ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MORALS AND HAPPINESS

London: Robinson, 1796. 2nd edn. corrected. 8vo, pp. xviii, 464; x, 545. Bound with the half titles in new 3/4 calf and marble boards binding. A clean set. CBEL II, 655; Printing and the Mind of Man #243. Godwin published three editions of Political Justice, the first in 1793, the second in 1796 and the third in 1798. "There are considerable differences between the three editions. The order of the argument was rearranged. The title was changed. Some of his bolder speculations were dropped; others were more heavily qualified..." Enraged by Burke's attack on the philosophy of the French Revolution and Thomas Paine, Godwin determined to lay down first principles to apply the philosophy behind the Revolution. PMM: Godwin's Political Justice is one of the earliest, the clearest, and most absolute expositions of socialist and anarchist principles. Godwin's passionate advocacy of individualism, his trust in the fundamental goodness of man, and his opposition to all restrictions on liberty have endured. "He began writing in September, 1791 and worked continuously for 16 months," and was determined to work out "the most tantalizing of all philosophical questions ... could the methods which had yielded such astonishingly rapid advances in the natural sciences be successfully applied to human psychology, to history, to politics, and to the other 'social sciences'? .. Political Justice was offered to the public as an essay for consideration, not as an authoritative statement ... inquiring into the philosophical basis of government itself ... Published at a moment when human hopes had reason to be at their highest, Political Justice caught the spirit of the age." See St. Clair, James. The Godwins and The Shelleys. (1989).