The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of fraud, these are the immediate growth of the established administration of property.  They are alike hostile to intellectual improvement.  The other vices of envy, malice, and revenge are their inseparable companions.  In a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty and where all shared alike the bounties of nature, these sentiments would inevitably expire.  The narrow principle of selfishness would vanish.  No man being obliged to guard his little store or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good.  No man would be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would have no subject of contention, and, of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her.  Mind would be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought, which is congenial to her.  Each would assist the inquiries of all.

This would, indeed, be a happy state.  But that it is merely an imaginary picture, with scarcely a feature near the truth, the reader, I am afraid, is already too well convinced.

Man cannot live in the midst of plenty.  All cannot share alike the bounties of nature.  Were there no established administration of property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little store.  Selfishness would be triumphant.  The subjects of contention would be perpetual.  Every individual mind would be under a constant anxiety about corporal support, and not a single intellect would be left free to expatiate in the field of thought.

How little Mr Godwin has turned the attention of his penetrating mind to the real state of man on earth will sufficiently appear from the manner in which he endeavours to remove the difficulty of an overcharged population.  He says: 

The obvious answer to this objection, is, that to reason thus is to foresee difficulties at a great distance.  Three fourths of the habitable globe is now uncultivated.  The parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement.  Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.

I have already pointed out the error of supposing that no distress and difficulty would arise from an overcharged population before the earth absolutely refused to produce any more.  But let us imagine for a moment Mr Godwin’s beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity, and see how soon this difficulty might be expected to press under so perfect a form of society.  A theory that will not admit of application cannot possibly be just.