“After that the necessity of a People in a Parish, in a County and in a Land, hath moved the People to choose Officers to preserve common peace, the same necessity causeth the People to say to their Officers—Do you see our Laws observed for our common preservation, and we will assist and protect you.
“These words, assist and protect, implies the rising of the People by force of arms to defend their Laws and Officers, who rule well, against any invasion, insurrection or rebellion of selfish Officers or rude people: yea, to beat down the turbulency of any foolish spirit that shall arise to break our common peace. So that the same Law of Necessity of Common Peace, which moved the People to choose Officers, and to compose a Law to be a Rule of Government: the same Law of Necessity of Protection doth raise an Army. So that an Army, as well as other Officers in a Commonwealth, spring from one and the same root, viz., from the necessity of Common Preservation.”
An Army is Two-fold: viz., a Ruling Army, or a Fighting Army.
“A Ruling Army is called Magistracy in times of Peace, keeping that Land and Government in Peace by Execution of the Laws, which the Fighting Army did purchase in the field by their blood out of the hands of Oppression. All Officers, from the Father in a Family to the Parliament in a Land, are but the heads and leaders of an Army; and all people arising to protect and assist their Officers, in defence of a right-ordered Government, are but the body of an Army. And this Magistracy is called the Rejoicing of all Nations, when the foundations thereof are Laws of Common Equity, whereby every single man may enjoy the fruits of his labor, in the free use of the Earth, without being restrained or oppressed by the hands of others.
“Secondly, A Fighting Army, called Soldiers in the Field, when the necessity of preservation, by reason of a foreign invasion, or inbred Oppression, doth move the people to arise in an Army to cut and tear to pieces either degenerate Officers, or rude people, who seek their own interests, and not Common Freedom, and through treachery do endeavour to destroy the Laws of Common Freedom, and to enslave both the Land and the People of the Commonwealth to their particular wills and lusts.... The use or work of a Fighting Army in a Commonwealth is to beat down all who arise to endeavour to destroy the Liberties of the Commonwealth. For as in the days of the Monarchy an Army was used to subdue all who rebelled against Kingly Propriety, so in the days of a Free Commonwealth, an Army is to be made use of to resist or destroy all who endeavour to keep up or bring in Kingly Bondage again.... Therefore, you Army of England’s Commonwealth, look to it. The Enemy could not beat you in the field, but they may be too hard for you by Policy in Counsel, if you do not stick close to see Common Freedom established. For if so be that Kingly Authority is set up in your Laws again, King Charles has conquered you and your posterity by policy, though you seemingly have cut off his head. For the Strength of a King lies not in the visible Appearance of his Body, but in his Will, Laws, and Authority, which is called Monarchial Government. But if you remove Kingly Government, and set up true and free Commonwealth’s Government, then you gain your Crown and keep it, and leave peace to your posterity: otherwise not. And thus doing makes a War either lawful or unlawful.”
Then follows this bold, manly challenge of the conduct of the Grandees of the Army:
“An Army may be Murtherers and Unlawful.
“If an Army be raised to cast out Kingly Oppression, and if the Heads of that Army promise a Commonwealth’s Freedom to the oppressed people, in case they will assist in person and purse, and if the people do assist and prevail over the Tyrant, those Officers are bound by the Law of Justice (who is God) to make good their engagements. And if they do not set the Land free from the branches of the Kingly Oppression, but reserve some part of the Kingly Power to advance their own particular interest, whereby some of their friends are left under as great slavery to them as they were under the Kings, those Officers are not faithful Commonwealth’s Soldiers, they are worse Thieves and Tyrants than the Kings they cast out, and that Honor they seemed to get by their Victories over the Commonwealth’s Oppressor, they lose again by breaking Promise and Engagement to their oppressed friends who did assist them.
“For what difference is there between a professed Tyrant, who declares himself a Tyrant in words, laws and deeds, as all Conquerors do, and him who promises to free me from the power of the Tyrant if I’ll assist him; and when I have spent my estate and blood, and the health of my body, and expect my bargain by his engagements to me, he sits himself down in the Tyrant’s Chair, and takes the possession of the Land to himself, and calls it his and none of mine, and tells me he cannot in conscience let me enjoy the Freedom of the Earth with him, because it is another man’s right.”
His Account of his own Circumstances.
“And now my health and estate is decayed and I grow in age, I must either beg or work for day-wages, which I was never brought up to, for another; when the Earth is as freely my Inheritance and Birth-Right as his whom I must work for. And if I cannot live by my weak labors, but take where I need, as Christ sent and took the Asses Colt in his need, there is no dispute, but by the Kings and Laws, he will hang me for a thief.”
