Thus wrote Gerrard Winstanley in 1650, about one year after the execution of Charles I. Sketching in the economic and political conditions of an earlier revolutionary period, Engels wrote in The Peasant War in Germany:

Dear Sir,

I would like to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. Maybe if I try to explain . . .Would you be able to understand the real meaning of what lies behind these words? Will you . ..? I am not asking for pity or sorry; I am not even asking for sympathy for myself. I ask you only to know, to be aware, and to respond before it is too late.

Why YOU? I do not know with certitude; it is a mixture of elements: that’s you, Sir, as you have emerged from nothingness into my soul: somebody I do not know, and somebody I know so well, so well . . . Somebody I feel I want to cling to, somebody I have to run away from.

The other day . . . that stupid tooth of mine once again came loose and I was quite disappointed to have to go back to the surgery: I do not like dentists, you know. Anyway, anticipating a big row with the surgeon who had made that botched job, I felt encouraged to hurry there. However, it wasn’t the blond one in the clinic, it was you: a big guy, somewhat fat, young, with lots of selfconfidence, but, at least, approachable; in some way aggressive, but then ... willing to be friendly. Tall, powerful, steady; a young professional with a whole life ahead to be enjoyed ... you reminded me of “the other one”, long ago. So similar you and he . . .! Even your hands! Even that polite aggressiveness! That smile of yours . . . of his . . . the way you looked at me ... he looked at me . . . and said: “Sh! do not worry little one, do not be afraid. Sh! Little one, little one . . . Sh!” He was leaning on his side on the upper deck of the bunk.

In an interesting and important essay entitled ‘The Soul’s Conquest of Evil’. Professor W. W. Bartley III argues that it is virtually impossible for man to overcome or subdue his own evil will. Bartley claims that it is a conditio sine qua non of man’s conquest of evil that he possess self-knowledge, but he is pessimistic about man’s capacity to gain the self-knowledge needed to triumph over his evil will. Bartley quotes with approval the words of C. G. Jung:

It is Bartley’s contention that the search for self-knowledge is a costly and perilous venture, undertaken successfully by only a few exceptional individuals. Prima facie, what Bartley and Jung say seems to be not without plausibility; most of us find it hard to be good precisely because we fail to acquire that clarity of vision which is so important if we are to struggle successfully to be moral beings. Nevertheless, Bartley’s position cannot be accepted without substantial reservations, and in this essay I propose to examine his position more closely, and attempt to show why I am inclined to reject his arguments.