Godwin, William (1756-1836), was an English author and philosopher. His major work is An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793). It discusses the individual’s relationship to the government and to society.
Godwin believed that all monarchies were “unavoidably corrupt.” He felt that no individual should hold power over another. He objected to the accumulating of private property and opposed most existing social institutions, including marriage. According to Godwin, human beings were naturally reasonable and capable of perfection, and society’s problems could be solved by rational discussion. Godwin’s belief that reason could and should rule over our lives reflected the influence of French philosophers of the 1700’s called Philosophes (see Philosophes ).
Godwin was born in Wisbech, near Cambridge. In 1797, he married Mary Wollstonecraft, an important early feminist. Their daughter, Mary, wrote the horror novel Frankenstein (1818). Godwin’s ideas influenced such English romantic writers of the early 1800’s as the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1816, Shelley married Godwin’s daughter, Mary.
