UTOPIA by SIR THOMAS MORE

BOOK I

HENRY VIII, the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with
all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some
differences of no small consequence with Charles, the most serene
Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for
treating and composing matters between them. I was colleague and
companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the King
with such universal applause lately made Master of the Rolls, but
of whom I will say nothing; not because I fear that the testimony
of a friend will be suspected, but rather because his learning and
virtues are too great for me to do them justice, and so well known
that they need not my commendations unless I would, according to
the proverb, "Show the sun with a lanthorn." Those that were
appointed by the Prince to treat with us, met us at Bruges,
according to agreement; they were all worthy men. The Margrave of
Bruges was their head, and the chief man among them; but he that
was esteemed the wisest, and that spoke for the rest, was George
Temse, the Provost of Casselsee; both art and nature had concurred
to make him eloquent: he was very learned in the law; and as he
had a great capacity, so by a long practice in affairs he was very
dexterous at unravelling them.

After we had several times met without coming to an agreement,
they went to Brussels for some days to know the Prince's pleasure.
And since our business would admit it, I went to Antwerp. While I
was there, among many that visited me, there was one that was more
acceptable to me than any other, Peter Giles, born at Antwerp, who
is a man of great honor, and of a good rank in his town, though
less than he deserves; for I do not know if there be anywhere to
be found a more learned and a better bred young man: for as he is
both a very worthy and a very knowing person, so he is so civil to
all men, so particularly kind to his friends, and so full of
candor and affection, that there is not perhaps above one or two
anywhere to be found that are in all respects so perfect a friend.
He is extraordinarily modest, there is no artifice in him; and yet
no man has more of a prudent simplicity: his conversation was so
pleasant and so innocently cheerful, that his company in a great
measure lessened any longings to go back to my country, and to my
wife and children, which an absence of four months had quickened
very much. One day as I was returning home from mass at St.
Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most frequented of any
in Antwerp, I saw him by accident talking with a stranger, who
seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a
long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so
that by his looks and habit I concluded he was a seaman.

As soon as Peter saw me, he came and saluted me; and as I was
returning his civility, he took me aside, and pointing to him with
whom he had been discoursing, he said: "Do you see that man? I was
just thinking to bring him to you."

I answered, "He should have been very welcome on your account."

"And on his own too," replied he, "if you knew the man, for there
is none alive that can give so copious an account of unknown
nations and countries as he can do; which I know you very much
desire."

Then said I, "I did not guess amiss, for at first sight I took him
for a seaman."

"But you are much mistaken," said he, "for he has not sailed as a
seaman, but as a traveller, or rather a philosopher. This Raphael,
who from his family carries the name of Hythloday, is not ignorant
of the Latin tongue, but is eminently learned in the Greek, having
applied himself more particularly to that than to the former,
because he had given himself much to philosophy, in which he knew
that the Romans have left us nothing that is valuable, except what
is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. He is a Portuguese by birth,
and was so desirous of seeing the world that he divided his estate
among his brothers, ran the same hazard as Americus Vespucius, and
bore a share in three of his four voyages, that are now published;
only he did not return with him in his last, but obtained leave of
him almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty-four who
were left at the farthest place at which they touched, in their
last voyage to New Castile. The leaving him thus did not a little
gratify one that was more fond of travelling than of returning
home to be buried in his own country; for he used often to say
that the way to heaven was the same from all places; and he that
had no grave had the heaven still over him. Yet this disposition
of mind had cost him dear, if God had not been very gracious to
him; for after he, with five Castilians, had travelled over many
countries, at last, by strange good-fortune, he got to Ceylon, and
from thence to Calicut, where he very happily found some
Portuguese ships, and, beyond all men's expectations, returned to
his native country."

When Peter had said this to me, I thanked him for his kindness, in
intending to give me the acquaintance of a man whose conversation
he knew would be so acceptable; and upon that Raphael and I
embraced each other. After those civilities were passed which are
usual with strangers upon their first meeting, we all went to my
house, and entering into the garden, sat down on a green bank, and
entertained one another in discourse. He told us that when
Vespucius had sailed away, he and his companions that stayed
behind in New Castile, by degrees insinuated themselves into the
affections of the people of the country, meeting often with them,
and treating them gently: and at last they not only lived among
them without danger, but conversed familiarly with them; and got
so far into the heart of a prince, whose name and country I have
forgot, that he both furnished them plentifully with all things
necessary, and also with the conveniences of travelling; both
boats when they went by water, and wagons when they travelled over
land: he sent with them a very faithful guide, who was to
introduce and recommend them to such other princes as they had a
mind to see: and after many days' journey, they came to towns and
cities, and to commonwealths, that were both happily governed and
well-peopled. Under the equator, and as far on both sides of it as
the sun moves, there lay vast deserts that were parched with the
perpetual heat of the sun; the soil was withered, all things
looked dismally, and all places were either quite uninhabited, or
abounded with wild beasts and serpents, and some few men that were
neither less wild nor less cruel than the beasts themselves.

