283
Diogenes, I 196f
Dunlap, William, T xvi
Duty, I 50-55; defined, I 53f;
II 193; of a citizen, I 130-132;
best criterion of, II 162f; of a
community, II 18Iff; of indi-
viduals, II 182
JEducation, I 12; II 5ff; of
princes, I 199-203; national, II
138-144; future, II 274ff
Edward IV, of England, I 8
Edwards, Jonathan, I xxi, 43 m,
I75 m.
Election, of a monarch, I 235-
239; by lot, I 236
Elizabeth, Queen, I 195, 2I6
Elton, Oliver, I xxiv.
England, its wars, I 8; its poor,
I 17; its taxes, I 17, 21; its
laws, I 22; its constitution, I
238; II 113f
Enquiry, political
with, II 81ſ
Equality, I 56-59; in distribu-
tion of property, II 228ff,
232ff; objections to, II 244-
280; means of introducing, II
281-298
Eudamidas, II I46
Evidence, I 80; II 174, 176f, 204
interference
Fabii, II 17
Fabricius, II 17
Family affection, I 42f
Fenelon, I xxx, 41, 42; Télé-
Index
303
maque, I 41, 208f n, 2II n
Feudal System, I 23; II 186,
233, 294
Force, I 128f; II 277. See
Coercion
France, its wars, I 7f; II 45 n;
its monarchy, I 223; its assem-
bly of 1787, II 50f; of 1789,
II 128; its convention of 1792,
II I32
Franklin, Benjamin, II 268
Frederic of Prussia, I 195
Freedom of speech, II Io3, 122f
Free will, I 168-177
Genghis Khan, I 7
Genlis, Comtesse de, I 203
Gerard, I 52
Godwin (Shelley), Mary Woll-
stonecraft, I xiv, xix., xxii
Godwin, William, contemporary
reputation, I xi.; conservative
prejudice against, I xi, xii, xvi,
xxiiif; decline in reputation,
I xiii, xvi; biographical sum-
mary, I xii-xiv; his character,
I xiv.f., xxxiii; his influence, I
xvſ; sources of his doctrine,
I xxi-xxiii; objections to, I
xxiii-xxvii; changes in his
opinions, I xxv f, xxvii-xxxii;
Political Justice, I xi, xii, xiii,
xv, xvi, xvii-xxv, xxvi, xxxiii,.
xxxiv.; Enquirer, I xiii, xxiv.f,
xxvi, xxix; Thoughts on Man,
I xiii, xxx; St. Leon, I xiii,
xxxii; other works, I xiii,
xxiv, xxv
Goldsmith, Oliver, I xi
Gourg, Raymond, I xxxiv.
Government, its importance, I
3ff, Io; its influence, I 6ff, 13f,
16ff; distinguished from soci-
ety, I 39; its foundation, I 57,
89-91 ; its character, I IOOff;
II 58-61; forms of, I 115-121;
its conservatism, I I2O ; an evil,
I 191f; its composition, II 49-
54; its purposes, II 60; a tyr-
anny, II 66; its dissolution, II
69-71; its fallibility, II 104f
Gracchi, II 17, 18
Gratitude, I xxxf, 42f
Gunpowder Treason, I 52.
Hall, Robert, I xxiii
Hardy, Thomas, I xvii, xviiif
JHarper, George McLean, I xvi
Hartley, David, I xxif, xxviii,
xxxiv, II n 26
Hazlitt, William, I xi, xxv, xxvi
Helvétius, Claude Adrien, I xxi,
xxii, xxiii, xxxii, xxxiv, 5 m;
II 33 m
Henry IV, of France, I 8, 195
Henry VI, of England, I 8
Heresy, II 98ff, Io2f, 157
Holbach, Paul, Baron d', I xxi,
xxii, xxiii
Holcroft, Thomas, I xv, xviiif
Home, John, II 3 n
Honour, national, II 46
Howard, John, II 198
Hume, David, I xxi, xxiii,
xxxiv, 32, 93 m, II9 m, I45 n,
I70 m; II 236 m, 244 n
Imlay, Fanny, I xiv.
Imposture, the foundation of
monarchy, I 225; political, II
3O-39
Imprisonment, solitary, II 198ff
Inequality, I 16ff, 23; II 18-2I
Institution, positive, its charac-
ter, I 73f, 120; its hostility to
reform, II 9of
3O4.
Index
Johnson, Joseph, I xv.
J ºnent private, I 75-86, 113f,
I2
Juries, II 60, 7of
Justice, its nature, I 40ff, 46ff,
50ff; II Io; its province, I 59;
disliked by princes, I 2 Io; its
importance, II II; retributive,
II I55ff; its criterions, II
161ff; its future, II 214ft
Kings, see Princes
Labour, II 246, 249ſf, 268f, 278ff,
296
Lamb, Charles, I xii, xiv.