The true Function of a Commonwealth Army.
“A Monarchial Army lifts up mountains and makes valleys, viz., advances Tyrants and treads the oppressed in the barren lanes of poverty. But a Commonwealth’s Army is like John the Baptist, who levels the Mountains to the Valleys, pulls down the Tyrant, and lifts up the Oppressed: and so makes way for the Spirit of Peace and Freedom to come in to rule and inherit the Earth.
“By this which has been spoken an Army may see wherein they may do well and wherein they may do hurt.”
The Office of the Post-Master.
Under this heading Winstanley describes an office by which he evidently thought the social bonds uniting the whole Nation might be strengthened and all parts thereof be brought into closer and more intimate relations one with the other. He describes its functions as follows:
“In every Parish throughout the Commonwealth shall be chosen two men (at the time when the other Officers are chosen), and these shall be called Post-Masters. And whereas there are four parts of the Land, East, West, North, South, there shall be chosen in the chief City two men to receive what the Post-Master of the East Country brings in”; and so on. “Now the work of a Country Post-master shall be this: They shall every month bring up or send by tidings from their respective Parishes to the chief City, of what accidents or passages fall out, which is either to the honor or dishonor, hurt or profit, of the Commonwealth. And if nothing have fallen out in that month worth observation, then they shall write down peace or good order in such a Parish.
“When these respective Post-masters have brought up their Bills or Certificates from all parts of the Land, the Receiver of these Bills shall write down everything in order from Parish to Parish in the nature of a Weekly Bill of Observation. And those eight Receivers shall cause the Affairs of the Four Quarters of the Land to be printed in one Book with what speed may be, and deliver to every Post-master a Book, that as they bring up the affairs of one Parish in writing, they may carry down in print the Affairs of the Whole Land.”
Its Benefits.
“The benefit lies here, that if any part of the Land be visited with Plague, Famine, Invasion or Insurrection, or any casualties, the other parts of the Land may have speedy knowledge, and send relief. And if any accident fall out through unreasonable action, or careless neglect, other parts of the Land may thereby be made watchful to prevent like dangers. Or if any through industry or through ripeness of understanding have found out any secret in Nature, or new invention in any Art or Trade, or in the tillage of the Earth, or such like, whereby the Commonwealth may more flourish in peace and plenty, for which virtues those persons received honor in the places where they dwelt; then, when other parts of the Land hear of it, many thereby will be encouraged to employ their Reason and Industry to do the like; that so in time there will not be any Secret in Nature, which now lies hid (by reason of the iron age of Kingly Oppressing Government) but by some or other will be brought to light, to the beauty of our Commonwealth.”
With this suggestive passage this chapter may fittingly close. Like his great successor in the Nineteenth Century, Winstanley evidently realised that “Liberty means Justice, and Justice is the Natural Law—the law of health and symmetry and strength, of fraternity and co-operation.”
197:1 Law Reform was at that time very popular, and undoubtedly much needed. The month previous to the publication of the book we are now considering, in January 1652, a Law Reform Commission consisting of twenty-one members had been appointed. It evidently went to work in a very thorough manner. For, according to a modern Lawyer, Mr. Inderwick (see his book The Interregnum, referred to by Gardiner), it appears that of eight draft Acts proposed on March 23rd, 1652, one became Law in 1833, one in 1846, and a third in 1885.
197:2 “Things of this world,” says Locke (Of Civil Government, part ii. chap. xiii. § 157), “are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.... But ... private interest often keeps up customs and privileges when the reasons of them are ceased.”
200:1 In his great work Of Civil Government, John Locke takes practically the same view as Winstanley of the duties of Parliaments and of the function of Law. In chapter ix. (part ii.) he says: “The legislative or supreme power of any Commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent [impartial] and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad, to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.” Italics are ours.
The Law of Freedom (concluded)
Charles Mackay.