But as they went farther, a new scene opened, all things grew
milder, the air less burning, the soil more verdant, and even the
beasts were less wild: and at last there were nations, towns, and
cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves, and
with their neighbors, but traded both by sea and land, to very
remote countries. There they found the conveniences of seeing many
countries on all hands, for no ship went any voyage into which he
and his companions were not very welcome. The first vessels that
they saw were flat-bottomed, their sails were made of reeds and
wicker woven close together, only some were of leather; but
afterward they found ships made with round keels and canvas sails,
and in all respects like our ships; and the seamen understood both
astronomy and navigation. He got wonderfully into their favor, by
showing them the use of the needle, of which till then they were
utterly ignorant. They sailed before with great caution, and only
in summer-time, but now they count all seasons alike, trusting
wholly to the loadstone, in which they are perhaps more secure
than safe; so that there is reason to fear that this discovery,
which was thought would prove so much to their advantage, may by
their imprudence become an occasion of much mischief to them. But
it were too long to dwell on all that he told us he had observed
in every place, it would be too great a digression from our
present purpose: whatever is necessary to be told, concerning
those wise and prudent institutions which he observed among
civilized nations, may perhaps be related by us on a more proper
occasion. We asked him many questions concerning all these things,
to which he answered very willingly; only we made no inquiries
after monsters, than which nothing is more common; for everywhere
one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel man-eaters;
but it is not so easy to find States that are well and wisely
governed.

As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new-
discovered countries, so he reckoned up not a few things from
which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these
nations among whom we live; of which an account may be given, as I
have already promised, at some other time; for at present I intend
only to relate those particulars that he told us of the manners
and laws of the Utopians: but I will begin with the occasion that
led us to speak of that commonwealth. After Raphael had discoursed
with great judgment on the many errors that were both among us and
these nations; had treated of the wise institutions both here and
there, and had spoken as distinctly of the customs and government
of every nation through which he had passed, as if he had spent
his whole life in it, Peter, being struck with admiration, said:
"I wonder, Raphael, how it comes that you enter into no king's
service, for I am sure there are none to whom you would not be
very acceptable: for your learning and knowledge both of men and
things, are such that you would not only entertain them very
pleasantly, but be of great use to them, by the examples you could
set before them and the advices you could give them; and by this
means you would both serve your own interest and be of great use
to all your friends."

"As for my friends," answered he, "I need not be much concerned,
having already done for them all that was incumbent on me; for
when I was not only in good health, but fresh and young, I
distributed that among my kindred and friends which other people
do not part with till they are old and sick, when they then
unwillingly give that which they can enjoy no longer themselves. I
think my friends ought to rest contented with this, and not to
expect that for their sake I should enslave myself to any king
whatsoever."

"Soft and fair," said Peter, "I do not mean that you should be a
slave to any king, but only that you should assist them, and be
useful to them."

"The change of the word," said he, "does not alter the matter."

"But term it as you will," replied Peter, "I do not see any other
way in which you can be so useful, both in private to your
friends, and to the public, and by which you can make your own
condition happier."

"Happier!" answered Raphael; "is that to be compassed in a way so
abhorrent to my genius? Now I live as I will, to which I believe
few courtiers can pretend. And there are so many that court the
favor of great men, that there will be no great loss if they are
not troubled either with me or with others of my temper."

Upon this, said I: "I perceive, Raphael, that you neither desire
wealth nor greatness; and indeed I value and admire such a man
much more than I do any of the great men in the world. Yet I think
you would do what would well become so generous and philosophical
a soul as yours is, if you would apply your time and thoughts to
public affairs, even though you may happen to find it a little
uneasy to yourself: and this you can never do with so much
advantage, as by being taken into the counsel of some great
prince, and putting him on noble and worthy actions, which I know
you would do if you were in such a post; for the springs both of
good and evil flow from the prince, over a whole nation, as from a
lasting fountain. So much learning as you have, even without
practice in affairs, or so great a practice as you have had,
without any other learning, would render you a very fit counsellor
to any king whatsoever."

"You are doubly mistaken," said he, "Mr. More, both in your
opinion of me, and in the judgment you make of things: for as I
have not that capacity that you fancy I have, so, if I had it, the
public would not be one jot the better, when I had sacrificed my
quiet to it. For most princes apply themselves more to affairs of
war than to the useful arts of peace; and in these I neither have
any knowledge, nor do I much desire it: they are generally more
set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing
well those they possess. And among the ministers of princes, there
are none that are not so wise as to need no assistance, or at
least that do not think themselves so wise that they imagine they
need none; and if they court any, it is only those for whom the
prince has much personal favor, whom by their fawnings and
flatteries they endeavor to fix to their own interests: and indeed
Nature has so made us that we all love to be flattered, and to
please ourselves with our own notions. The old crow loves his
young, and the ape her cubs. Now if in such a court, made up of
persons who envy all others, and only admire themselves, a person
should but propose anything that he had either read in history or
observed in his travels, the rest would think that the reputation
of their wisdom would sink, and that their interest would be much
depressed, if they could not run it down: and if all other things
failed, then they would fly to this, that such or such things
pleased our ancestors, and it were well for us if we could but
match them. They would set up their rest on such an answer, as a
sufficient confutation of all that could be said, as if it were a
great misfortune, that any should be found wiser than his
ancestors; but though they willingly let go all the good things
that were among those of former ages, yet if better things are
proposed they cover themselves obstinately with this excuse of
reverence to past times. I have met with these proud, morose, and
absurd judgments of things in many places, particularly once in
England."

"Were you ever there?" said I.

