1. William Godwin was born in 1756 at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire. He studied theology at Hoxton, beginning in 1773. In 1778 he became preacher at Ware, Hertfordshire; in 1780, preacher at Stowmarket, Suffolk. In 1782 he gave up this position. From this time on he lived in London as an author. He died there in 1836.
Godwin published numerous works in the departments of philosophy, economics, and history; also stories, tragedies, and juvenile books.
2. Godwin's teaching about law, the State, and property is contained mainly in the two-volume work "An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness" (1793).
"The printing of this treatise," says Godwin himself, "was commenced long before the composition was finished. The ideas of the author became more perspicuous and digested as his inquiries advanced. This circumstance has led him into some inaccuracies of language and reasoning, particularly in the earlier part of the work. He did not enter upon the subject without being aware that government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of individual intellect; but he understood the proposition more completely as he proceeded, and saw more distinctly intothe nature of the remedy."[25]Godwin's teaching is here presented exclusively in the developed form which it shows in the second part of the work.
3. Godwin does not call his teaching about law, the State, and property "Anarchism." Yet this word causes him no terror. "Anarchy is a horrible calamity, but it is less horrible than despotism. Where anarchy has slain its hundreds, 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 reason: but, though it be a dreadful remedy, it is a sure one."[26]
According to Godwin, our supreme law is the general welfare.
What is the general welfare? "Its nature is defined by the nature of mind."[27]It is unchangeable; as long as men are men it remains the same.[28]"That will most contribute to it which expands the understanding, supplies incitements to virtue, fills us with a generous consciousness of our independence, and carefully removes whatever can impede our exertions."[29]
The general welfare is our supreme law. "Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual,which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit."[30]"Justice is the sum of all moral duty;"[31]"if there be such a thing, I am bound to do for the general weal everything in my power."[32]"Virtue is a desire to promote the benefit of intelligent beings in general, the quantity of virtue being as the quantity of desire;"[33]"the last perfection of this feeling consists in that state of mind which bids us rejoice as fully in the good that is done by others, as if it were done by ourselves."[34]
"The truly wise man"[35]strives only for the welfare of the whole. He is "actuated neither by interest nor ambition, the love of honor nor the love of fame. [He knows no jealousy. He is not disquieted by the comparison of what he has attained with what others have attained, but by the comparison with what ought to be attained.] He has a duty indeed obliging him to seek the good of the whole; but that good is his only object. If that good be effected by another hand, he feels no disappointment. All men are his fellow laborers, but he is the rival of no man."[36]
I.Looking to the general good, Godwin rejects law, not only for particular local and temporary conditions, but altogether.
"Law is an institution of the most pernicious tendency."[37]"The institution once begun, can never be brought to a close. No action of any man was ever the same as any other action, had ever the samedegree of utility or injury. As new cases occur, the law is perpetually found deficient. It is therefore perpetually necessary to make new laws. The volume in which justice records her prescriptions is for ever increasing, and the world would not contain the books that might be written."[38]"The consequence of the infinitude of law is its uncertainty. Law was made that a plain man might know what he had to expect, and yet the most skilful practitioners differ about the event of my suit."[39]"A farther consideration 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."[40]
"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 monopolizing 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 censure of their intolerance?"[41]"Legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. Reason is [our sole legislator, and her decrees are unchangeable and everywhere the same.]"[42]"Men cannot do more than declare and interpret law; nor can there be an authority so paramount, as to have the prerogative of making that to be law, which abstract and immutable justice had not made to be law previously to that interposition."[43]
To be sure, "it must be admitted that we are imperfect, ignorant, and slaves of appearances."[44]But "whatever inconveniences may arise from the passions of men, the introduction of fixed laws cannot be the genuine remedy."[45]"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 understanding and the vigor 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."[46]
II.The general welfare requires that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law.