It is in the chapter we have just been considering, the fourth chapter of “The Law of Freedom,” that we find Winstanley’s last recorded utterances on cosmological and theological problems. Nothing seems to us more strikingly to show the broadening and development of his powerful mind than a comparison of the views here expressed with those contained in his earlier writings on the subject. True, the underlying ideas are practically the same: he still realises the existence of a Divine Spirit, the Spirit of Reason and of Love, of Righteousness and of Peace, animating, inspiring, pervading and governing the whole Creation; he still holds to his doctrine of the Inward Light, the spark of the Divine Spirit of Reason, within man, prompting each and all to act righteously and equitably one toward the other. Yet he is decidedly less mystical. He lays emphasis on the necessity to study the works of God rather than the Word of God; and has evidently become less anthropomorphic and more spiritual, less mystical and more rational, less religious and more ethical, less theological and more philosophic, less scholastic and more scientific. However, we had better let him speak for himself. Immediately after his reflections on the duties and functions of a Commonwealth’s Parliament, he proceeds to consider the work of a Commonwealth’s Ministry, as follows:
“The Work of a Commonwealth’s Ministry, and why one Day in Seven may be a Day of Rest from Labor.
“If there were good Laws and the People be ignorant of them, it would be as bad for the Commonwealth as if there were no Laws at all. Therefore it is very rational and good that one day in seven be still set apart, for three reasons:
“First, That the People in such a Parish may generally meet together to see one another’s faces, and beget or preserve fellowship in friendly love.
“Secondly, To be a day of rest, or cessation from labor; so that they may have some bodily rest for themselves and cattle.
“Thirdly, That he who is chosen Minister (for that year) in that Parish may read to the People three things. First, the affairs of the whole Land, as it is brought in by the Post-Master. Secondly, to read the Law of the Common-wealth, not only to strengthen the memory of the ancients, but that the young people also, who are not grown up to ripeness of experience, may be instructed to know when they do well and when they do ill. For the Law of a Land hath the power of Freedom and Bondage, life and death, in its hand, therefore the necessary knowledge to be known; and he is the best Prophet that acquaints men therewith, that as men grow up in years they may be able to defend the Laws and Government of the Land. But these Laws shall not be expounded by the Reader; for to expound a plain Law, as if a man would put a better meaning than the letter itself, produces two evils: First, the pure Law and the minds of the people will be thereby confounded, for multitude of words darken knowledge. Secondly, the reader will be puffed up in pride to contemn the Law-makers, and in time that will prove the father and nurse of tyranny, as at this day is manifested by our Ministry.”
“But because the minds of people generally love discourses, therefore, that the wits of men, both old and young, may be exercised, there may be speeches made in a threefold nature:
“First, To declare the acts and passages of former ages and governments, setting forth the benefit of freedom by well-ordered Governments, as in Israel’s Commonwealth, and the troubles and bondage which hath always attended oppression and oppressors, as the State of Pharaoh and other tyrant kings, who said the Earth and People were theirs, and only at their disposal.
“Secondly, Speeches may be made of all Arts and Sciences, some one day some another, as in Physics, Chyrurgery, Astrology, Astronomy, Navigation, Husbandry, and such like. And in these speeches may be unfolded the nature of all herbs and plants, from the Hysop to the Cedar, as Solomon writ of. Likewise men may come to see into the nature of the fixed and wandering Stars, those great powers of God in the heavens above. And hereby men will come to know the secrets of Nature and Creation, within which all true knowledge is wrapped up, and the light in man must arise to search it out.
“Thirdly, Speeches may be made sometimes of the nature of mankind, of his darkness and of his light, of his weakness and of his strength, of his love and of his envy, of his inward and outward bondages, of his inward and outward freedoms, etc. And this is that at which the ministry of Churches generally aim; but only that they confound their knowledge by imaginary study.... And thus to speak, or thus to read the Law of Nature (or God) as He hath written His name in every body, is to speak a pure language, and this is to speak the truth as Jesus Christ spake it, giving to everything its own weight and measure. By this means in time men shall attain to the practical knowledge of God truly, that they may serve Him in spirit and in truth: and this knowledge will not deceive a man.”
His Answer to Objections.
Then follows a passage which even to-day would bring down the wrath of “zealous but ignorant professors” upon the head of any author acknowledging it, if within their sphere of influence. He continues:
“‘I,’ but saith the zealous but ignorant Professor, ‘this is a low and carnal Ministry indeed; this leads men to know nothing but the knowledge of the earth and the secrets of nature; but we are to look after spiritual and heavenly things.’
“I answer: ‘To know the secrets of nature is to know the works of God; and to know the works of God within the Creation, is to know God himself; for God dwells in every visible work or body. Indeed, if you would know spiritual things, it is to know how the Spirit or Power of Wisdom and Life, causing motion or growth, dwells within and governs both the several bodies of the stars and planets in the heavens above, and the several bodies of the earth below, as grass, plants, fishes, beasts, birds and mankind. For to reach God beyond the Creation, or to know what he will be to a man after the man is dead, if any otherwise than to scatter him into his essences of fire, water, earth and air, of which he is composed, is a knowledge beyond the line or capacity of man to attain to while he lives in his compounded body. And if a man should go to imagine what God is beyond the Creation, or what he will be in a spiritual demonstration after a man is dead, he doth, as the proverb saith, but build castles in the air, or tells us of a world beyond the Moon or beyond the Sun, merely to blind the reason of man.