"Yes, I was," answered he, "and stayed some months there not long
after the rebellion in the west was suppressed with a great
slaughter of the poor people that were engaged in it. I was then
much obliged to that reverend prelate, John Morton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England: a man," said he,
"Peter (for Mr. More knows well what he was), that was not less
venerable for his wisdom and virtues than for the high character
he bore. He was of a middle stature, not broken with age; his
looks begot reverence rather than fear; his conversation was easy,
but serious and grave; he sometimes took pleasure to try the force
of those that came as suitors to him upon business, by speaking
sharply though decently to them, and by that he discovered their
spirit and presence of mind, with which he was much delighted,
when it did not grow up to impudence, as bearing a great
resemblance to his own temper; and he looked on such persons as
the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both gracefully and
weightily; he was eminently skilled in the law, had a vast
understanding and a prodigious memory; and those excellent talents
with which nature had furnished him were improved by study and
experience. When I was in England the King depended much on his
counsels, and the government seemed to be chiefly supported by
him; for from his youth he had been all along practised in
affairs; and having passed through many traverses of fortune, he
had with great cost acquired a vast stock of wisdom, which is not
soon lost when it is purchased so dear.

"One day when I was dining with him there happened to be at table
one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high
commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, who,
as he said, were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes
twenty on one gibbet; and upon that he said he could not wonder
enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped, there were
yet so many thieves left who were still robbing in all places.
Upon this, I who took the boldness to speak freely before the
cardinal, said there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since
this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good
for the public; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy
was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it
ought to cost a man his life, no punishment how severe soever
being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no
other way of livelihood. 'In this,' said I, 'not only you in
England, but a great part of the world imitate some ill masters
that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it
were much better to make such good provisions by which every man
might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the
fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.'

"'There has been care enough taken for that,' said he, 'there are
many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they may make a
shift to live unless they have a greater mind to follow ill
courses.'

"'That will not serve your turn,' said I, 'for many lose their
limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish
rebellion, and some time ago in your wars with France, who being
thus mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no
more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones:
but since wars are only accidental things, and have intervals, let
us consider those things that fall out every day. There is a great
number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle as
drones, that subsist on other men's labor, on the labor of their
tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick.
This indeed is the only instance of their frugality, for in all
other things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of
themselves: but besides this, they carry about with them a great
number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they
may gain their living; and these, as soon as either their lord
dies or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors; for
your lords are readier to feed idle people than to take care of
the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep together so great
a family as his predecessor did. Now when the stomachs of those
that are thus turned out of doors grow keen, they rob no less
keenly; and what else can they do? for when, by wandering about,
they have worn out both their health and their clothes, and are
tattered, and look ghastly, men of quality will not entertain
them, and poor men dare not do it, knowing that one who has been
bred up in idleness and pleasure, and who was used to walk about
with his sword and buckler, despising all the neighborhood with an
insolent scorn as far below him, is not fit for the spade and
mattock: nor will he serve a poor man for so small a hire, and in
so low a diet as he can afford to give him.'

"To this he answered: 'This sort of men ought to be particularly
cherished, for in them consists the force of the armies for which
we have occasion; since their birth inspires them with a nobler
sense of honor than is to be found among tradesmen or ploughmen.'

"'You may as well say,' replied I, 'that you must cherish thieves
on the account of wars, for you will never want the one as long as
you have the other; and as robbers prove sometimes gallant
soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers; so near an
alliance there is between those two sorts of life. But this bad
custom, so common among you, of keeping many servants, is not
peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a more pestiferous
sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, still
kept up in time of peace, if such a state of a nation can be
called a peace: and these are kept in pay upon the same account
that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen; this being
a maxim of those pretended statesmen that it is necessary for the
public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in
readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended on, and they
sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train up
their soldiers in the art of cutting throats; or as Sallust
observed, for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow
dull by too long an intermission. But France has learned to its
cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts.

"'The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and many
other nations and cities, which were both overturned and quite
ruined by those standing armies, should make others wiser: and the
folly of this maxim of the French appears plainly even from this,
that their trained soldiers often find your raw men prove too hard
for them; of which I will not say much, lest you may think I
flatter the English. Every day's experience shows that the
mechanics in the towns, or the clowns in the country, are not
afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen, if they are not
disabled by some misfortune in their body, or dispirited by
extreme want, so that you need not fear that those well-shaped and
strong men (for it is only such that noblemen love to keep about
them, till they spoil them) who now grow feeble with ease, and are
softened with their effeminate manner of life, would be less fit
for action if they were well bred and well employed. And it seems
very unreasonable that for the prospect of a war, which you need
never have but when you please, you should maintain so many idle
men, as will always disturb you in time of peace, which is ever to
be more considered than war. But I do not think that this
necessity of stealing arises only from hence; there is another
cause of it more peculiar to England.'

"'What is that?' said the cardinal.

"'The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep, which
are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to
devour men, and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for
wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and
richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even
those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old rents which
their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at
their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt
instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying
houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and enclose grounds
that they may lodge their sheep in them. As if forests and parks
had swallowed up too little of the land, those worthy countrymen
turn the best inhabited places in solitudes, for when an
insatiable wretch, who is a plague to his country, resolves to
enclose many thousand acres of ground, the owners as well as
tenants are turned out of their possessions, by tricks, or by main
force, or being wearied out with ill-usage, they are forced to
sell them. By which means those miserable people, both men and
women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but
numerous families (since country business requires many hands),
are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither to go;
and they must sell almost for nothing their household stuff, which
could not bring them much money, even though they might stay for a
buyer. When that little money is at an end, for it will be soon
spent, what is left for them to do, but either to steal and so to
be hanged (God knows how justly), or to go about and beg? And if
they do this, they are put in prison as idle vagabonds; while they
would willingly work, but can find none that will hire them; for
there is no more occasion for country labor, to which they have
been bred, when there is no arable ground left. One shepherd can
look after a flock which will stock an extent of ground that would
require many hands if it were to be ploughed and reaped. This
likewise in many places raises the price of corn.

