Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (144 page)

56
  Morris, ‘Socialism and Anarchism’ (1889),
Political Writings
, op. cit., pp. 212–13

57
  Ibid., p. 213

58
  Ibid., p. 214

59
  May Morris,
William Morris: Artist
,
Writer, Socialist
, 2 vols. (Blackwell, 1936), quoted by Edmund Penning-Rowsell,
TLS
, 11 August 1978

60
  Oscar Wilde, ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’,
De Profundis and Other Writings
, ed. Hesketh Pearson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 34

61
  Richard Ellmann,
Oscar Wilde
(Hamish Hamilton, 1987), p. 9

62
  Ibid., p. 41

63
  Ibid., p. 116

64
  ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, op. cit., p. 23

65
  Ibid., p. 22

66
  Quoted in George Woodcock,
The Paradox of Oscar Wilde
(T.V. Bondman, 1949), p. 147

67
  Ibid.

68
  Quoted in Ellmann,
Oscar Wilde
, op. cit., p. 273n

69
  Wilde, ‘De Profundis’ (1905),
De Profundis and Other Writings
, op. cit., p. 180

70
  ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, op. cit., p. 46

71
  Ibid., p. 21

72
  Ibid., pp. 30–1

73
  Ibid., pp. 30, 46

74
  Ibid., p. 40

75
  Ibid., p. 22

76
  Ibid., p. 20

77
  Ibid., p. 32

78
  Ibid., p. 36

79
  Ibid., p. 47

80
  Ibid., p. 53

81
  Ibid., p. 49

82
  Wilde to Cunninghame Graham, quoted in Ellmann,
Oscar Wilde
, op. cit., p. 526

83
  ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ (1896),
The Works of Oscar Wilde
(Collins, c. 1933), p. 197

1
    Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Politics’ (1844),
The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
, ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: Modern Library, 1940), p. 430;
Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson
, ed. E. W. Emerson & W. E. Forbes (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1909–14), III, 200

2
    
Journals
, op. cit., V, 302–3

3
    
The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson
, ed. Ralph L. Rusk (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), I, pp. 412–13

4
    Emerson to Walt Whitman, 21 July 1855, quoted by Justin Kaplan, ‘Introduction’, Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass
(1892) (New York: Bantam, 1983), p. xix

5
    Whitman, ‘A Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads’, ibid., p. 451

6
    ‘Thought’, ibid., p. 223

7
    ‘A Backward Glance’, ibid., pp. 452–3

8
    ‘To the States’, ibid., p. 224

9
    ‘To the States’, ibid., p. 7

10
  Quoted by W. Harding,
A Thoreau Handbook
(New York University Press, 1959), p. 201

11
  Henry David Thoreau, ‘Civil Disobedience’
The Portable Thoreau
, ed. Carl Bode (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), p. 122

12
  Ibid., p. 111

13
  Ibid.

14
  Ibid., p. 109

15
  Ibid., pp. 127, 130

16
  ‘Walking’ (1861),
The Portable Thoreau
, op. cit., p. 592

17
  Quoted by Harold Beaver, ‘The Transcendental Savage’,
TLS
(6 October 1978)

18
  ‘Life without Principle’ (1861),
The Portable Thoreau
, op. cit., p. 650

19
  Quoted in Albert Keiser,
The Indian in Amrican Literature
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 227

20
  See Thoreau,
Walden; or, Life in the Woods
(1854) (New York: Signet, 1960), p. 74

21
  Ibid., p. 143

22
  ‘Civil Disobedience’, op. cit., p. 130

23
  
Walden
, op. cit., p. 78. Cf. Richard Drinnon, ‘Thoreau’s Politics of the Upright Man’,
Anarchy
, 3, 26 (1963), pp. 122–3

24
  
Walden
, op. cit., pp. 636, 653

25
  ‘Civil Disobedience’, op. cit., p. 115

26
  Ibid., p. 120

27
  Ibid., pp. 111, 131

28
  Ibid., p. 133

1
    William Hazlitt,
The Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary Portraits
(1825) (Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 19–20

2
    For Godwin’s influence, see my
William Godwin
(New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1984), ch. viii

3
Thomas de Quincey,
Collected Writings
, ed. David Masson (1897), III, 25

4
    Percy Bysshe Shelley to William Godwin, 3 January 1812,
The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley
, ed. Frederick L. Jones (Oxford University Press, 1964), I, 220

5
    William Godwin,
Sketches of History, In Six Sermons
(T. Cadell, 1784), pp. 5, 20; Godwin,
An Enquiry concerning Political Justice
, 3rd edn. (G. G. & J. Robinson, 1798), I, 323

6
    
The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin
, ed. Peter Marshall (Freedom Press, 1986), p. 140. Most of this chapter first appeared in the introduction to this work.

