The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social ReformerBerens, Lewis Henry
History
The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer
Berens, Lewis Henry
Communism; Land use; Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-
"These old Laws cannot govern a Free Commonwealth; because the Land
is now to be set free from the slavery of the Norman Conquest, and
the power of Lords of Manors and Norman Freeholders is to be taken
away. Or else the Commoners are but where they were, if not fallen
lower into straits than they were. The Old Laws cannot look with
any other face than they did; though they be washed with
Commonwealth's water, their countenance is still withered.
Therefore it was not for nothing that the Kings would have all
their Laws written in French and Latin, and not in English; partly
in honor to the Norman Race, and partly to keep the Common People
ignorant of their Creation Freedom lest they should rise to redeem
themselves. And if those Laws should be writ in English, yet if the
same Kingly Principles remain in them, the English language would
not advantage us anything, but rather increase our sorrow by our
knowledge of our bondage."
"WHAT IS LAW IN GENERAL?"
Winstanley then proceeds to consider the question, What is Law? and to
emphasise the essential difference between customary, conventional or
written Law and that unwritten Law, proceeding from the Inward Light of
Reason, that inspires men, in action as in words, to do as they would be
done unto. He first gives the following clear, rational and sufficient
definition of Law:
"Law is a Rule, whereby men and other creatures are governed in
their actions for the preservation of Common Peace."
Then follows a most philosophic consideration of the whole question,
which seems to us to reveal that Winstanley was groping, and by no means
so blindly as many who succeeded him, after some Natural Law, some
unalterable and immutable principle, which should serve as a basis, as
well as the test and touchstone, of all man-made customs, laws and
institutions. He continues:
THE TWO-FOLD NATURE OF LAW.
"This Law is two-fold: First, it is the power of Life (called the
Law of Nature within the Creatures) which doth move both man and
beast in their actions, or that causes grass, trees, corn and all
plants to grow in their several seasons. And whatsoever anybody
does, he does it as he is moved by this inward Law. And this Law of
Nature moves two-fold, viz., irrationally or rationally."
THE LAW OF THE FLESH.
"A man by this inward Law is guided to actions of present content,
rashly, through a greedy self-love, without any consideration, like
foolish children, or like the brute beasts. By reason whereof much
hurt many times follows the body. And this may be called the Law of
the Members warring against the Law of the Mind."
THE LAW OF THE MIND.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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