"'The price of wool is also so risen that the poor people who were
wont to make cloth are no more able to buy it; and this likewise
makes many of them idle. For since the increase of pasture, God
has punished the avarice of the owners by a rot among the sheep,
which has destroyed vast numbers of them; to us it might have
seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves. But suppose
the sheep should increase ever so much, their price is not like to
fall; since though they cannot be called a monopoly, because they
are not engrossed by one person, yet they are in so few hands, and
these are so rich, that as they are not pressed to sell them
sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they
have raised the price as high as possible. And on the same account
it is, that the other kinds of cattle are so dear, because many
villages being pulled down, and all country labor being much
neglected, there are none who make it their business to breed
them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them
lean, and at low prices; and after they have fattened them on
their grounds sell them again at high rates. And I do not think
that all the inconveniences this will produce are yet observed,
for as they sell the cattle dear, so if they are consumed faster
than the breeding countries from which they are brought can afford
them, then the stock must decrease, and this must needs end in
great scarcity; and by these means this your island, which seemed
as to this particular the happiest in the world, will suffer much
by the cursed avarice of a few persons; besides this, the rising
of corn makes all people lessen their families as much as they
can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do, but either
beg or rob? And to this last, a man of a great mind is much sooner
drawn than to the former.

"'Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon you, to set forward your
poverty and misery; there is an excessive vanity in apparel, and
great cost in diet; and that not only in noblemen's families, but
even among tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among all
ranks of persons. You have also many infamous houses, and, besides
those that are known, the taverns and alehouses are no better; add
to these, dice, cards, tables, foot-ball, tennis, and quoits, in
which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into
them, must in the conclusion betake themselves to robbing for a
supply. Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have
dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild the villages they have
pulled down, or let out their grounds to such as will do it:
restrain those engrossings of the rich, that are as bad almost as
monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness; let agriculture be
set up again, and the manufacture of the wool be regulated, that
so there may be work found for those companies of idle people whom
want forces to be thieves, or who, now being idle vagabonds or
useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If you do
not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to boast of
your severity in punishing theft, which though it may have the
appearance of justice, yet in itself is neither just nor
convenient. For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and
their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish
them for those crimes to which their first education disposed
them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first
make thieves and then punish them ?'

"While I was talking thus, the counsellor who was present had
prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said,
according to the formality of a debate, in which things are
generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered; as if
the chief trial to be made were of men's memories.

"'You have talked prettily for a stranger,' said he, 'having heard
of many things among us which you have not been able to consider
well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you, and will
first repeat in order all that you have said, then I will show how
much your ignorance of our affairs has misled you, and will in the
last place answer all your arguments. And that I may begin where I
promised, there were four things--'

"'Hold your peace,' said the cardinal; 'this will take up too much
time; therefore we will at present ease you of the trouble of
answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall be to-
morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can admit of it. But,
Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know upon what reason it
is that you think theft ought not to be punished by death? Would
you give way to it? Or do you propose any other punishment that
will be more useful to the public? For since death does not
restrain theft, if men thought their lives would be safe, what
fear or force could restrain ill men? On the contrary, they would
look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to
commit more crimes.'

"I answered: 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a
man's life for a little money; for nothing in the world can be of
equal value with a man's life: and if it is said that it is not
for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law, I
must say extreme justice is an extreme injury; for we ought not to
approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest offences
capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes all crimes
equal, as if there were no difference to be made between the
killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we
examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion.
God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for
a little money? But if one shall say, that by that law we are only
forbid to kill any, except when the laws of the land allow of it;
upon the same grounds, laws may be made in some cases to allow of
adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us the right of
disposing, either of our own or of other people's lives, if it is
pretended that the mutual consent of man in making laws can
authorize manslaughter in cases in which God has given us no
example, that it frees people from the obligation of the divine
law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what is this, but to
give a preference to human laws before the divine?

"'And if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may in all
other things put what restrictions they please upon the laws of
God. If by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as
being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were
only fined and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine that
in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the
tenderness of a father, he has given us a greater license to
cruelty than he did to the Jews. Upon these reasons it is that I
think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and
obvious that it is absurd, and of ill-consequence to the
commonwealth, that a thief and a murderer should be equally
punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same, if he
is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will
naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would
only have robbed, since if the punishment is the same, there is
more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best
make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too
much, provokes them to cruelty.

"But as to the question, What more convenient way of punishment
can be found? I think it is much more easier to find out that than
to invent anything that is worse; why should we doubt but the way
that was so long in use among the old Romans, who understood so
well the arts of government, was very proper for their punishment?
They condemned such as they found guilty of great crimes, to work
their whole lives in quarries, or to dig in mines with chains
about them. But the method that I liked best, was that which I
observed in my travels in Persia, among the Polylerits, who are a
considerable and well-governed people. They pay a yearly tribute
to the King of Persia; but in all other respects they are a free
nation, and governed by their own laws. They lie far from the sea,
and are environed with hills; and being contented with the
productions of their own country, which is very fruitful, they
have little commerce with any other nation; and as they, according
to the genius of their country, have no inclination to enlarge
their borders; so their mountains, and the pension they pay to the
Persians, secure them from all invasions.