7
    Godwin,
History of the Internal Affairs of the United Provinces
(1787), p. 332

8
    Quoted in my
William Godwin
, op. cit., p. 77

9
    Godwin to Sheridan, ibid., p. 81

10
  Mary Shelley, C. Kegan Paul,
William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries
(Kegan Paul, 1876), I, 76

11
  Godwin,
Political Justice
, op. cit., I, x

12
Godwin,
Things as They Are; or The Adventures of Caleb Williams
(1794), ed. Maurice Hindle (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), p. 3

13
  
Political Justice
, op. cit., I, xii

14
14 Godwin,
Considerations on Lord Grenville’s and Mr Pitt’s Bills
(J. Johnson, 1795), p. 21

15
  See De Quincey,
Collected Writings
, op. cit., XI, 328; Kropotkin,
Anarchism
, op. cit., p. 12

16
  T. J. Mathias, quoted in my
William Godwin
, op. cit., p. 215

17
  Government spy report, ibid., p. 290

18
  
Shelley’s Prose: or, The Trumpet of Prophecy
, ed. D. L. Clark (Albuquerque, 1954), pp. 237, 252, 240. For Godwin’s central influence on Shelley’s political philosophy, see Michael H. Scrivener,
Radical Shelley. The Philosophical Anarchism and Utopian Thought of Percy Bysshe Shelley
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 8

19
  Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth of England
(1824–8), I, 90; II, 333

20
  Godwin,
Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions and Discoveries
(Effingham Wilson, 1831), pp. 112–13

21
  Ibid., p. 471

22
  
Political Justice
(1st edn., 1793), I, 11

23
  Godwin,
Essays. Never Before Published
, ed. C. Kegan Paul (H. S. King, 1873), p. 87

24
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 61

25
  
Political Justice
(1798 edn.), I, 81; I, xxvi

26
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 64. Mark Philp (
Godwin’s Political Justice
, Duckworth, 1986, p. 83) has recently argued that Godwin’s moral philosophy is a ‘form of perfectionism’
₂
but John P. Clark,
The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 110; and Don Locke,
A Fantasy of Reason
(Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 172–3, support my interpretation.

27
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 95

28
  Ibid., p. 65

29
  Ibid., p. 49

30
  
Political Justice
(1793 edn.), I, 121, 88

31
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 69

32
  Quoted in my
William Godwin
, op. cit., p. 204

33
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 75

34
  Ibid., p. 77

35
  Ibid., p. 79

36
  
Political Justice
(1793 edn.), I, 163

37
  Ibid., II, 850

38
  Ibid., I, 237

39
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., pp. 50, 89

40
  Ibid., p. 92

41
  Ibid., p. 93

42
  Ibid., pp. 91–2

43
  Ibid., p. 94

44
  Ibid., p. 98

45
  
Caleb Williams
, op. cit., pp. 218–9

46
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., pp. 99–100

47
  Ibid., p. 101

48
  Ibid., p. 107

49
  Ibid., p. 108

50
  Ibid., p. 114

51
  Ibid., p. 115

52
  Ibid., p. 89, 125

53
  Ibid., p. 127

54
  Ibid., pp. 127, 126

55
  Ibid., p. 129

56
  Ibid., p. 130

57
  Ibid., pp. 132, 134

58
  Ibid., p. 135

59
  See Marx to Engels, 17 March 1845, quoted by Max Nettlau,
Der Vorfrühling der Anarchie
(Berlin: Fritz Kater, 1925), p. 73. Rudolf Rocker rightly observed that Godwin was ‘really the founder of later communist Anarchism’,
Anarcho-syndicalism
, op. cit., p. 14.

60
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 136

61
  Ibid., p. 141

62
  Ibid., p. p. 144

63
  Ibid., p. 146

64
  Ibid., p. 158

65
  Ibid., p. 161

66
  Ibid., p. 162

67
  Ibid., p. 164

68
  Ibid., pp. 163–4

69
  Ibid., p. 172

70
  See Clark,
The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin
, op. cit., p. 312; Isaac Kramnick, Introduction,
Political Justice
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p. 52

71
  
Anarchist Writings
, op. cit., p. 171

72
  Ibid., pp. 171, 172

73
  Ibid., pp. 60–1