“‘I’ll appeal to yourself in this question, What other knowledge have you of God but what you have within the circle of the Creation? For if the Creation in all its dimensions be the fullness of Him that fills all with Himself; and if you yourself be part of this Creation: where can you find God but in that line or station wherein you stand? God manifests Himself in actual Knowledge, not in Imagination. He is still in motion, either in bodies upon earth or in the bodies in the heavens, or in both; in the night and in the day, in Winter, in Summer, in cold, in heat, in growth or not in growth.’”
The Cause of Ignorance, Evil and Sorrows.
“But when a studying imagination comes into man, which is the devil, for it is the cause of all evil and sorrows in the world; that is he who puts out the eyes of man’s knowledge, and tells him he must believe what others have writ or spoke, and must not trust to his own experience. And when this bewitching fancy sits in the Chair of Government, there is nothing but saying and unsaying, frowardness, covetousness, fears, confused thoughts, and unsatisfied doubtings, all the days of that man’s reign in the heart.”
Examine the Ways of Men, not only their Precepts.
“Or, secondly, examine yourself and look likewise into the ways of all Professors, and you shall find that the enjoyment of the earth below, which you call a low and a carnal knowledge, is that which you and all Professors (as well as the men of the world, as you call them) strive and seek after. Wherefore are you so covetous after the world, in buying and selling, counting yourself a happy man if you be rich, and a miserable man if you be poor? And though you say, Heaven after death is a place of glory where you shall enjoy God face to face, yet you are loth to leave the earth and go thither.
“Do not your Ministers preach for to enjoy the earth? Do not professing Lawyers, as well as others, buy and sell the Conquerer’s justice that they may enjoy the earth? Do not professing Soldiers fight for the earth, and seat themselves in that Land which is the birth-right of others, as well as theirs, shutting others out? Do not all Professors strive to get earth, that they may live in plenty by other men’s labors? Do you not make the earth your very rest? Doth not the enjoying of the earth please the spirit in you? and then you say God is pleased with your ways and blesseth you. If you want earth, and become poor, do you not say, God is angry with you? Why do you heap up riches? why do you eat and drink, and wear clothes? Are not all these carnal and low things of the earth? and do you not live in them and covet them as much as any, nay more than many which you call men of the world?
“It being thus with you, what other spiritual and heavenly things do you seek after more than others? What is in you more than in others? If you say there is, then surely you should leave these earthly things alone to the men of the world, as you call them, whose portions these are, and keep you within the compass of your own sphere, that others seeing you live a life above the world in peace and freedom, neither working yourselves, nor deceiving, nor compelling others to work for you, they may be drawn to embrace the same spiritual life by your single hearted conversation. Well I have done here.”
“Let us now examine your Divinity.”
Winstanley then carries the war into the camp of his clerical opponents, and that in so forcible a manner that we cannot refrain from quoting at length. He says:
“Let us now examine your Divinity, which you call heavenly and spiritual things; for herein speeches are made, not to advance knowledge, but to destroy the true knowledge of God. For Divinity does not speak the truth, as it is hid in everybody, but it leaves the motional knowledge of a thing as it is, and imagines, studies or thinks what may be, and so runs the hazard of true or false. This Divinity is always speaking words to deceive the simple, that he may make them work for him and maintain him, but he never comes to action himself, to do as he would be done by; for he is a monster who is all tongue and no hand.
“This Divining Doctrine, which you call spiritual and heavenly things, is the thief and the robber, he comes to spoil the Vineyard of a man’s peace, and does not enter in at the door, but he climbs up another way. And this Doctrine is two-fold: First, it takes upon him to tell you the meaning of other men’s words and writings, by his studying or imagining what another man’s knowledge might be, and by thus doing darkens knowledge, and wrongs the spirit of the Authors who did write and speak those things which he takes upon him to interpret. Secondly, he takes upon him to foretell what shall befall a man after he is dead, and what that world is beyond the Sun and beyond the Moon, etc. And if any man tell him there is no reason for what you say, he answers, you must not judge of heavenly and spiritual things by reason, but you must believe what is told you, whether it be reason or no.”
Wherein it is Wanting.
