That the same fate should have befallen his political writings, his noble and yet simple and practical political ideals and aspirations, is also not surprising.  After the Restoration, when, as we have already shown, Winstanley’s bitter opponents, the old and new landholders, were in the saddle, and made unsparing, we had almost written unscrupulous, use of their opportunities, such doctrines as his were little likely to commend themselves to the privileged, cultured and educated classes.  Prior to the Reformation, education, at least the knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic, was undoubtedly more widely diffused amongst the masses of the people than it was subsequently—­at all events, till very recent times.  From the Restoration to within our own times, education, even the knowledge of reading, was as a very general rule only within the reach of the few, of the privileged classes and those more or less dependent on their favour, with whom such ideals as those voiced by Winstanley would naturally meet with but scant consideration.  Moreover, though we may be accused of pessimism or cynicism for saying so, it seems to us that the main reason why teachings such as Winstanley’s must necessarily remain specially unpalatable and unwelcome so long as social and political privileges are allowed to continue, is that they are too simple and direct, and the path toward their realisation too clearly indicated, to be acceptable or welcome to those who benefit, or think they benefit, by the continuance of social injustice.  Winstanley’s proposals, as the proposals of his great modern representative, Henry George, are, indeed, a test of sincerity.  It is easy to express approval of Freedom, Justice, Honesty, Equality of Opportunities, Brotherhood, of the Equal Right of All to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and so on, in the abstract, and to talk about the necessity for men, other men, dealing honestly, equitably and righteously one toward the other.  It is difficult, though but a test of our own honesty and sincerity, to give practical support to unpopular doctrines and proposals which would tend to make these noble and elevating conceptions into real, living realities, and to enforce us to act honestly, equitably and righteously ourselves.  Hence it is that even to-day those who advocate any such doctrines, any such social change, are either dismissed as impossible, utopian dreamers, or denounced as revolutionary demagogues, as “prophets of iniquity,” “preachers of immorality,” “advocates of villany,” as enemies 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.