"'Thus they have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently
than with splendor, and may be rather called a happy nation, than
either eminent or famous; for I do not think that they are known
so much as by name to any but their next neighbors. Those that are
found guilty of theft among them are bound to make restitution to
the owner, and not as it is in other places, to the prince, for
they reckon that the prince has no more right to the stolen goods
than the thief; but if that which was stolen is no more in being,
then the goods of the thieves are estimated, and restitution being
made out of them, the remainder is given to their wives and
children: and they themselves are condemned to serve in the public
works, but are neither imprisoned, nor chained, unless there
happened to be some extraordinary circumstances in their crimes.
They go about loose and free, working for the public. If they are
idle or backward to work, they are whipped; but if they work hard,
they are well used and treated without any mark of reproach, only
the lists of them are called always at night, and then they are
shut up. They suffer no other uneasiness, but this of constant
labor; for as they work for the public, so they are well
entertained out of the public stock, which is done differently in
different places. In some places, whatever is bestowed on them, is
raised by a charitable contribution; and though this way may seem
uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of that people,
that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places,
public revenues are set aside for them; or there is a constant tax
of a poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places they
are set to no public work, but every private man that has occasion
to hire workmen goes to the market-places and hires them of the
public, a little lower than he would do a freeman: if they go
lazily about their task, he may quicken them with the whip.

"'By this means there is always some piece of work or other to be
done by them; and beside their livelihood, they earn somewhat
still to the public. They all wear a peculiar habit, of one
certain color, and their hair is cropped a little above their
ears, and a piece of one of their ears is cut off. Their friends
are allowed to give them either meat, drink, or clothes so they
are of their proper color, but it is death, both to the giver and
taker, if they give them money; nor is it less penal for any
freeman to take money from them, upon any account whatsoever: and
it is also death for any of these slaves (so they are called) to
handle arms. Those of every division of the country are
distinguished by a peculiar mark; which it is capital for them to
lay aside, to go out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of
another jurisdiction; and the very attempt of an escape is no less
penal than an escape itself; it is death for any other slave to be
accessory to it; and if a freeman engages in it he is condemned to
slavery. Those that discover it are rewarded--if freemen, in
money; and if slaves, with liberty, together with a pardon for
being accessory to it; that so they might find their account,
rather in repenting of their engaging in such a design, than in
persisting in it.

"'These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery, and it is
obvious that they are as advantageous as they are mild and gentle;
since vice is not only destroyed, and men preserved, but they
treated in such a manner as to make them see the necessity of
being honest, and of employing the rest of their lives in
repairing the injuries they have formerly done to society. Nor is
there any hazard of their falling back to their old customs: and
so little do travellers apprehend mischief from them, that they
generally make use of them for guides, from one jurisdiction to
another; for there is nothing left them by which they can rob, or
be the better for it, since, as they are disarmed, so the very
having of money is a sufficient conviction: and as they are
certainly punished if discovered, so they cannot hope to escape;
for their habit being in all the parts of it different from what
is commonly worn, they cannot fly away, unless they would go
naked, and even then their cropped ear would betray them. The only
danger to be feared from them is their conspiring against the
government: but those of one division and neighborhood can do
nothing to any purpose, unless a general conspiracy were laid
among all the slaves of the several jurisdictions, which cannot be
done, since they cannot meet or talk together; nor will any
venture on a design where the concealment would be so dangerous
and the discovery so profitable. None are quite hopeless of
recovering their freedom, since by their obedience and patience,
and by giving good grounds to believe that they will change their
manner of life for the future, they may expect at last to obtain
their liberty: and some are every year restored to it, upon the
good character that is given of them.'

"When I had related all this, I added that I did not see why such
a method might not be followed with more advantage than could ever
be expected from that severe justice which the counsellor
magnified so much. To this he answered that it could never take
place in England without endangering the whole nation. As he said
this he shook his head, made some grimaces, and held his peace,
while all the company seemed of his opinion, except the cardinal,
who said that it was not easy to form a judgment of its success,
since it was a method that never yet had been tried.

"'But if,' said he, 'when the sentence of death was passed upon a
thief, the prince would reprieve him for a while, and make the
experiment upon him, denying him the privilege of a sanctuary; and
then if it had a good effect upon him, it might take place; and if
it did not succeed, the worst would be, to execute the sentence on
the condemned persons at last. And I do not see,' added he, 'why
it would be either unjust, inconvenient, or at all dangerous, to
admit of such a delay: in my opinion, the vagabonds ought to be
treated in the same manner; against whom, though we have made many
laws, yet we have not been able to gain our end.' When the
cardinal had done, they all commended the motion, though they had
despised it when it came from me; but more particularly commended
what related to the vagabonds, because it was his own observation.