"If every shilling of our property, [every hour of our time,] and every faculty of our mind, have received their destination from the principles of unalterable justice,"[47]that is, of the general good,[48]then no other decree can any longer control it. "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."[49]
"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. But, if men can be found among us whose wisdom is equal to the wisdom of law, it will scarcely be maintained, that thetruths they have to communicate will be the worse for having no authority, but that which they derive from the reasons that support them."[50]
"The juridical 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 investigation. Here then would commence an auspicious order of things, of which no understanding man at present in existence can foretell the result, the dethronement of implicit faith, and the inauguration of unclouded justice."[51]
I.Since Godwin unconditionally rejects law, he necessarily has to reject the State as unconditionally. Nay, he regards it as a legal institution peculiarly repugnant to the general welfare.
Some base the State on force, others on divine right, others on contract.[52]But "the hypothesis of force appears to proceed upon the total negation ofabstract and immutable justice, affirming every government to be right, that is possessed of power sufficient to enforce its decrees. It puts a violent termination upon all political science, and is calculated for nothing farther than to persuade men, to sit down quietly under their present disadvantages, whatever they may be, and not exert themselves to discover a remedy for the evils they suffer. The second hypothesis is of an equivocal nature. It either coincides with the first, and affirms all existing power to be alike of divine derivation; or it must remain totally useless, till a criterion can be found, to distinguish those governments which are approved by God, from those which cannot lay claim to that sanction."[53]The third hypothesis would mean that one "should make over to another the control of his conscience and the judging of his duties."[54]"But we cannot renounce our moral independence; it is a property that we can neither sell nor give away; and consequently no government can derive its authority from an original contract."[55]
"All government corresponds in a certain degree to what the Greeks denominated a tyranny. The difference is, that in despotic countries mind is depressed by a uniform usurpation; while in republics it preserves a greater portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily conforms itself to the fluctuations of opinion."[56]"By its very nature positive institution has a tendency to suspend the elasticity and progress of mind."[57]"We should not forget thatgovernment is, abstractedly taken, an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind."[58]
II.The general welfare demands that a social human life based solely on its precepts should take the place of the State.
1. Men are to live together in society even after the abolition of the State. "A fundamental distinction exists between society and government. Men associated at first for the sake of mutual assistance."[59]It was not till later that restraint appeared in these associations, in consequence of the errors and perverseness of a few. "Society and government are different in themselves, and have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. Society is in every state a blessing; government even in its best state but a necessary evil."[60]
But what is to hold men together in "society without government"?[61]Not a promise,[62]at any rate. No promise can bind me; for either what I have promised is good, then I must do it even if there had been no promise; or it is bad, then not even the promise can make it my duty.[63]"The fact that I have committed an error does not oblige me to make myself guilty of a second also."[64]"Suppose I had promised a sum of money for a good and worthy object. In the interval between the promise and its fulfilment a greater and nobler object presents itself tome, and imperiously demands my co-operation. To which shall I give the preference? To the one that deserves it. My promise can make no difference. I must be guided by the value of things, not by an external and alien point of view. But the value of things is not affected by my having taken upon me an obligation."[65]
"Common deliberation regarding the general good"[66]is to hold men together in societies hereafter. This is highly in harmony with the general welfare. "That a nation should exercise undiminished its function of common deliberation, is a step gained, and a step that inevitably leads to an improvement of the character of individuals. That men should agree in the assertion of truth, is no unpleasing evidence of their virtue. Lastly, that an individual, however great may be his imaginary elevation, should be obliged to yield his personal pretensions to the sense of the community, at least bears the appearance of a practical confirmation of the great principle, that all private considerations must yield to the general good."[67]
