s unflinching
answer. Justice still requires of me in the interests of mankind to
save the more valuable life. "What magic is there in the pronoun 'my' to
overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?" My mother may be a fool, a
liar, or a thief. Of what consequence then, is it that she is "mine"?
Gratitude ought not to blind me to my duty, though she have suckled me
and nursed me. The benevolence of a benefactor ought indeed to be
esteemed, but not because it benefited me. A benefactor ought to be
esteemed as much by another as by me, solely because he benefited a
human being. Gratitude, in short, has no place in justice or virtue, and
reason declines to recognise the private affections.

Such, crudely stated, is Godwin's famous doctrine of "universal
benevolence." The virtuous man is like Swift's Houyhnhnms, noble
quadrupeds, wholly governed by reason, who cared for strangers as well
as for the nearest neighbour, and showed the same affection for their
neighbour's offspring as for their own. The centre of Godwin's moral
teaching was yet another Socratic thought. Politics are "the proper
vehicle of a liberal morality," and morals concern our relation to the
whole body of mankind. To realise justice is our prime concern as
rational beings, and society is nothing but embodied justice. Justice
deals with beings capable of pleasure and pain. Here we are partakers of
a common nature with like faculties for suffering or enjoyment.
"Justice," then, "is that impartial treatment of every man in matters
that relate to his happiness, which is measured solely by a
consideration of the properties of the receiver and the capacity of him
who gives." Every man with whom I am in contact is a sentient being, and
one should be as much to me as another, save indeed where equity
corrects equality, by suggesting to me that one individual may be of
more value than another, because of his greater power to benefit
mankind. Justice exacts from us the application of our talents, time,
and resources with the single object of producing the greatest sum of
benefit to sentient beings. There is no limit to what I am bound to do
for the general weal. I hold my person and property both in trust on
behalf of mankind. A man who needs L10 has an absolute claim on me, if I
have it, unless it can be shown that the money could be more
beneficially applied. Every shilling I possess is irrevocably assigned
by some claim of eternal justice. Every article of prop