The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-05-23


done all that you ought. you have done all that
you can. Thus, with q kind OF implacablo ideal.
ism, did Goodwin erect his fabric OF political jus.
ticc. Nor did he for n moment suppose that
no was constructing an imaginary common.
wealth or picturing a Utopia. He was
posscsscd by an ardent faith in his own
ideas as about to be realized, by an unquencha-
bio hopo in the future Of mankind. The key.
stone OF his entire structure he hold to be his
conception Of property. To whom, he asks, does
any article Of property. n loaf OF bread, for In,
stance, Justly bclongi Assuredly, no answers,
to him who wants 1t most, or to whom the pos.
session Of IL will be most beneficial. Every man.
he thought, was entitled. so far as tho general
stock will suffice, not only to the means of being,
but of we'll being. Every man should make his
contribution to the common stock and every
man should possess his share. What religious
teachers have called almsgiving or charity is,
in truth, a mere act OF justice. Goodwin calcu.
lated that half an hour out of each day employed
in manual labor by every member Of the com.
munity would sufficiently supply tho whole com.
munity with necessaries.
We are, at tho same time, cautioned by Prof.
Dowdcn against the Inference that Goodwin was
OF the school OF modern socialism. On the con.
trary, no was an incorporating Individuals.
Everything in the nature Of cooperation was no.
pcllant to his mind. He even anticipated tho
time when a musical concert in which several
performers take part may DO felt to DO ali in.
tolcrable anomaly; when, for truly rational
auditors, n solitary musician will perform tho
whole, rendering his own composition, since 10
other than his own can be native to his reason
and his imagination: A time when theatrical
exhibitions must cease because no human being
in the age Of enlightenment will como forward
to repeat ideas and words that are not his
own. In that happier epoch. moreover. man
and woman will cooperate as husband and
wife only for 80 long as each may
deem IL beneficial. The institution Of marriage
he pronounced "a system Of fraud" It is "tho
worst of laws it is a violation OF individual
liberty. The family, as We know II, will merge
itself in the universal family OF mankind Each
human unit being independent, yet bound 10
every other human unit by justice, Goodwin cN.
pected that, at no distant date, surnamcs would
pass out OF use; man will, at last, be man. no less
and no more. Is 1t to Godwino or to Shelley that
we are listening, to n philosopher or 10 a poctl
II is, indeed, as our author says, TO both, for The
disciple in his more doctrinaire poems only
translated into terms OF emotion and imagina.
ton the intellectual oracles Of his master. Va
cannot, indeed. afford to overlook the author Of
"Political Justice as q mere dreamer, for
several reasons: First, on account of his wide.
reaching influence. For u time. Godwin's
lChNi "a ~ "'s' aNN ~ 'N'' =
Coleridge. at first. submitted TO the force of his
reasoning. though, before long, he became a re-.
voltcr. Throw aside your books OF chemistry"
said Wordsworth to a student in the Temple.
land read Goodwin on Necessity" II, how.
ever. we would see the principles of Political
Justice" translated into poetry and realized in
action, we have only, as we have said, to study
the writings and the life of Goodwin pupil and
son-in-law. Shelley. The latter accepted in block
#. ,.l; thn,rh J1,htlnau ;t hal opipi-
ties with his mind. was not the native o%utgrowth
of his intellect, but a system imposed upon it by
an elder teacher. Another reason why Goodwin
cannot he neglected by the historian of his epoch
is that, IL no and Shelley were dreamers.
they, at all events, dreamed a portion
of the truth; fragments of the dream were
prophetic of actual tendencies in modern So
ciety. In the third place, the book, political
Justice" with ali its fantastic Illusions. is, in n
high degree. representative of the time. Its
utilitarian ethics are the ethics of the second
half Of the eighteenth century; the reigning per-
sonage of the treatise is the revolutionary alb
straction. MAN-man denuded of all distinctions.
viewed apart from all conditions and circum.
stances. The three sacred words of the revolu-
tion-liberty. equality. fraternity-are adopted
and written large by Goodwin; liberty the most
absolute; equality as complete as can be at.
tanned, for certain natural inequalities the
tneOFlSU Is unaDle 10 ueny, 1TuleTnlty TedllLeu Ill
principles OF universal bcncvolence. The whole
body of Godwin's thought is inspired. by the
boundless faith In human nature which sus-
tanned and animated the nobier spirits OF 1880;
human pcrfcctibihty was a cardinal article in
his creed; his hopes for the future were ERE as as.
ship of reason was celebrated in the system
Of the ,, philosopher with the piopSs son orgies gle.
mated, no writer expresses moro clearly than
Goodwin the individualism which marked tho
opening OF the revolutionary movement OF Fu-
strikingIy its entire lack Of historical thoashs
out of the past: the heritage from former gen.
%erations is a heritage Of superstition. Tyranny.
destroyed. The Year One has arrived, and the
whole world has TO be reconstructed. without
cies. on the principles Of the reason. In fine, the
fallacies as we'll as the truths of Political Jus
tice" belong less to the Individual writer thanlo
in which he lived and moved. There is no doubt
that Goodwin was deeply influenced, not only by
witness. but by those writings of the French
eiighteenth-centpry philosophers which prGcGted
bach. Rousseau. and Helvctius.
In some pages devoted to Mary Wollstone-
almost overwhelmed her were directly traceable
to the new ethics Of the time. playing upon an
s si1s. s%ens!iive 1n Ssast. @s h h"ae ae sou i%RSSi'
word for it that, she was a delightful w~
%R a%dis. "T Would ir h sst'' Seo times %n Excellent Ss In " SnS.'
praised living being except Mary Wollslone..
craft Prof. Dowden thinks that the title OF
her best.known work, "A Vindication Of tho
Rights OF Woman" has given many persons !.
misconception OF her personal character and q
the nature Of her writings. She was. before all
else. an ardent, sensitive human being. need.
DO loved. She feared, and with good
cause. her, own eager, craving. incorporate
as a sentinel over that heart. Her treatise on
the Rights Of Woman was written not merely 20
maintain the claims which she made in favor OF
half the human race. but also to assert for her
own benefit. and. as 1t were, against her own
emotional temperament, the claims OF reason.
Her plea is not n plea for woman As against man.
but for woman as against the sensual ana mo
sentimental estimate OF many men, and, al tho
same time, as against that part of her own r"N
which accepted and turned to their account ihis
unworthy estimate. Her conception OF the ideal
woman was neither thai of the doll OF the dolls
house, nor that of tho chivalric queen OF mo
court OF love, nor that OF the Eastern OdaIisque.
II approached very near to the ideal outlined IN