The French Revolution:  Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine

Things to Consider:

• Connection to American Revolutionary Rhetoric (see Declaration of Independence )

• How does Wollstonecraft define the rights of men? How does this definition compare with Burke's on page 196?
• Explain:  "The demon of property has ever been at hand to encroach on the sacred rights of men" (202).

• How accurately does Wollstonecraft present Burke's argument? Explain.
  
• Explain:  "[T]rue happiness [arises] from the friendship and intimacy which can only be enjoyed by equals" (203).

204:

• Explain: "[P]rescription can never undermine natural rights" (204).

• Explain:  "The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies" (207).  To what aspect of Burke's argument is Paine alluding?

• According to Paine, how does the revolution in France differ from past revolutions in other European countries?

:

• Explain:  "A law not repealed continues in force, not because it cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed; and the non-repealing passes for consent."
  
• Explain:  "He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird."
• Explain:  "A nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of government it finds inconvenient, and to establish such as accords with its interest, disposition and happiness."
  

• Explain: "[T]ruth, in morals, has ever appeared to me the essence of the sublime; and, in taste, simplicity the only criterion of the beautiful" (201).

• What is the difference between manners and morals, in Wollstonecraft's conception?
  

• Explain:  "The whole tenor of his plausible arguments settles slavery on an everlasting foundation" (204).
• Explain: "Security of property! Behold, in a few words, the definition of English liberty" (204).
• Explain this quote from Burke:  "'They must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice'" (qtd. 204).

205:

• What is the "fostering sun of kindness" (205)?
• How, according to Wollstonecraft, can the suffering of the poor be ameliorated?
  

• Explain:  "A casual discontinuance of the practice of despotism, is not a discontinuance of its principles" (208).
• How, according to Paine, is it true that despotism "divides and subdivides itself" (208).

• Explain:  "It is power, and not principles, that Mr. Burke venerates" (209).

• Explain: "[P]rinciples, and not persons, were tbe meditated objects of destruction" (210). 
  

• What does anarchist political philosophy involve?
• Explain:  "If justice have any meaning, it is just that I should contribute every thing in my power to the benefit of the whole" (140).
• According to Godwin, should we in fact "'love our neighbour as ourselves'" (140)?  Explain.
• Who is François Fénelon? 
• 140n:
• Why were all the references to females subsequently revised?

• Is Godwin's argument regarding the chambermaid a sympathetic one? Explain.
• Explain:  "That life ought to be preferred which will be most conducive to the general good" (141).
• Explain:  "Gratitude . . . is no part either of justice or virtue" (141).

• Explain:  "If the extraordinary case should occur in which I can promote the general good by my death more than by my life, justice requires that I should be content to die" (142).
• What is the one thing political institutions can assuredly do?

• What, according to Godwin, is the difference between "informing the people and inflaming them" (143)?
• Why must there be a "lapse of years" before reducing theory "into actual execution" (132)?

• Why is Godwin opposed to cohabitation?
• How does Godwin's views of marriage compare with Wollstonecraft's (see 122, as well as her Vindication of the Rights of Women, esp. 300-308).
• How, according to Godwin, is the institution of marriage "a system of fraud" (144)?
• Explain: "Positive laws which are made to restrain our vices, irritate and multiply them" (132-33).

• Why, according to Godwin, will it no longer be important to know the identity of children's fathers?