‘Why may not man one day be immortal?’: Population, perfectibility, and the immortality question in Godwin's Political Justice

Abstract

Godwin's controversial claim for earthly immortality in the first edition of Political Justice has been largely dismissed by scholars as a flaw in his philosophy or as absurd speculation which Godwin cannily omitted from the later editions of the text. In this paper, I will demonstrate, not only that such claims were not nearly as idiosyncratic or eccentric as they have been presented, but that they constitute an intrinsic part of his overall philosophy regarding perfectibility and human progress. Moreover, by examining the revisions made to Political Justice in the second and third editions, it will be possible to prove that the essence of his argument regarding material immortality was not as radically altered as is widely accepted. I will further show how the population controversy of the 18th century forced Godwin to apply his perfectibilist theory to contemporary demographic challenges and how he defended his concept of immortality from both the principle of population and, more particularly, Malthusian philosophy. r Toward the close of the first edition of his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, William Godwin confronted what he termed 'the objection to this system from the principle of population'. The 'system' was Godwin's philosophical construction of a politically and socially reformed society populated by a people who had perfected their rational minds to the point where the mental process had gained supremacy over physiological nature. Following this perfectibilist theory to its natural conclusion, Godwin advanced the ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/histeuroideas 0191-6599/$ -see front matter r

‘More evolved than you’: Evolutionary spirituality as a cultural frame for psychedelic experiences

“…1–26). William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet predicted science could advance so far that humans would become immortal, blissful beings ( Chonaill, 2007 ). The Reverend Thomas Malthus, while criticizing Godwin’s utopianism, put forward his own version of evolutionary progressivism, writing that the world is a “mighty process for the creation and formation of mind’ in which malformed specimens get broken while ‘those vessels whose forms are full of truth, grace and loveliness, will be wafted into happier situations, near the presence of the mighty maker” ( Malthus, 1966 , p. 247).…”