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 of abstract 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 that government 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 to me, 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 extremely aggravated 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, to co-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 all sorts 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 most memorable 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]
