emies of society, and so on; and if this
fails of its desired effects, other means are found by which their
influence is undermined and their teachings discredited in the minds of
those who more or less blindly follow in the wake of the "superior
classes," the privileged few and their more or less direct dependents.
Thus Society continues its troubled slumbers until--until the necessary
changes denied to peaceful reformers, to the thinkers of the race, may
be demanded, by revolutionary methods, by force, by those who know
themselves injured and oppressed, though they may be ignorant of the
means by which they are wronged.

It was, however, as a sincere and unswerving advocate of peaceful,
practical reforms, as a courageous and unflinching opponent of the use
of force, of the sword, even for righteous ends, that Winstanley
appealed to his own generation, as Henry George, Ruskin and Tolstoy
appeal to the present. Nor can there be any doubt but that his teachings
found far more general acceptance than is to be gathered from modern
histories of the troubled times in which his lot was cast. For not only
was there sufficient demand to warrant the publication of at least two
editions of _The Law of Freedom_, as of several of his other pamphlets,
but additional testimony is to be gathered from the fact that his
writings were immediately pirated and issued under new titles by other
publishers:[232:1] than which no better evidence can be had of the
popularity of any writer.

However this may be, new and less earnest and less strenuous generations
arose which knew not Winstanley, and heeded not his teachings; and till
very recent years both he and his teachings have remained utterly
forgotten. And yet we write the closing lines of our work with the same
conviction with which we commenced it some five years ago, that not only
was Gerrard Winstanley a man worthy to be recalled to the memory of his
fellow-countrymen, as one who deserved well of his day, of his
generation and of his country, but that the intrinsic merits of his
writings and teachings make them worthy of our most careful study, of
our highest admiration, and of our most profound respect.

True, they have hitherto received but scant consideration; but this need
neither surprise nor disturb us. The man in whose heart a new truth is
born may be a benefactor of his species; but, as all history teaches us,
if he have courage to proclaim it to the world, he must be prepare