 These critics saw Caleb as attacking the current established order, that Godwin was effectively spreading his "evil" principles throughout society.The same critic states, “When a work is so directly pointed at every band which connects society, and at every principle which renders it amiable, its very merits become noxious as they tend to cause its being known in a wider circle.” There were also those who viewed the novel negatively in a different manner, as fictitious to a degree of irrelevance in its form as political commentary.This argument asserted that Godwin represented the law falsely to push his anarchistic ideals.