From the editors. This paper re-prints a essay by Russian sociologist and historian N.I. Kareev (1850–1931), first published in 1929. Reasoning about «Political Justice» by W. Godwin, the author does not confine himself to analyzing therein presented «sociological system». He pays attention to the history of the making of this treatise, as well as to ideological and political contexts that had shaped Godwin as a thinker. Besides, Kareev traces the reaction of contemporaries to «Political Justice» and offers his explanation of the steadily declining interest in the reading public for Godwin and his successive writing.