2. The societies are to be small, and to have as little intercourse with each other as possible.
Small territories are everywhere to administer their affairs independently.[68]"No association of men, so long as they adhered to the principles of reason, could possibly have any interest in extending their territory."[69]"Whatever evils are included in the abstract idea of government, are all of them extremelyaggravated by the extensiveness of its jurisdiction, and softened under circumstances of an opposite species. Ambition, which may be no less formidable 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 a humble lake. Sobriety and equity are the obvious characteristics of a limited circle."[70]—"The desire to gain a more extensive territory, to conquer or to hold in awe our neighboring 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 internal tranquillity, or to defend us against the wanton attacks of a common enemy. But the rivalship of nations is a creature of the imagination."[71]
The little independently-administered territories are to have as little to do with each other as possible. "Individuals cannot have too frequent or unlimited intercourse 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 governments. Before this principle officers of the army and the navy,ambassadors and negotiators, and all the train of artifices 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."[72]
3. But how are the functions that the State performs at present to be performed in the future societies? "Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes, the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community" (which includes the settling of controversies between different districts[73]), "and the common defence against external invasion."[74]
"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 controversies respecting property which may chance to arise."[75]This jury would decide not according to any system of law, but according to reason.[76]—"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 neighboring parishes or jurisdictions should be governed in a similar manner, or at least should be willing, whatever was their form of government, toco-operate 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 binding men than signatures and seals."[77]
The second function would present itself to us only from time to time. "However irrational might be the controversy of parish with parish in such a state of society, it would not be the less possible. Such emergencies can only be provided against by the concert of several districts, declaring and, if needful, enforcing the dictates of justice."[78]Foreign invasions too would make such a concert necessary, and would to this extent resemble those controversies.[79]Therefore it would be "necessary upon certain occasions to have recourse to national assemblies, or in other words assemblies instituted for the joint purpose of adjusting the differences between district and district, and of consulting respecting the best mode of repelling foreign invasion."[80]—But they "ought to be employed as sparingly as the nature of the case will admit."[81]For, in the first place, the decision is given by the number of votes, and "is determined, at best, by the weakest heads in the assembly, but, as it not less frequently happens, by the most corrupt and dishonorable intentions."[82]In the second place, as a rule the members are guided in their decisions by allsorts of external reasons, and not solely by the results of their free reflection.[83]In the third place, they are forced to waste their strength on petty matters, while they cannot possibly let themselves be quietly influenced by argument.[84]Therefore national assemblies 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 certain limit. The former is greatly to be preferred."[85]
But what would be the authority of these national assemblies and those juries? Mankind is so corrupted by present institutions that at first the issuing of commands, and some degree of coercion, would be necessary; but later it would be sufficient for juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, and for national assemblies to invite their constituencies to co-operate for the common advantage.[86]"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 neighbors 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 mostmemorable stages of human improvement. With what delight must every well-informed friend of mankind 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 has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its substance, and no otherwise to be removed than by its utter annihilation!"[87]
I.In consequence of his unconditional rejection of law, Godwin necessarily has to reject property also without any limitation. Nay, property, or, as he expresses himself, "the present system of property,"[88]—that is, the distribution of wealth at present established by law,—appears to him to be a legal institution that is peculiarly injurious to the general welfare."The wisdom of law-makers and parliaments has been applied to creating the most wretched and senseless distribution of property, which mocks alike at human nature and at the principles of justice."[89]
The present system of property distributes commodities in the most unequal and most arbitrary way. "On account of the accident of birth, it piles upon a single man enormous wealth. If one who has been a beggar becomes a well-to-do man, we usually know that he has not precisely his honesty or usefulness to thank for this change. It is often hard enough for the most diligent and industrious member of society to preserve his family from starvation."[90]"And if Ireceive the reward of my work, they give me a hundred times more food than I can eat, and a hundred times more clothes than I can wear. Where is the justice in this? If I am the greatest benefactor of the human race, is that a reason for giving me what I do not need, especially when my superfluity might be of the greatest use to thousands?"[91]
This unequal distribution of commodities is altogether opposed to the general welfare. It hampers intellectual progress. "Accumulated 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 depriving the rich of the most salubrious and effectual motives to activity."[92]And the rich man can buy with his superfluity "nothing but glitter and envy, nothing but the dismal pleasure of restoring to the poor man as alms that to which reason gives him an undeniable right."[93]
But the unequal distribution of commodities is also a hindrance to moral perfection. In the rich it produces ambition, vanity, and ostentation; in the poor, oppression, servility, and fraud, and, in consequence of these, envy, malice, and revenge.[94]"The rich man stands forward as the principal 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 wealthand to display it, is therefore the universal passion."[95]"Force would have died away as reason and civilization advanced, but accumulated property has fixed its empire."[96]"The fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute."[97]
II.The general welfare demands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property.When Godwin uses the expression "property" for that portion of commodities which is assigned to an individual by these precepts, he does so only in a transferred sense; only a portion assigned by law can be designated as property in the strict sense.