"I do not know whether it be worth while to tell what followed,
for it was very ridiculous; but I shall venture at it, for as it
is not foreign to this matter, so some good use may be made of it.
There was a jester standing by, that counterfeited the fool so
naturally that he seemed to be really one. The jests which he
offered were so cold and dull that we laughed more at him than at
them; yet sometimes he said, as it were by chance, things that
were not unpleasant; so as to justify the old proverb, 'That he
who throws the dice often, will sometimes have a lucky hit.' When
one of the company had said that I had taken care of the thieves,
and the cardinal had taken care of the vagabonds, so that there
remained nothing but that some public provision might be made for
the poor, whom sickness or old age had disabled from labor, 'Leave
that to me,' said the fool, 'and I shall take care of them; for
there is no sort of people whose sight I abhor more, having been
so often vexed with them, and with their sad complaints; but as
dolefully soever as they have told their tale, they could never
prevail so far as to draw one penny from me: for either I had no
mind to give them anything, or when I had a mind to do it I had
nothing to give them: and they now know me so well that they will
not lose their labor, but let me pass without giving me any
trouble, because they hope for nothing, no more in faith than if I
were a priest: but I would have a law made, for sending all these
beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines to be made
lay-brothers, and the women to be nuns.'

"The cardinal smiled, and approved of it in jest; but the rest
liked it in earnest. There was a divine present, who though he was
a grave, morose man, yet he was so pleased with this reflection
that was made on the priests and the monks, that he began to play
with the fool, and said to him, 'This will not deliver you from
all beggars, except you take care of us friars.'

"'That is done already,' answered the fool, 'for the cardinal has
provided for you, by what he proposed for restraining vagabonds,
and setting them to work, for I know no vagabonds like you.'

"This was well entertained by the whole company, who, looking at
the cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it; only
the friar himself was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and fell
into such a passion that he could not forbear railing at the fool,
and calling him knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son of perdition,
and then cited some dreadful threatenings out of the Scriptures
against him. Now the jester thought he was in his element, and
laid about him freely.

"'Good friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is written, "In
patience possess your soul."'

"The friar answered (for I shall give you his own words), 'I am
not angry, you hangman; at least I do not sin in it, for the
Psalmist says, "Be ye angry, and sin not."'

"Upon this the cardinal admonished him gently, and wished him to
govern his passions.

"'No, my lord,' said he, 'I speak not but from a good zeal, which
I ought to have; for holy men have had a good zeal, as it is said,
"The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up;" and we sing in our
church, that those, who mocked Elisha as he went up to the house
of God, felt the effects of his zeal; which that mocker, that
rogue, that scoundrel, will perhaps feel.'

"'You do this perhaps with a good intention,' said the cardinal;
'but in my opinion it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for
you, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool.'

"'No, my lord,' answered he, 'that were not wisely done; for
Solomon, the wisest of men, said, "Answer a fool according to his
folly;" which I now do, and show him the ditch into which he will
fall, if he is not aware of it; for if the many mockers of Elisha,
who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will
become of one mocker of so many friars, among whom there are so
many bald men? We have likewise a bull, by which all that jeer us
are excommunicated.'

"When the cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter, he
made a sign to the fool to withdraw, turned the discourse another
way, and soon after rose from the table, and, dismissing us, went
to hear causes.

"Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, of the
length of which I had been ashamed, if, as you earnestly begged it
of me, I had not observed you to hearken to it, as if you had no
mind to lose any part of it. I might have contracted it, but I
resolved to give it to you at large, that you might observe how
those that despised what I had proposed, no sooner perceived that
the cardinal did not dislike it, but presently approved of it,
fawned so on him, and flattered him to such a degree, that they in
good earnest applauded those things that he only liked in jest.
And from hence you may gather, how little courtiers would value
either me or my counsels."

To this I answered: "You have done me a great kindness in this
relation; for as everything has been related by you, both wisely
and pleasantly, so you have made me imagine that I was in my own
country, and grown young again, by recalling that good cardinal to
my thoughts, in whose family I was bred from my childhood: and
though you are upon other accounts very dear to me, yet you are
the dearer, because you honor his memory so much; but after all
this I cannot change my opinion, for I still think that if you
could overcome that aversion which you have to the courts of
princes, you might, by the advice which it is in your power to
give, do a great deal of good to mankind; and this is the chief
design that every good man ought to propose to himself in living;
for your friend Plato thinks that nations will be happy, when
either philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers, it
is no wonder if we are so far from that happiness, while
philosophers will not think it their duty to assist kings with
their councils.

"'They are not so base-minded,' said he, 'but that they would
willingly do it: many of them have already done it by their books,
if those that are in power would but hearken to their good
advice.' But Plato judged right, that except kings themselves
became philosophers, they who from their childhood are corrupted
with false notions would never fall in entirely with the councils
of philosophers, and this he himself found to be true in the
person of Dionysius.

