“It is questionless desirable in all ordinary cases, wherever positive law is established, to restrain ourselves within the letter of that law and to allow the criminal all the benefit, if benefit to him shall result, of any evasion or escape that the law shall afford him.”

English political philosopher and novelist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Godwin is best known for his radical political writings and early advocacy of individual liberty. His 1793 treatise *An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice* laid foundational ideas for anarchism and liberalism, emphasizing reason, natural rights, and the separation of church and state. He also penned the novel *Things as They Are* (1794), an early work of social critique, and collaborated with Mary Wollstonecraft on *Thoughts on the Education of Daughters* (1787).