The Real Price of Everything by Michael Lewis

Author:Michael Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Sterling
Published: 2011-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Mr. Godwin’s Five Propositions Respecting Political Truth, on which His Whole Work Hinges, not Established—Reasons We have for Supposing, from the Distress Occasioned by the Principle of Population, that the Vices and Moral Weakness of Man can Never be wholly Eradicated—Perfectibility, in the Sense in which Mr. Godwin Uses the Term, not Applicable to Man—Nature of the Real Perfectibility of Man Illustrated.

If the reasonings of the preceding chapter are just, the corollaries respecting political truth, which Mr. Godwin draws from the proposition, that the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions, will not appear to be clearly established. These corollaries are, “Sound reasoning and truth, when adequately communicated, must always be victorious over error: Sound reasoning and truth are capable of being so communicated: Truth is omnipotent: The vices and moral weakness of man are not invincible: Man is perfectible, or in other words, susceptible of perpetual improvement.”

The first three propositions may be considered a complete syllogism. If by adequately communicated, be meant such a conviction as to produce an adequate effect upon the conduct, the major may be allowed and the minor denied. The consequent, or the omnipotence of truth, of course falls to the ground. If by “adequately communicated” be meant merely the conviction of the rational faculty, the major must be denied, the minor will be only true in cases capable of demonstration, and the consequent equally falls. The fourth proposition Mr. Godwin calls the preceding proposition, with a slight variation in the statement. If so, it must accompany the preceding proposition in its fall. But it may be worth while to inquire, with reference to the principal argument of this essay, into the particular reasons which we have for supposing that the vices and moral weakness of man can never be wholly overcome in this world.

Man, according to Mr. Godwin, is a creature formed what he is by the successive impressions which he has received, from the first moment that the germ from which he sprung was animated. Could he be placed in a situation, where he was subject to no evil impressions whatever, though it might be doubted whether in such a situation virtue could exist, vice would certainly be banished. The great bent of Mr. Godwin’s work on Political Justice, if I understand it rightly, is to show that the greater part of the vices and weaknesses of men proceed from the injustice of their political and social institutions, and that if these were removed and the understandings of men more enlightened, there would be little or no temptation in the world to evil. As it has been clearly proved, however, (at least as I think) that this is entirely a false conception, and that, independent of any political or social institutions whatever, the greater part of mankind, from the fixed and unalterable laws of nature, must ever be subject to the evil temptations arising from want, besides other passions, it follows from Mr. Godwin’s definition of man that such impressions, and combinations of impressions, cannot be afloat in the world without generating a variety of bad men.

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