William Godwin

Godwin, William (1756–1836), English political theorist and novelist. In his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and in his novels The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), and Fleetwood (1805), Godwin rejected government as corrupting; he believed that humans are rational beings able to live without laws and institutions. Godwin influenced his son-in-law, poet P. B. Shelley.