Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

Two volumes. Tall Quarto (9 by 11 inches), near-contemporary half-calf and marbled boards. pp. xiii, (21), (1) 2-378; (xxviii), (389) 380-895. With half-titles in each volume and errata leaf with directions to the binder. FIRST EDITION of Godwin' revolutionary masterwork "his passionate advocacy of individualism, his trust in the fundamental goodness of man, and his opposition to all restrictions on liberty have endured" (PMM) a profound influence on Thomas Jefferson, who had the first American edition in his library and is viewed as Godwin's "American born counterpart." Along with those of Burke and Paine, Godwin's Enquiry was one of the most influential English political books of the late eighteenth century. It was an equally important landmark in the development of Utilitarian thought, and on political thinking in general. Godwin-the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft-"saw no good in human institutions and sought to put an end to all organized politics, religion and society… The Enquiry was, and remained, the work by which he was best known. It was one of the earliest, the clearest, and most absolute theoretical expositions of… anarchist doctrine. Godwin believed that the motives of all human action were subject to reason, that reason taught benevolence, and that therefore all rational creatures could live in harmony without laws and institutions. Believing in the perfectibility of man, he thought 'that our virtues and vices may be traced to the incidents which make the history of our lives, and if these incidents could be divested of any improper tendency, vice would be extirpated from the world'. All control of man by man was intolerable and 'government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of the original mind… Godwin's passionate advocacy of individualism, his trust in the fundamental goodness of man, and his opposition to all restrictions on liberty, have endured." PMM 243. Enquiry concerning Political Justice drew enormous response: 4000 copies were sold within a few years of its first publication. Wordsworth purportedly said to a student, "Throw aside your books on chemistry, and read Godwin." Allibone I: 684. Evans 30493. CBEL II: 655. A handsome wide-margined copy in an attractive contemporary binding. Housed in a large green clamshell case with a brown morocco label.