Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/21

Rh possible in the scope of this essay. The origins of such ideas, of course, lie centuries back in the political thinking of England and Europe. It is equally impossible to appraise the various factors in the social and economic life of seventeenth-century England, that, working through the minds of the Levellers, influenced their ideas. All that can be done is to note such obvious connections between economic and social abuses and proposed remedies as were actually present to the minds of the Levellers themselves.

The material employed is in great measure the controversial pamphlet literature of the time. The dangers in its use are obvious. The need of manuscript evidence to supplement it is great; but such evidence is almost entirely lacking. Living about London in close touch with one another, the Leveller leaders naturally communicated by word of mouth rather than by letter. A few scattered pieces of correspondence exist here and there; but in such unexpected places as to indicate the fact that the unearthing of any considerable body of correspondence throwing new light on the Levellers must be the result of accident rather than design.

For certain purposes this dearth of document material is not serious. Controversial writings are the best guide in the study of elaborated political ideas and theories. Even for the life of a man or a political party, the pamphlet material, written as it was by contemporaries with different