“There is a three-fold discovery of falsehood in this Doctrine. First, it is a Doctrine of a sickly and weak spirit, who hath lost his understanding in the knowledge of the Creation, and of the temper of his own heart and nature, and so runs into fancies, either of joy or sorrow. If the passion of joy predominate, then he fancies to himself a personal God, personal Angels, and a local place of glory, which he saith, he, and all who believe what he hath, shall go to after they are dead. If sorrow predominate, then he fancies to himself a personal Devil, and a local place of torment that he shall go to after he is dead: and this he speaks with great confidence.
“Secondly, This is the doctrine of a subtle running spirit, to make an ungrounded wise man mad.... For many times when a wise understanding heart is assaulted with this Doctrine of a God, a Devil, a Heaven and a Hell, Salvation and Damnation after a man is dead, his spirit being not strongly grounded in the knowledge of the Creation nor in the temper of his own heart, he strives and stretches his brain to find out the depth of that doctrine and cannot attain to it. For, indeed, it is not knowledge, but imagination. And so by poring and puzzling himself in it, he loses that wisdom he had, and becomes distracted and mad. If the passion of joy predominate, then he is merry, and sings, and laughs, and is ripe in the expression of his words and will speak strange things: but all by imagination. But if the passion of sorrow predominate, then he is heavy and sad, crying out, He is damned; God hath forsaken him, and he must go to Hell when he dies; he cannot make his calling and election sure. And in that distemper many times a man doth hang, kill or drown himself. So this Divining Doctrine, which you call spiritual and heavenly things, torments people always when they are weak, sickly or under any distemper. Therefore it cannot be the Doctrine of Christ the Saviour.
“Or, thirdly, This Doctrine is made a cloak of policy by the subtle Elder Brother, to cheat his simpler Younger Brother of the Freedoms of the Earth. For, saith the Elder Brother, ‘The Earth is mine, and not yours, Brother; and you must not work upon it, unless you will hire it of me; and you must not take the fruits of it, unless you will buy them of me, by that which I pay you for your labor. For if you should do otherwise, God will not love you, and you shall not go to Heaven when you die, but the Devil will have you, and you must be damned in Hell.’
“If the Younger reply, and say—‘The Earth is my Birth-Right as well as yours, and God who made us both is no Respecter of persons. Therefore there is no reason but I should enjoy the Freedoms of the Earth for my comfortable livelihood, as well as you, Brother.’
“‘I,’ but saith the Elder Brother, ‘You must not trust to your own Reason and Understanding, but you must believe what is written and what is told you; and if you will not believe, your Damnation will be the greater.’
“‘I cannot believe,’ saith the Younger Brother, ‘that our Righteous Creator should be so partial in his Dispensations of the Earth, seeing our bodies cannot live upon Earth without the use of the Earth.’
“The Elder Brother replies, ‘What, will you be an Atheist, and a factious man, will you not believe God?’
“‘Yes,’ saith the Younger Brother, ‘if I knew God said so, I should believe, for I desire to serve Him.’
“‘Why,’ saith the Elder Brother, ‘this is His Word, and if you will not believe it, you must be damned; but if you will believe it, you will go to Heaven.’
“Well, the Younger Brother, being weak in spirit, and not having a grounded knowledge of the Creation, nor of himself, is terrified, and lets go his hold in the Earth, and submits himself to be a Slave to his Brother, for fear of damnation in Hell after death, and in hopes to get Heaven thereby after he is dead. And so his eyes are put out, and his Reason is blinded. So that this divining spiritual doctrine is a cheat. For while men are gazing up to Heaven, imagining after a happiness, or fearing a Hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out, that they see not what are their Birth-Rights, nor what is to be done by them here on Earth while they are living. This is the filthy Dreamer and the Cloud without rain. And indeed the subtle Clergy do know that if they can but charm the people by this their divining doctrine, to look after riches, Heaven and Glory when they are dead, that then they shall easily be the inheritors of the Earth, and have the deceived people to be their Servants.
“For my own part,” he continues, “my spirit hath waded deep to find the bottom of this divining spiritual Doctrine; and the more I searched, the more I was at a loss. I never came to quiet rest and to know God in my spirit, till I came to the knowledge of the things in this Book. And let me tell you, They who preach this divining doctrine are the murderers of many a poor heart, who is bashful and simple, and who cannot speak for himself, but who keeps his thoughts to himself.”
