The Reply to Parr

James Mackintosh, Samuel Parr and Malthus in the 1790s had all argued that Godwin had exaggerated the case for progress, republicanism and the withering away of the state. The French Revolution had failed. In his Reply (1801) Godwin refuted their key arguments. He continued to defend universal benevolence against those who said (with Adam Smith) that kindliness begins at home with family and friends. Godwin knew that he was frequently regarded as cold and rational. In the Reply he emphasised that emotion and feeling are an essential complement to rational choice. Perhaps reflecting his domestic happiness with Mary Wollstonecraft, he ceased to oppose marriage and the nuclear family despite their implications for property and the intergenerational transmission of privilege. His discussion of social subsistence is a reminder to Malthus that later marriage can be an investment in standing.