Romanticism and Revolution: A Reader

Romanticism and Revolution: A Reader......Page 5
Contents......Page 7
Preface and Acknowledgements......Page 13
A Note on the Texts......Page 15
Introduction......Page 17
1 Richard Price, A Discourse on the Love of Our Country......Page 28
[What has the love of their country hitherto been among mankind?]......Page 29
[Every degree of illumination… hastens the overthrow of priestcraft and tyranny]......Page 32
[The principles of the Revolution]......Page 33
[Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom and writers in its defence!]......Page 34
2 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London relative to That Event......Page 35
[All the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction]......Page 37
[The public declaration of a man much connected with literary caballers]......Page 39
[The two principles of conservation and correction]......Page 40
[The very idea of the fabrication of a new government, is enough to fill us with disgust and horror]......Page 41
[Our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers]......Page 42
[Their blow was aimed at an hand holding out graces, favours, and immunities]......Page 44
[A profligate disregard of a dignity which they partake with others]......Page 46
[The real rights of men]......Page 47
[But the age of chivalry is gone. – That of sophisters, œconomists, and calculators, has succeeded]......Page 49
[The real tragedy of this triumphal day]......Page 55
[We have not… lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century]......Page 56
[Society is indeed a contract]......Page 58
[The political Men of Letters]......Page 59
[We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history]......Page 61
[By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little]......Page 63
[Some popular general… shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself]......Page 65
3 Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke......Page 67
Advertisement......Page 68
[I perceive… that you have a mortal antipathy to reason]......Page 69
[The champion of property, the adorer of the golden image which power has set up]......Page 73
[Misery, to reach your heart, I perceive, must have its cap and bells]......Page 75
[In reprobating Dr. Price’s opinions you might have spared the man]......Page 76
[The younger children have been sacrificed to the eldest son]......Page 77
[The respect paid to rank and fortune damps every generous purpose of the soul]......Page 78
[The spirit of romance and chivalry is in the wane; and reason will gain by its extinction]......Page 79
[Reason at second-hand]......Page 81
[This fear of God makes me reverence myself]......Page 82
[The cold arguments of reason, that give no sex to virtue]......Page 83
[What were the outrages of a day to these continual miseries?]......Page 85
4 Thomas Paine, Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution......Page 86
[The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave]......Page 87
[Mr. Burke has set up a sort of political Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever]......Page 89
[The Quixote age of chivalry nonsense is gone]......Page 90
[Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity]......Page 92
[We are now got at the origin of man, and at the origin of his rights]......Page 94
[The natural rights of man… the civil rights of man]......Page 96
[Governments must have arisen, either out of the people, or over the people]......Page 97
[Titles are but nick-names… a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it]......Page 98
[Toleration is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it]......Page 99
[The church with the state, a sort of mule animal]......Page 100
Miscellaneous Chapter......Page 101
Conclusion......Page 102
[The Revolutions of America and France, are a renovation of the natural order of things]......Page 103
[It is an age of Revolutions, in which every thing may be looked for]......Page 104
5 Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects......Page 105
To M. Talleyrand-Périgord, Late Bishop of Autun......Page 106
[The prevailing notion respecting a sexual character was subversive of morality]......Page 107
Introduction......Page 108
[I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style]......Page 109
Chap. II The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed......Page 110
[The grand end of their exertions should be to unfold their own faculties]......Page 113
[Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away]......Page 114
Chap. III The Same Subject Continued......Page 115
[It is time to effect a revolution in female manners]......Page 116
Chap. IV Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman Is Reduced by Various Causes......Page 117
[Their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected]......Page 119