Now, according to the decrees of the general welfare, every man should have the means for a good life.
1. "How is it to be decided whether an object that may be used for the benefit of man shall be my property or yours? There is only one answer; according to justice."[98]"The laws of different countries dispose of property in a thousand different ways; but only one of them can be most consonant with justice."[99]
Justice demands in the first place that every man have the means for life. "Our animal needs, it is well known, consist in food, clothing, and shelter. If justice means anything, nothing can be more unjust than that any man lacks these and at the same time another has too much of them. But justice does not stop here. So far as the general stock of commodities holds out, every one has a claim not only to themeans for life, but to the means for a good life. It is unjust that a man works to the point of destroying his health or his life, while another riots in superfluity. It is unjust that a man has not leisure to cultivate his mind, while another does not move a finger for the general welfare."[100]
2. Such a "state of equality"[101]would advance the general welfare in the highest degree. In it labor would become "so light, as rather to assume the appearance of agreeable relaxation, and gentle exercise."[102]"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, and to let loose his faculties in the search of intellectual improvement."[103]
"How rapid would be the advances of intellect, if all men were admitted into the field of knowledge! It is to be presumed that the inequality of mind would in a certain degree be permanent; but it is reasonable to believe that the geniuses of such an age would far surpass the greatest exertions of intellect that are at present known."[104]
And the moral progress would be as great as the intellectual. The vices which are inseparably joined to the present system of property "would inevitably expire in a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all shared alike thebounties of nature. The narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little store, or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. No man would be an enemy to his neighbor, for they would have no subject of contention; and of consequence philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her."[105]
3. But how could such a distribution of commodities be effected in a particular case?
"As soon as law was abolished, men would begin to inquire 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 inquire 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 enjoyments. 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 the whole succession. One of the claimants is an unmarried woman past the age of child-bearing. Another is a widow, unprovided, and with a numerous familydepending on her succor. The first question that would suggest itself to unprejudiced 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?"[106]And their answer could not be doubtful.
The change which is called for by the general welfare should, according to Godwin, be effected by those who have recognized the truth persuading others how necessary the change is for the general welfare, so that law, the State, and property would spontaneously disappear and the new condition would take their place.
I. The sole requirement is to convince men that the general welfare demands the change.
1. Every other way is to be rejected. "Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides. Therefore we should regard all force with aversion. When we enter the lists of battle, we quit the sure domain of truth and leave the decision to the caprice of chance. The phalanx of reason is invulnerable; it moves forward with calm, sure step, and nothing can withstand it. But, when we lay aside arguments, and have recourse to the sword, the case is altered. Amidst the clamorous din of civil war, who shall tell whether the event will be prosperous or adverse? We must therefore distinguish carefully betweeninstructing the people and exciting them. We must refuse indignation, rage, and passion, and desire only sober reflection, clear judgment, and fearless discussion."[107]
2. The point is to convince men as generally as possible. Only when this is accomplished can acts of violence be avoided. "Why did the revolution in France and America find all sorts and conditions of men almost unanimous, while the resistance to Charles the First divided our nation into two equal parties? Because the latter occurred in the seventeenth century, the former at the end of the eighteenth. Because at the time of the revolutions in France and America philosophy had already developed some of the great truths of political science, and under the influence of Sydney and Locke, of Montesquieu and Rousseau, a number of strong and thoughtful minds had perceived what an evil force is. If these revolutions had taken place still later, not a drop of civic blood would have been shed by civic hands, not in a single case would force have been used against persons or things."[108]
3. The means to convince men as generally as possible of the necessity of a change consist in "proof and persuasion. The best warrant of a happy outcome lies in free, unrestricted discussion. In this arena truth must always be victor. If, therefore, we would improve the social institutions of mankind, we must seek to convince by spoken and written words. This activity has no limits; this endeavor admits of no interruption. Every means must be used, not somuch to draw men's attention and bring them over to our opinion by persuasion, as rather to remove every barrier to thought and to open to everybody the temple of science and the field of study."[109]
