Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/191

Rh the beginning to regulate their conduct by the light of reason.

It is not surprising that this book made a stir in the political world. None of the Revolutionists had delivered themselves of such ultra-revolutionary sentiments. Men had been accused of high treason for much more moderate views. Perhaps it was their very extravagance that saved him, though he accounted for it in another way. "I have frequently," Mrs. Shelley explains, "heard my father say that Political Justice escaped prosecution from the reason that it appeared in a form too expensive for general acquisition. Pitt observed, when the question was debated in the Privy Council, that 'a three-guinea book could never do much harm among those who had not three shillings to spare.'" Godwin purposely published his work in this expensive form because he knew that by so doing he would keep it from the multitude, whose passions he would have been the last to arouse or to stimulate. He only wished it to be studied by men too enlightened to encourage abrupt innovation. Festina lente was his motto. The success of the book, however, went beyond his expectations and perhaps his intentions. Three editions were issued in as many years. Among the class of readers to whom he immediately appealed, the verdict passed upon it varied. Dr. Priestley thought it very original, and that it would probably prove useful, though its fundamental principles were too pure to be practical. Horne Tooke pronounced it a bad book, calculated to do harm. The Rev. Samuel Newton's vigorous disapproval of it caused a final breach between Godwin and his old tutor. As a rule, the reformers accepted it as the work