La pauvreté en Angleterre à la fin du xviii^e siècle L’éclairage de William Godwin

This article takes account of the way in which William Godwin (1756-1836) deals with the question of poverty. In England, at the end of the eighteenth century, the poor were considered as an anxiety-inducing mass which menaced public security. This is not the case for Godwin : the poor are not responsible for their destitution, but are victims of it. The sympathy he displays for them, rare at the time, sheds light on this conception.