Law, II 205-217; favourer of
the rich, I 2 If; iniquitously
administered, I 22; enactment
of, I 107, 164; agrarian and
sumptuary, II 77f; its extinc-
tion, II 135f; abolition of, II
2II-217, 2I9f
Lawyers, II 2Iof
Legislation, I Io/f, 164; II 52ff,
55
Leicester, Dudley, Earl of, I
216 m
Libels, II II6-127
Liberty, I 4; influence of cli-
mate on, I 3off, 118; its intro-
duction, I 3off; its nature, I
32; its enemies, I 33; right to,
I 70; kinds of, II 264f; con-
nection with equality, II 292f
Life, right to, I 7o
Locke, John, I xxi, xxiii, 4 n, Io,
II, 93f, 134
Logan, I I5
Louis XIV, of France, I 8
Lucullus, II 17
Luxury, cause of depravity, I
18f; not irremediable, I 34;
associated with monarchy, I
228; its injustice, I 232f; its
supposed benefits, II 244f; as
objection to equality, II 244-
246
Lycurgus, I 115; II 34, 268
Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de, II
82 m, 236 n
Mackintosh, Sir James, I xxiii
Mahomet, I 7, 50, 67; II 105
Majority, power of, I 96
Malesherbes, Chrétien de, II 33 n
Malthus, Thomas, I xxiv.; II 28o
Mandeville, Bernard, I xxiii; II
244 ſt
Marcellus, II 17
Maria Theresa, I 8
Marius, I 7; II 166, 167
Marlborough, Duke of, I 8
Marriage, II 271-274
Menas, I 197
Miltiades, II 25
Mind, its progress, I 26; II 284;
its nature, II 9of, 154; its cul-
tivation, II Ioo; its omnipo-
tence, II 268
Ministers of state, their char-
acter, I 218–221 ; their appoint-
ment, I 244-247, 251 ; their
responsibility, I 245; their
functions, II 54
Monarchy, its nature, I 194f,
213–217; its courts and minis-
ters, I 218-224; its subjects, I
225-234; elective, I 235-239;
limited, I 240-249; its corrup-
tion, I 22If, 24of; its founda-
tion, I 225; its effects, I
225-234; compared with aris-
tocracy, I 253f; II 14; and
war, II 4of
Monopoly, II 239, 254f .
Indea:
s 305
Montesquieu, Charles, Baron de,
I xvi, IO7, I34, 24I
Morality, its nature, I 51; II
154, 161f; political interfer-
ence with, II 82 f
More, Sir Thomas, II 236 m
Moses, II IO3
Napoleon, I xviii
Nations, character not due to
climate, I 32f; not irreclaim-
able from degeneracy, I 34;
II 8of
Necessity, doctrine of, I I60-
187; defined, I 161; in the ma-
terial universe, I 161-165; in
mind, I 165ff
Necker, Jacques, II 36 m
Newton, Sir Isaac, II IOO, 269
Nottingham, Howard, Earl of, I
217 n.
Oaths, II II2-II5
Obedience, I 100-II.4, 145; II 36
Ogilvie, II 236 m, 242 m
Omar ibn al-Khattab, II I4
Opinion, public, I 139; political
superintendence of, II 75–91;
suppression of, II 98-106;
checked by law, II 209
Paine, Thomas, I xv, xvii, 5 n,
39 m, 65 m; II 8 m, 34 n; Rights
of Man, I xii, xvii, xix, 4 n,
65 m; II 8 n; Common Sense,
I 39 n; II 34 m
Paley, William, II 46 m
Pardons, I 251 ; II 218–220
Parr, Samuel, I xv, xxiii
Patriotism, II 42f
Paul, C. Kegan, I xvin, xix n,
xxiin, xxviin, xxxi n, xxxiiin
Pensions, II I45-I49, 236
Perfectibility of man, I xxviiif,
25ff; II go
Pericles, II 25
Pharaoh, I 243
Phocion, II 25
Pisistratus, II 25
Pitt, William, I xviii, xix., xx
Plato, II 236 m, 237 n
Plutarch, I 231 n
Politics, importance of, I 3ff
Poverty, its prevalence, I Ióf;
its effect, I 17f; cause of its
vices, II 239f
President, I 250-255 g
Previté-Orton, C. W., I xxvi
Price, Richard, I xvii, xxii, xxiii
Priestley, Joseph, I xxii, xxiii
Princes, their rights, I 63; their
education, I 199-203; their ir-
responsibility, I 204ff.; their
private life, I 204-2I2; their
inadequacy, I 225ft, 243
Procrustes, II 209
Promises, I 97–99
Property, its inequality, I 16f,
44ff, 51f; II 18-21; rights of,
I 71 ; II 277; as affected by