"Do not you think that if I were about any king, proposing good
laws to him, and endeavoring to root out all the cursed seeds of
evil that I found in him, I should either be turned out of his
court or at least be laughed at for my pains? For instance, what
could it signify if I were about the King of France, and were
called into his Cabinet Council, where several wise men, in his
hearing, were proposing many expedients, as by what arts and
practices Milan may be kept, and Naples, that had so oft slipped
out of their hands, recovered; how the Venetians, and after them
the rest of Italy, may be subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant,
and all Burgundy, and some other kingdoms which he has swallowed
already in his designs, may be added to his empire. One proposes a
league with the Venetians, to be kept as long as he finds his
account in it, and that he ought to communicate councils with
them, and give them some share of the spoil, till his success
makes him need or fear them less, and then it will be easily taken
out of their hands. Another proposes the hiring the Germans, and
the securing the Switzers by pensions. Another proposes the
gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him.
Another proposes a peace with the King of Arragon, and, in order
to cement it, the yielding up the King of Navarre's pretensions.
Another thinks the Prince of Castile is to be wrought on, by the
hope of an alliance; and that some of his courtiers are to be
gained to the French faction by pensions. The hardest point of all
is what to do with England: a treaty of peace is to be set on
foot, and if their alliance is not to be depended on, yet it is to
be made as firm as possible; and they are to be called friends,
but suspected as enemies: therefore the Scots are to be kept in
readiness, to be let loose upon England on every occasion: and
some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the
league it cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the
crown, by which means that suspected prince may be kept in awe.

"Now when things are in so great a fermentation, and so many
gallant men are joining councils, how to carry on the war, if so
mean a man as I should stand up, and wish them to change all their
councils, to let Italy alone, and stay at home, since the Kingdom
of France was indeed greater than could be well governed by one
man; that therefore he ought not to think of adding others to it:
and if after this, I should propose to them the resolutions of the
Achorians, a people that lie on the southeast of Utopia, who long
ago engaged in war, in order to add to the dominions of their
prince another kingdom, to which he had some pretensions by an
ancient alliance. This they conquered, but found that the trouble
of keeping it was equal to that by which it was gained; that the
conquered people were always either in rebellion or exposed to
foreign invasions, while they were obliged to be incessantly at
war, either for or against them, and consequently could never
disband their army; that in the meantime they were oppressed with
taxes, their money went out of the kingdom, their blood was spilt
for the glory of their King, without procuring the least advantage
to the people, who received not the smallest benefit from it even
in time of peace; and that their manners being corrupted by a long
war, robbery and murders everywhere abounded, and their laws fell
into contempt; while their King, distracted with the care of two
kingdoms, was the less able to apply his mind to the interests of
either.

"When they saw this, and that there would be no end to these
evils, they by joint councils made an humble address to their
King, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had the
greatest mind to keep, since he could not hold both; for they were
too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since no man
would willingly have a groom that should be in common between him
and another. Upon which the good prince was forced to quit his new
kingdom to one of his friends (who was not long after dethroned),
and to be contented with his old one. To this I would add that
after all those warlike attempts, the vast confusions, and the
consumption both of treasure and of people that must follow them;
perhaps upon some misfortune, they might be forced to throw up all
at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the King
should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make it
flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and
be beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them
gently, and let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen
to his share was big enough, if not too big for him. Pray how do
you think would such a speech as this be heard?"

"I confess," said I, "I think not very well."

"But what," said he, "if I should sort with another kind of
ministers, whose chief contrivances and consultations were, by
what art the prince's treasures might be increased. Where one
proposes raising the value of specie when the King's debts are
large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in, that so
he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a
great deal: another proposes a pretence of a war, that money might
be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded
as soon as that was done; and this with such appearances of
religion as might work on the people, and make them impute it to
the piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the lives of
his subjects. A third offers some old musty laws, that have been
antiquated by a long disuse; and which, as they had been forgotten
by all the subjects, so they had been also broken by them; and
proposes the levying the penalties of these laws, that as it would
bring in a vast treasure, so there might be a very good pretence
for it, since it would look like the executing a law, and the
doing of justice. A fourth proposes the prohibiting of many things
under severe penalties, especially such as were against the
interest of the people, and then the dispensing with these
prohibitions upon great compositions, to those who might find
their advantage in breaking them. This would serve two ends, both
of them acceptable to many; for as those whose avarice led them to
transgress would be severely fined, so the selling licenses dear
would look as if a prince were tender of his people, and would not
easily, or at low rates, dispense with anything that might be
against the public good.

"Another proposes that the judges must be made sure, that they may
declare always in favor of the prerogative, that they must be
often sent for to court, that the King may hear them argue those
points in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any of
his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them,
either out of contradiction to others or the pride of singularity
or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to
give the King a fair color to carry the point: for if the judges
but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by
that means disputable, and truth being once brought in question,
the King may then take advantage to expound the law for his own
profit; while the judges that stand out will be brought over,
either out of fear or modesty; and they being thus gained, all of
them may be sent to the bench to give sentence boldly, as the King
would have it; for fair pretences will never be wanting when
sentence is to be given in the prince's favor. It will either be
said that equity lies on his side, or some words in the law will
be found sounding that way, or some forced sense will be put on
them; and when all other things fail, the King's undoubted
prerogative will be pretended, as that which is above all law; and
to which a religious judge ought to have a special regard.

"Thus all consent to that maxim of Crassus, that a prince cannot
have treasure enough, since he must maintain his armies out of it:
that a king, even though he would, can do nothing unjustly; that
all property is in him, not excepting the very persons of his
subjects: and that no man has any other property, but that which
the King out of his goodness thinks fit to leave him. And they
think it is the prince's interest, that there be as little of this
left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his people should
have neither riches nor liberty; since these things make them less
easy and less willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government;
whereas necessity and poverty blunt them, make them patient, beat
them down, and break that height of spirit, that might otherwise
dispose them to rebel. Now what if after all these propositions
were made, I should rise up and assert, that such councils were
both unbecoming a king, and mischievous to him: and that not only
his honor but his safety consisted more in his people's wealth,
than in his own; if I should show that they choose a king for
their own sake, and not for his; that by his care and endeavors
they may be both easy and safe; and that therefore a prince ought
to take more care of his people's happiness than of his own, as a
shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself.