Such, then, was Winstanley’s final attack on the body of teachings he, rightly or wrongly, hated and despised as the main supporter of the prevailing social injustice. Correct thought he realised to be the necessary precursor of right action; and he knew that correct thought is impossible so long as old, inherited false ideas are unquestioningly accepted and hold undisputed dominion over the human mind. Winstanley seems to us to have realised that it was the ignorance of the many that, in truth, maintained the privileges of the few; that the masses themselves forge the fetters for their own enslavement, which, though apparently as strong as iron bands, are, in truth, but things of gossamer, easily to be broken by those who themselves have forged and who themselves still maintain them.
In the next chapter (chap. v.) Winstanley briefly summarises his views on education, and outlines the means by which he deemed both the production and the distribution of wealth could be carried on without having recourse to “the thieving art of buying and selling.” It commences as follows:
Of Education.
“Mankind in the days of his youth is like a young colt, wanton and foolish, till he be broken in by education and correction; the neglect of this care, or the want of wisdom in the performance of it, hath been and is the cause of much division and trouble in the world. Therefore the Law of a Common-wealth doth require that not only a Father, but that all Overseers and Officers should make it their work to educate children in good manners, and to see them brought up in some trade or other, and to suffer no children in any Parish to live in idleness and youthful pleasures all their days, as many have been; but that they may be brought up like men and not like beasts. That so the Commonwealth may be planted with laborious and wise experienced men, and not with idle fools.”
He continues his reflections as follows:
“Mankind may be considered in a four-fold degree, his childhood, youth, manhood, and old age. His childhood and his youth may be considered from his birth till forty years of age. Within this compass of time, after he is weaned from his mother, his parents shall teach him a civil and humble behaviour towards all men. Then send him to school, to learn to read the Laws of the Common-wealth, to ripen his wits from his childhood, and so to proceed with his learning till he be acquainted with all Arts and Languages.... But one sort of children shall not be trained up only to book-learning, and to no other employment, called Scholars, as they are in the Government of Monarchy. For then through idleness they spend their time to find out policies to advance themselves to be Lords and Masters over their laboring bretheren, which occasions all the trouble in the world.”
After again indicating the source of all real knowledge, he continues:
“Therefore, to prevent idleness and the danger of Machivilian cheats, it is profitable for the Commonwealth that children be trained up in trades and some bodily employment, as well as in learning languages or the histories of former ages. And as boys are trained up in learning and in trades, so all maids shall be trained up in reading, sewing, kniting, spinning of linnen and woollen, music, and all other easy neat works, either for to furnish Storehouses with linnen and wooll cloth, or for the ornament of particular houses with needlework. If this course were taken, there would be no idle person or beggar in the Land, and much work would be done by that now lazy generation for the enlarging of the Common Treasury.”
Invention to be encouraged.
“In the managing of any trade let no young wit be crushed in his invention. If any man desire to make a new trial of his skill in any trade or science, the Overseer shall not injure him but encourage him therein; that so the Spirit of Knowledge may have his full growth in man, to find out the secrets in every art. And let everyone who finds out a new invention have a deserved honor given him; and certainly when men are sure of food and raiment, their reason will be ripe and ready to dive into the secrets of the Creation, that they may learn to see and know God (the Spirit of the whole Creation) in all his works. For fear of want and care to pay Rent to Task-Masters hath hindered many rare inventions. So that Kingly Power hath crushed the Spirit of Knowledge, and would not suffer it to rise up in its beauty and fullness, but by his Club Law hath preferred the Spirit of Imagination, which is a deceiver, before it.
“There shall be no buying and selling of the Earth, nor of the fruits thereof.
“For by the Government under Kings the cheaters hereby have cozened the plain-hearted of their Creation Birth-rights, and have possessed themselves in the Earth, and call it theirs, and not the others, and so have brought in that poverty and misery which lies upon many men. And whereas the wise should help the foolish, and the strong help the weak, the wise and strong destroy the weak and simple ... and so the Proverb is made true—Plain dealing is a jewel, but he who uses it shall die a beggar. And why? Because this buying and selling is the nursery of cheats; it is the Law of the Conqueror, the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.... And these cunning cheaters commonly become the Rulers of the Earth.... For not the wise poor man, but the cunning rich man was always made an Officer and a Ruler; such a one as by his stolen interests in the Earth would be sure to hold others in bondage of poverty and servitude to him and his party. Therefore there shall be no buying and selling in a free Common-wealth, neither shall anyone hire his Brother to work for him.”
