sin fell the angels!" He conceived too nobly of his
fellows (the most unpardonable crime against them, for there is nothing
that annoys our self-love so much as being complimented on imaginary
achievements, to which we are wholly unequal)--he raised the standard
of morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to the
most airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous, solitary, and
impracticable. The author of the _Political Justice_ took abstract
reason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end. He places
the human mind on an elevation, from which it commands a view of the
whole line of moral consequences; and requires it to conform its acts to
the larger and more enlightened conscience which it has thus acquired.
He absolves man from the gross and narrow ties of sense, custom,
authority, private and local attachment, in order that he may devote
himself to the boundless pursuit of universal benevolence. Mr. Godwin
gives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of our nature, nor does he
stoop to avail himself of the supplementary aids of an imperfect virtue.
Gratitude, promises, friendship, family affection give way, not that
they may be merged in the opposite vices or in want of principle; but
that the void may be filled up by the disinterested love of good, and
the dictates of inflexible justice, which is "the law of laws, and
sovereign of sovereigns." All minor considerations yield, in his system,
to the stern sense of duty, as they do, in the ordinary and established
ones, to the voice of necessity. Mr. Godwin's theory and that of more
approved reasoners differ only in this, that what are with them the
exceptions, the extreme cases, he makes the every-day rule. No one
denies that on great occasions, in moments of fearful excitement, or
when a mighty object is at stake, the lesser and merely instrumental
points of duty are to be sacrificed without remorse at the shrine of
patriotism, of honour, and of conscience. But the disciple of the _New
School_ (no wonder it found so many impugners, even in its own bosom!)
is to be always the hero of duty; the law to which he has bound himself
never swerves nor relaxes; his feeling of what is right is to be at
all times wrought up to a pitch of enthusiastic self-devotion; he must
become the unshrinking martyr and confessor of the public good. If it
be said that this scheme is chimerical and impracticable on ordinary
occasions, and to the generality o