Government is an evil, and the business of human advancement is to dispense with it as rapidly as may be. In the period of transition Godwin had but a secondary interest, and his sketch of it is slight. He dismisses in turn despotism, aristocracy, the "mixed monarchy" of the Whigs, and the president with kingly powers of some American thinkers. His pages on these subjects are vigorous, well-reasoned, and pointed in their satire. It required much courage to write them, but they do not contain his original contribution to political theory. What is most characteristic in his line of argument is his insistence on the moral corruption that monarchy and aristocracy involve. The whole standard of moral values is subverted. To achieve ostentation becomes the first object of desire. Disinterested virtue is first suspected and then viewed with incredulity. Luxury meanwhile distorts our whole attitude to our fellows, and in every effort to excel and shine we wrong the labouring millions. Aristocracy involves general degradation, and can survive only amid general ignorance. "To make men serfs and villeins it is indispensably necessary to make them brutes.... A servant who has been taught to write and read, ceases to be any longer a passive machine."
From the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy Godwin, and indeed the whole revolutionary school, expected the cessation of war. War and conquest elevate the few at the expense of the rest, and cannot benefit the whole community. Democracies have no business with war save to repel an invasion of their territory. He thought of patriotism and love of country much as did Dr. Price. They are (as Hervé has argued in our own day) specious illusions invented to render the multitude the blind instruments of crooked designs. We must not be lured into pursuing the general wealth, prosperity or glory of the society to which we belong. Society is an abstraction, an "ideal existence," and is not on its own account entitled to the smallest regard. Let us not be led away into rendering services to society for which no individual man is the better. Godwin is scornful of wars to maintain the balance of power, or to protect our fellow-countrymen abroad. Some proportion must be observed between the evil of which we complain and the evil which the proposed remedy inevitably includes. War may be defensible in support of the liberty of an oppressed people, but let us wait (here he is clearly censuring the practice of the French Republic) until the oppressed people rises. Do not interfere to force it to be free, and do not forget the resources of pacific persuasion. As to foreign possessions there is little to be said. Do without them. Let colonies attend to their own defence; no State would wish to have colonies if free trade were universal. Liberty is equally good for every race of men, and democracy, since it is founded on reason, a universal form of government. There follow some naïve prescriptions for conducting democratic wars. Sincerity forbids ambuscades and secresy. Never invade, nor assume the offensive. A citizen militia must replace standing armies. Training and discipline are of little value; the ardour of a free people will supply their place.