abolition of law, II 216f; gen-
uine system of, II 223-23 I;
evils of present system of, II
232-243
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, I xxi
Ptolemy, II Ioo
Punishment, I 9; II I43f, I53–
204; its unsuitableness, I 81-
84; its purposes, II 6of, I66-
I68, 190-192; its nature, II
Io2; defined, II 153f; as a
temporary expedient, II I79-
193; its scale, II 194-204;
modes of, II 195-202; as
check to crime, II 196; its un-
306
Index
certainty, II 219; eternal, II
3off
Pyrrho, I 200
Ravaillac, François, I 52
Raynal, Guillaume, I 57 n
Reform, method of accomplish-
ing, I 33, II9ff, I46ff; II 50,
84, 281-298; its nature, I 119ſf;
opposition to, II 20f
Regulus, II 17
Religion, established, II 92-97;
its doctrine of property, II
23of
Representation, I Iorf; II 28f
Republicanism, I 217; II 249,
293, 295
Resistance, I 125-129
Responsibility, of princes, I 204
ff, 24If; of ministers, I 245
Revolution, I II9, 130-148; II
281–284; English, I 8, 23.8f;
American, I 134; French, I
xvii, xviii, xxix, 134
Rewards, II 78, 79, 85f
Rights, I 60-71; of private judg-
ment, 72-86
Robbery, its cause, I I6
Robinson, George, I xvi, xviii
Rochelle, Siege of, I 7
Rouchefoucault, François,
de la, I 231 n
Romans, their wars, I 6f; II
4I n; their republic, I II5;
their aristocracy, II I6f, 41 n,
their religion, II 31
Romulus, II 201
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, I xvi,
xxiii, 5 m, 95, IOI, I34, 235f; II
33f; Émile, I xxiii, II; II 34 n;
Du Contrat Social, I xxiii, 42 m,
95, IOI, II 33, 34 n; Gouverne-
Duc
ment de Pologne, I 235f; II
34 M.
Rowe, Nicholas, I 2Ion
Saintsbury, George, I xxiv.
Salaries, II I45-I49
Salic law, I 7
Salisbury, Cecil, Earl of, I 217 m
Science, II IOo
Scipios, II 17
Self-love, I 4If, 254
Semiramis, I 6
Servetus, Michael, I 53, 54
Sesostris, I 6
Shakespeare, William, I 211 n;
II IOO
Shelley, Harriet, I xxix
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, I xi, xv.
Sincerity, I 151-159; II 123f,
286f
Slavery, I 3of
Smith, Adam, II 279 m
Social Contract, I 92-96, Iolff,
Society, distinguished from gov-
ernment, I 39; its claims and
duties, I 48; its authority, I
Ioy; its proper end, II 42ff;
its future, II 55-62; as an
agent, II 66, 76f
Solon, I 118
Southey, Robert, I xiv.
Speech, freedom of, II IO3, 122f
Spies, II 78f
Stephen, Sir Leslie, I xxiv, xxv,
xxvi
Sterne, Laurence, I IO7
Strafford, Lord, I 129
Subjects, I 225–234, 247ff
Swift, Jonathan, I xxiii, 8f; II
69, Io:3; Gulliver's Travels, I
8f; II 69, 82, 236 m; Mutual
Subjection, I 47m; II 229 m
Inder
3O7
Sydney, Algernon, I 4 m, 134
Sylla, I 7
Tamerlane, I 7
Taxation, II I45, 148
Taxes, I 17
Tests, II IOZ-III
Thirty Years War, I 8
Tooke, Horne, I xviii
Truth, I I32; its property to
spread, I 31 ; its cultivation, I
152-159; disliked by princes, I
208f, 228, 254; its omnipotence,
I 249; II 27; its tendency, II
26f, 126 f; necessity of its be-
ing told, II 120f, 284ff
Tyrannicide, I 149-151
Universities, II 139
Valerius, II 17
Veto, I 252
Vice, I 5, 15; II 37, 59, 244f
Virtue, I 54f, 152; ignorance not
essential to, II 10of
Voltaire, II 174
Vote, decision by, I 96; II 65f,
I50
Wallace, Robert, II 236 n
War, its frequency, I 6f; its
causes, I 8f; II 40–48, 241 f;
its nature, II 43f
War of the Roses, I 8; II Io
Wedgwood, Thomas, I xxxiii
Will, not a distinct faculty, I
I75f; free, doctrine of, 16o-
177
William III, of England, I 8
Wollstonecraft (Godwin), Mary,
I xiv, xv, xxxiii
Wordsworth, William, I xvſ
Xerxes, I 6, 172
Zoroaster, II IOS
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