The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thoughts on Man, by William Godwin

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Title: Thoughts on Man
His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with
Some Particulars Respecting the Author

Author: William Godwin

Release Date: December, 1996 [Etext #743]
Posting Date: November 30, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOUGHTS ON MAN ***

Produced by Charles Keller

THOUGHTS ON MAN

HIS NATURE, PRODUCTIONS AND DISCOVERIES INTERSPERSED WITH SOME
PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE AUTHOR

By William Godwin

Oh, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare!

SHAKESPEARE

LONDON:

EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE.

1831.

PREFACE

In the ensuing volume I have attempted to give a defined and permanent
form to a variety of thoughts, which have occurred to my mind in the
course of thirty-four years, it being so long since I published a
volume, entitled, the Enquirer,--thoughts, which, if they have presented
themselves to other men, have, at least so far as I am aware, never been
given to the public through the medium of the press. During a part of
this period I had remained to a considerable degree unoccupied in my
character of an author, and had delivered little to the press that bore
my name.--And I beg the reader to believe, that, since I entered in
1791 upon that which may be considered as my vocation in life, I
have scarcely in any instance contributed a page to any periodical
miscellany.

My mind has been constitutionally meditative, and I should not have
felt satisfied, if I had not set in order for publication these special
fruits of my meditations. I had entered upon a certain career; and I
held it for my duty not to abandon it.

One thing further I feel prompted to say. I have always regarded it as
my office to address myself to plain men, and in clear and unambiguous
terms. It has been my lot to have occasional intercourse with some of
those who consider themselves as profound, who deliver their oracles
in obscure phraseology, and who make it their boast that few men can
understand them, an