Chap. V Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt – Sect. i [Rousseau]......Page 120
[Let us then… arrive at perfection of body]......Page 121
Sect. ii [Dr. Fordyce’s sermons]......Page 122
[Why are girls to be told that they resemble angels; but to sink them below women?]......Page 123
Chap. VII Modesty. – Comprehensively Considered, and Not as a Sexual Virtue......Page 124
[Those women who have most improved their reason must have the most modesty]......Page 125
Chap. VIII Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation......Page 126
[The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other]......Page 127
Chap. IX Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society......Page 128
[I really think that women ought to have representatives]......Page 129
Chap. XI Duty to Parents......Page 131
[They are prepared for the slavery of marriage]......Page 132
Chap. XII On National Education......Page 133
[Morality, polluted in the national reservoir, sends off streams of vice]......Page 134
Chap. XIII Some Instances of the Folly Which the Ignorance of Women Generates; with Concluding Reflections on the Moral Improvement That a Revolution in Female Manners Might Naturally Be Expected to Produce – Sect. ii [Sentimental jargon]......Page 135
Sect. vi [Women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or vicious]......Page 136
[Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man]......Page 137
6 Thomas Paine, Rights of Man. Part the Second. Combining Principle and Practice......Page 139
Preface......Page 141
Introduction......Page 142
Chap. I Of Society and Civilization......Page 144
Chap. II Of the Origin of the Present Old Governments......Page 145
[Republicanism]......Page 146
[Monarchy… is a scene of perpetual court cabal and intrigue]......Page 148
[Government… has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties]......Page 149
[The bill of rights is more properly a bill of wrongs]......Page 150
[The sepulchre of precedents]......Page 151
[Europe may form but one great Republic]......Page 152
[I have been an advocate for commerce, because I am a friend to its effects]......Page 153
[When… we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government]......Page 155
[The plan is easy in practice]......Page 156
[Active and passive revolutions]......Page 157
[In what light religion appears to me]......Page 158
[What pace the political summer may keep with the natural, no human foresight can determine]......Page 159
7 William Godwin, An Enquiry concerning Political Justice,and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness......Page 160
Preface......Page 162
Chap. ii History of Political Society......Page 163
[Truth… must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind]......Page 165
II. Education......Page 166
III. Political Justice......Page 167
Book II Principles of Society – Chap. i Introduction......Page 170
Chap. ii Of Justice......Page 171
Chap. iv Of the Equality of Mankind......Page 173
Chap. v Rights of Man......Page 175
[The impossibility by any compulsatory method of bringing men to uniformity of opinion]......Page 176
[Punishment inevitably excites in the sufferer… a sense of injustice]......Page 177
Book III – Chap. vii Of Forms of Government......Page 178
Section II. Mode of Effecting Revolutions......Page 180
Section III. Of Political Associations......Page 182
[There is at present in the world a cold reserve that keeps manat a distance from man]......Page 183
Chap. iv Of the Cultivation of Truth – Section II. Of Sincerity......Page 184
[A gradation in discovery and a progress in the improvement, which do not need to be assisted by the stratagems of their votaries]......Page 185
Chap. v Of Free Will and Necessity......Page 186
[Mind is a topic of science]......Page 187
[That in which the mind exercises its freedom, must be an act of the mind]......Page 189
[So far as we act with liberty… our conduct is as independent of morality as it is of reason]......Page 191
Book V Of Legislative and Executive Power – Chap. xiii Of the Aristocratical Character......Page 192
[Is it sedition to enquire whether this state of things may not be exchanged for a better?]......Page 193
Book VI Of Opinion Considered as a Subject of Political Institution – Chap. i General Effects of the Political Superintendence of Opinion......Page 194
Book VII Of Crimes and Punishments – Chap. i Limitations of the Doctrine of Punishment Which Result from the Principles of Morality......Page 195
Book VIII Of Property – Chap. vii Of the Objection to This System from the Principle of Population......Page 197
8 William Godwin, Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness......Page 200
Preface to the Second Edition......Page 201
Book VIII Of Property – Chap. viii Appendix. Of Cooperation, Cohabitation and Marriage......Page 202
[Our judgement in favour of marriage]......Page 204
Further Reading......Page 207
Index of Authors and Works......Page 214