" He then goes on to relate how, "by thy cheating sons in
the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for
the soldiery in the beginning of the war," he "had been beaten out of
both estate and trade," and had been forced "to accept of the good-will
of friends, crediting of me, to live a country life."
Those who have passed through a similar experience, who have been driven
from the comparatively comfortable middle-class life to the precarious
and comfortless existence of the vast majority of the toiling masses,
will readily realise that under such circumstances Winstanley's mind
would naturally be full of questionings such as might not have forced
themselves on his attention under more prosperous conditions. What was
the aim and object of that incessant struggle out of which he had just
emerged "beaten out of both estate and trade"? What made it necessary?
who really benefited by it? For whose benefit was the war being waged,
the burden of which had fallen so heavily upon him? How was it going to
advantage the masses of the people? Was it ever intended that it should
benefit them? was it possible that it should do so? Could any such
struggle be a means of delivering the great masses of the people, "the
younger brothers," out of the straits of poverty, with its attendant
train of ignorance, misery, vice, and crime, to which they had hitherto
been ruthlessly and hopelessly condemned? Was it, in truth, inevitable,
was it inherent in the very nature of things, was it God's intention
that a privileged few, "the elder brothers," should be lords and
masters, and that the great majority of mankind should for ever remain
the mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, the slaves and servants of
an insignificant minority of their fellow-creatures? Were these things
due to natural causes, to the inscrutable workings of a Divine
Providence; or were they but the necessary though unforeseen fruits of
mere man-made laws and institutions the existing generation had
inherited from a by-gone and ignorant past? Such were the questions
which vaguely and indistinctly may have passed, and, as we shall see,
did pass, through the active, original, philosophic and deeply religious
mind of Winstanley in the quiet solitude of his country life.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71