and the Fall. How in the beginning man was created perfect, and "the
whole Creation lived in man, and man lived in his Maker." And how man
fell from this high estate by following the promptings of self-love,
covetousness, or the desires of the flesh, to which he attributes all
the misery and suffering men bring upon themselves, and which he
personifies as the First Adam. "All that this Adam doth," he says, "is
to advance himself to be the one power. He gets riches and government in
his hands so that he may lift up himself and suppress the universal
liberty, which is Christ."

He then continues:

"And this is the beginning of particular interest, buying and
selling the Earth from one particular hand to another, saying 'This
is mine,' upholding this particular propriety by a law of
government of his own making, and thereby restraining other
fellow-creatures from seeking nourishment from their Mother Earth.
So that though a man was bred up in a Land, yet he must not work
for himself where he would, but for him who had bought part of the
Land, or had come to it by inheritance of his deceased parents, and
called it his own Land. So that he who had no Land was to work for
small wages for those who called the Land theirs. Thereby some are
lifted up in the chair of tyranny, and others trod under the
footstool of misery, as if the Earth were made for a few, and not
for all men."

"As if the Earth were made for a few, and not for all men!" In these
few pertinent and indignant words Winstanley strikes the keynote of all
his subsequent writings, as that of those of many other later students
of social problems, from John Locke,[71:1] who may be regarded as his