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs: such, then, was Winstanley’s ideal; such was the Communistic Commonwealth he evidently imagined would naturally evolve if only the equal claims of all to the use of the Earth were once recognised and respected. He was, however, much too shrewd to think for a moment that any such State could be ushered in all at once, or created by Act of Parliament. For he continues:
“If the Common-wealth might be governed without buying and selling, here is a Platform of Government for it, which is the ancientest Law of Righteousness to Mankind in the use of the Earth, and which is the very height of Earthly Freedom. But if the minds of the people, through covetousness and proud ignorance, will have the Earth governed by buying and selling still, this same Platform, with some few things subtracted, declares an easy way of Government of the Earth for the quiet of people’s minds, and the preserving of peace in the Land.
“How must the Earth be planted?
“The Earth is to be planted and the fruits reaped and carried into Barns and Storehouses by the assistance of every family. If any man or family want corn or other provisions, they may go to the Storehouses and fetch without money. If they want a horse to ride, go into the fields in Summer, or to the Common Stables in Winter, and receive one from the Keepers, and when your journey is performed, bring him where you had him, without money. If any want food or victuals, they may either go to the butchers’ shops and receive what they want without money, or else go to the flocks of sheep or herds of cattle, and take and kill what meat is needful for their families, without buying and selling. The reason why all the riches of the Earth are a Common Stock is this: Because the Earth and the labors thereupon are managed by common assistance of every family, without buying and selling, as is shown more largely in the Office of Overseers for Trades and the Law for Storehouses. The Laws for the right ordering thereof, and the Officers to see the Laws executed, to preserve the peace of every family, and to improve and promote every trade, is shown in the work of Officers and the Laws following.”
Who alone will object.
“None will be an enemy to this Freedom, which, indeed, is to do to another as a man would have another do to him, but Covetousness and Pride, the spirit of the old grudging, snapping Pharisees, who give God abundant of good words in their sermons, in their prayers, in their fasts, and in their thanksgivings, as though none should be more faithful servants to Him than they. Nay, they will shun the company, imprison, and kill every one that will not worship God, they are so zealous. Well now, God and Christ hath enacted an everlasting Law, which is Love, not only one another of your own mind, but love your enemies too, such as are not of your mind: and having food and raiment therewith be content. Now here is a trial for you, whether you will be faithful to God and Christ in obeying His Laws; or whether you will destroy the man-child of true Freedom, Righteousness and Peace, in his resurrection. And now thou wilt either give us the tricks of a Soldier, face about, and return to Egypt, and so declare thyself to be part of the Serpent’s seed that must bruise the heel of Christ. Or else to be one of the plain-hearted Sons of Promise, or Members of Christ, who shall help to bruise the Serpent’s head, which is Kingly Oppression, and so bring in everlasting Righteousness and Peace into the Earth. Well, the eye is now open.”
“Storehouses shall be built and appointed in all Places and be the Common Stock.
“There shall be Storehouses in all places, both in the Country and in Cities, to which all the fruits of the Earth, and other works made by Tradesmen, shall be brought, and thence delivered out again to particular Families, and to every one as they want for their use; or else to be transplanted by ships to other Lands to exchange for those things which our Land will not or does not afford. For all the labors of Husbandmen and Tradesmen within the Land, or by Navigation to or from other Lands, shall be upon the Common Stock. And as everyone works to advance the Common Stock, so everyone shall have a free use of any commodity in the Storehouse for his pleasure and comfortable livelihood, without buying or selling or restraint from any. Having food and raiment, lodging, and the comfortable societies of his own kind, what can a man desire more in these days of his travel? Indeed, covetous, proud, and beastly minded men desire more, either to lay by them to look upon, or else to waste and spoil it upon their lusts, while other Bretheren live in straits for the want of the use thereof. But the Laws and Faithful Officers of a Free Commonwealth do regulate the irrational conduct of such men.
“There are two Sorts of Storehouses, General and Particular.
“The general Storehouses are such houses as receive in all commodities in the gross.... And these general Storehouses shall be filled and preserved by the common labor and assistance of every Family, as is mentioned in the Office for Overseer for Trades. And from these Public Houses, which are the general stock of the Land, all particular Tradesmen may fetch materials for their particular work as they need, or to furnish their particular dwellings with any commodities.
“Secondly, There are particular Storehouses, or Shops, to which the Tradesmen shall bring their particular works; as all instruments of iron to the Iron-shops, hats to the shops appointed for them, and so on.... They shall receive in, as into a Storehouse, and deliver out again freely, as out of a Common Storehouse, when particular persons or families come for everything they need, as now they do by buying and selling under Kingly Government. For as particular Families and Tradesmen do make several works more than they can make use of ... and do carry their particular works to Storehouses; so it is all Reason and Equity that they should go to other Storehouses to fetch any other commodity which they want and cannot make. For as other men partake of their labors, so it is reason they should partake of other men’s.”