"Therefore the man who has at heart the regeneration of his species should always bear in mind two principles, to regard hourly progress in the discovery and dissemination of truth as essential, and calmly to let years pass before he urges the carrying into effect of his teaching. With all his prudence, it may be that the boisterous multitude will hurry ahead of the calm, quiet progress of reason; then he will not condemn the revolution that takes place some years before the time set by wisdom. But if he is ruled by strict prudence he can without doubt frustrate many over-hasty attempts, and considerably prolong the general quietness."[110]
"This does not mean, as one might think, that the changing of our conditions lies at an immeasurable distance. It is the nature of human affairs that great alterations take place suddenly, and great discoveries are made unexpectedly, as it were accidentally. When I cultivate a young person's mind, when I exert myself to influence that of an older person, it will long seem as if I had accomplished little, and the fruits will show themselves when I least expect them. The kingdom of truth comes quietly. The seed of virtue may spring up when it was fancied to be lost."[111]"If the true philanthropist but tirelessly proclaims the truth and vigilantly opposes all that hinders itsprogress, he may look forward, with heart at rest, to a speedy and favorable outcome."[112]
II. As soon as the conviction that the general welfare demands a change in our condition has made itself generally felt, law, the State, and property will disappear spontaneously and give way to the new condition. "Reform, under this meaning of the term, can scarcely be considered as of the nature of action. [It is a general enlightenment.] Men feel their situation; and the restraints that shackled them before, vanish like a deception. When such a crisis has arrived, not a sword will need to be drawn, not a finger to be lifted up in purposes of violence. The adversaries will be too few and too feeble, to be able to entertain a serious thought of resistance against the universal sense of mankind."[113]
In what way may the change of our conditions take place?
1. "The opinion most popular in France at the time that the national convention entered upon its functions, was that the business of the convention extended only to the presenting a draft of a constitution, to be submitted in the sequel to the approbation of the districts, and then only to be considered as law."[114]
"The first idea that suggests itself respecting this opinion is, that, if constitutional laws ought to be subjected to the revision of the districts, then all laws ought to undergo the same process. [But if the approbation of the districts to any declarations is notto be delusive, the discussion of these declarations in the districts must be unlimited. Then] 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 modeled to obtain their approbation, it is possible that the very alteration introduced to please one part of the community may render the code less acceptable to another."[115]
"This principle of a consent of districts has an immediate tendency, by a salutary gradation perhaps, to lead to the dissolution of all government."[116]It is indeed "desirable that the most important acts of the national representatives should be subject 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."[117]
2. This system would have the effect, first, that the constitution would be very short. The impracticability of obtaining the free approbation of a great number of districts to an extensive code would speedily manifest itself; and the whole constitution might consist of a scheme for the division of the country into parts equal in their population, and 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.[118]
A second effect would be, that it would soon be found a proceeding unnecessarily circuitous to send laws to the districts for their revision, unless in cases essential to the general safety, and that in as many instances as possible the districts would be suffered to make laws for themselves. "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 co-operation upon extraordinary occasions."[119]
A third effect would consist in the gradual cessation of legislation. "A great assembly collected from the different provinces of an extensive territory, 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. A 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 nature, would soon be led to suspect that general laws were unnecessary, and would adjudge the causes that came before them, not according to certain axioms previously written, but according to the circumstances and demands of each particular cause."[120]
A fourth effect would be that the abrogation of property would be favored. "All equalization of rank and station strongly tends toward anequalization of possessions."[121]So not only the lower orders, but also the higher, would see the injustice of the present distribution of property.[122]"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."[123]But even so far as they might think only of their own emolument and ease, it would not be difficult to show them that it is in vain to fight against truth, and dangerous to bring upon themselves the hatred of the people, and that it might be to their own interest to make up their minds to concessions at least.[124]