Godwin: Rationality Enthusiast

Godwin's treatise, akin to the spirit of the time in which he is writing--the Enlightenment period and just after the French Revolution, argues a seemingly anarchist perspective, elevating reason and rendering the traditions of the past just that: of the past and highly antiquated with regard to the furtherance of society in a positive, intellectual direction. He recounts the "evils" of the established norms and conventions such as those of co-habitation and property, regarding them as wholly immoral and deprecating.  He, in my opinion rather too optimistically, prophesies that if society were to truly take to reason above all else, they could achieve immortality and a state of utopia. While his points aim essentially to make his readers more aware of the political and moral developments of the age and how they are counterproductive, he appears to succumb to an overambitious tenor in his ardor to reveal the constraint of current institutions.