It should be scarcely necessary to pause to point out that what Winstanley here describes is exactly what is taking place, in his time as in our times, all the world over. Commodities of every description are continuously being produced, and being brought to the Storehouses, wholesale and retail, thence to be redistributed to those who require them. The Social Problem, of Winstanley’s time and of our time, is how to secure to each co-operating worker his fair share of the returns to the labours of all. And manifestly this is impossible so long as some can command any share thereof without having in any way shared in the toil or rendered any equivalent counter-service. In 1905, as in 1652, an ever increasing portion and proportion of the wealth thus harvested and garnered constantly gravitates towards those who, under the prevailing “kingly laws,” claim to control the use of the land, whence alone it can be derived. This was the basic social injustice, the parent source of innumerable other social ills and injustices, which Winstanley was one of the first clearly to apprehend, and to combat which he devoted his life.
Winstanley, moreover, fully and clearly realised that:
And this formed the heading of his next chapter, in which in a specially lively manner he first points out that the Laws of a Monarchy—which, being based upon inequality, necessarily tend to produce inequality, and whose main function is to legalise and to maintain privileges—are necessarily essentially different from those suitable to a Free Commonwealth—which, being based upon the recognition of the equality of rights, would necessarily tend to produce an equality of social conditions; and whose main function would be to establish and to legalise Justice, equal rights and equal duties, to maintain and to enforce the equal claims of all to the use of the earth, to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. It commences as follows:
Of kingly Laws.
“The King’s Old Laws cannot govern in times of Bondage and in times of Freedom too. They have indeed served many masters, Papish and Protestant. They are like old Soldiers, who will but change their name, and turn about, and as they were. The Reason is because they are the prerogative will of those, under any Religion, who count it no Freedom to them unless they be Lords over the minds, persons and labors of their bretheren.
“They are called the King’s Laws, because they are made by the King. If any say they were made by the Commoners, it is answered, They were not made by the Commoners as the Commoners of a Free Commonwealth are to make Laws. For in the days of the King none were to choose or be chosen Parliament Men, or Law Makers, but Lords of Manors, and Freeholders, such as held title to their Enclosures of Land, or Charters for their Liberties in Trades, under the King, who called the Land his, as he was the Conqueror or his successor. All inferior people were neither to choose nor be chosen. And the reason was because all Freeholders of Land and such as held their Liberties by Charter, were all of the King’s interest; and the inferior people were successively of the rank of the conquered ones, and servants and slaves from the time of the Conquest.
“Further, when a Parliament was chosen in that manner, yet if any Parliament Man, in the uprightness of his heart, did endeavour to promote any freedom contrary to the King’s will or former customs from the Conquest, he was either committed to prison by the King or by the House of Lords, who were his ancient Norman successive Council of War; or else the Parliament was dissolved and broke up by the King. So that the old Laws were made in times under Kingly Slavery, not under the liberty of Commonwealth’s Freedom, because Parliament Men had to have regard to the King’s prerogative interest to uphold his conquest, or else endanger themselves. As sometimes it is in these days, some Officers dare not speak against the minds of those men who are the chief in power, nor a Private Soldier against the mind of his Officer, lest they be cashiered their places and livelihood. And so long as the promoting of the King’s will and prerogative was to be in the eye of the Law Makers, the oppressed Commoners could never enjoy Commonwealth’s Freedom thereby. Yet by the wisdom, courage, faithfulness and industry of some Parliament Men, the Commoners have received here a line and there a line of freedom inserted into their Laws: as those good lines of freedom in Magna Charta were obtained by much hardship and industry.
“Secondly, They were the King’s Laws, because the King’s own creatures made the Laws: Lords of Manors, Freeholders, etc., were successors of the Norman soldiers from the Conquest, therefore they could do no other but maintain their own and the King’s interest. Do we not see that all Laws were made in the days of the King to ease the rich Landlord? The poor laborers were left under bondage still; they were to have no freedom in the earth by those pharisaical Laws. For when Laws were made and Parliaments broke up, the poor oppressed Commoners had no relief; the power of Lords of Manors, withholding the free use of the Common-land from them, remained still. For none durst make any use of any Common-land but at the Lord’s leave, according to the will and law of the Conqueror. Therefore the old Laws were called King’s Laws.”
Of Commonwealth’s Laws.