and it is undoubtedly of sufficient weight of itself completely
to overturn Mr Godwin's whole system of equality. I will,
however, make one or two observations on a few of the prominent
parts of Mr Godwin's reasonings which will contribute to place in
a still clearer point of view the little hope that we can
reasonably entertain of those vast improvements in the nature of
man and of society which he holds up to our admiring gaze in his
Political Justice.

Mr Godwin considers man too much in the light of a being
merely intellectual. This error, at least such I conceive it to
be, pervades his whole work and mixes itself with all his
reasonings. The voluntary actions of men may originate in their
opinions, but these opinions will be very differently modified in
creatures compounded of a rational faculty and corporal
propensities from what they would be in beings wholly
intellectual. Mr Godwin, in proving that sound reasoning and
truth are capable of being adequately communicated, examines the
proposition first practically, and then adds, 'Such is the
appearance which this proposition assumes, when examined in a
loose and practical view. In strict consideration it will not
admit of debate. Man is a rational being, etc.' (Bk. I, ch. 5; in
the third edition Vol. I, p. 88). So far from calling this a
strict consideration of the subject, I own I should call it the
loosest, and most erroneous, way possible, of considering it. It
is the calculating the velocity of a falling body in vacuo, and
persisting in it, that it would be the same through whatever
resisting mediums it might fall. This was not Newton's mode of
philosophizing. Very few general propositions are just in
application to a particular subject. The moon is not kept in her