Human Wrongs Watch
By John Scales Avery*
John Scales Avery, author of this book: We Need Their Voices Today! has generously granted Human Wrongs Watch permission to publish it in a series of chapters. This is Chapter 5: William Godwin. The others will follow successively.
Figure 6.1: William Godwin in a painting by James Northcote (Wikipedia).
Political Justice
In 1793 the English novelist and philosopher William Godwin published an enormously optimistic book, “Political Justice”.
As the eighteenth century neared its end, this book became the focus of hopes for political reform and the center of the debate on human progress.
Godwin was lifted briefly to enormous heights of fame and adulation, from which he plunged, a few years later, into relative obscurity.
In “Political Justice”, Godwin predicted a future society where scientific progress would liberate humans from material want.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 