But Godwin drew the logical conclusion from Rousseau's premisses which Rousseau hesitated to draw himself.

The French thinker, while he extolled the anarchical state of uncivilised society, and denounced government as one of the sources of its corruption, nevertheless sought the remedy in new social and political institutions.

Godwin said boldly, government is the evil; government must go.

Humanity can never be happy until all political authority and social institutions disappear.
Now the peculiarity of Godwin's position as a doctrinaire of Progress lies in the fact that he entertained the same pessimistic view of some important sides of civilisation as Rousseau, and at the same time adopted the theories of Rousseau's opponents, especially Helvetius.

His survey of human conditions seems to lead inevitably to pessimism; then he turns round and proclaims the doctrine of perfectibility.
The explanation of this argument was the psychological theory of Helvetius.