"It is also certain that they are much mistaken that think the
poverty of a nation is a means of the public safety. Who quarrel
more than beggars? Who does more earnestly long for a change, than
he that is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run to
create confusions with so desperate a boldness, as those who have
nothing to lose hope to gain by them? If a king should fall under
such contempt or envy, that he could not keep his subjects in
their duty, but by oppression and ill-usage, and by rendering them
poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his
kingdom, than to retain it by such methods, as makes him while he
keeps the name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor is it
so becoming the dignity of a king to reign over beggars, as over
rich and happy subjects. And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble
and exalted temper, said, he would rather govern rich men than be
rich himself; since for one man to abound in wealth and pleasure,
when all about him are mourning and groaning, is to a gaoler and
not a king. He is an unskilful physician, that cannot cure one
disease without casting his patient into another: so he that can
find no other way for correcting the errors of his people, but by
taking from them the conveniences of life, shows that he knows not
what it is to govern a free nation. He himself ought rather to
shake off his sloth, or to lay down his pride; for the contempt or
hatred that his people have for him, takes its rise from the vices
in himself. Let him live upon what belongs to him, without
wronging others, and accommodate his expense to his revenue. Let
him punish crimes, and by his wise conduct let him endeavor to
prevent them, rather than be severe when he has suffered them to
be too common: let him not rashly revive laws that are abrogated
by disuse, especially if they have been long forgotten, and never
wanted; and let him never take any penalty for the breach of them,
to which a judge would not give way in a private man, but would
look on him as a crafty and unjust person for pretending to it.

"To these things I would add that law among the Macarians, a
people that live not far from Utopia, by which their King, on the
day on which he begins to reign, is tied by an oath confirmed by
solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above 1,000 pounds of
gold in his treasures, or so much silver as is equal to that in
value. This law, they tell us, was made by an excellent king, who
had more regard to the riches of his country than to his own
wealth, and therefore provided against the heaping up of so much
treasure as might impoverish the people. He thought that a
moderate sum might be sufficient for any accident, if either the
King had occasion for it against rebels, or the kingdom against
the invasion of an enemy; but that it was not enough to encourage
a prince to invade other men's rights, a circumstance that was the
chief cause of his making that law. He also thought that it was a
good provision for that free circulation of money, so necessary
for the course of commerce and exchange: and when a king must
distribute all those extraordinary accessions that increase
treasure beyond the due pitch, it makes him less disposed to
oppress his subjects. Such a king as this will be the terror of
ill men, and will be beloved by all the good.

"If, I say, I should talk of these or such like things, to men
that had taken their bias another way, how deaf would they be to
all I could say?"

"No doubt, very deaf," answered I; "and no wonder, for one is
never to offer at propositions or advice that we are certain will
not be entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could not
avail anything, nor have any effect on men whose minds were
prepossessed with different sentiments. This philosophical way of
speculation is not unpleasant among friends in a free
conversation, but there is no room for it in the courts of princes
where great affairs are carried on by authority."

"That is what I was saying," replied he, "that there is no room
for philosophy in the courts of princes."

"Yes, there is," said I, "but not for this speculative philosophy
that makes everything to be alike fitting at all times: but there
is another philosophy that is more pliable, that knows its proper
scene, accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man with propriety
and decency to act that part which has fallen to his share. If
when one of Plautus's comedies is upon the stage and a company of
servants are acting their parts, you should come out in the garb
of a philosopher, and repeat out of 'Octavia,' a discourse of
Seneca's to Nero, would it not be better for you to say nothing
than by mixing things of such different natures to make an
impertinent tragi-comedy? For you spoil and corrupt the play that
is in hand when you mix with it things of an opposite nature, even
though they are much better. Therefore go through with the play
that is acting, the best you can, and do not confound it because
another that is pleasanter comes into your thoughts. It is even so
in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if ill opinions
cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice
according to your wishes, you must not therefore abandon the
commonwealth; for the same reasons you should not forsake the ship
in a storm because you cannot command the winds. You are not
obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their
road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your
making an impression upon them. You ought rather to cast about and
to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that if
you are not able to make them go well they may be as little ill as
possible; for except all men were good everything cannot be right,
and that is a blessing that I do not at present hope to see."

"According to your arguments," answered he, "all that I could be
able to do would be to preserve myself from being mad while I
endeavored to cure the madness of others; for if I speak truth, I
must repeat what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a
philosopher can do it or not, I cannot tell; I am sure I cannot do
it. But though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to
them, I do not see why they should seem foolish or extravagant:
indeed if I should either propose such things as Plato has
contrived in his commonwealth, or as the Utopians practise in
theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they are, yet
they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on
property, there being no such thing among them, that I could not
expect that it would have any effect on them; but such discourses
as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of
what may follow, have nothing in them that is so absurd that they
may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to
those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if we
must let alone everything as absurd or extravagant which by reason
of the wicked lives of many may seem uncouth, we must, even among
Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things
that Christ hath taught us, though He has commanded us not to
conceal them, but to proclaim on the house-tops that which he
taught in secret.

"The greatest parts of his precepts are more opposite to the lives
of the men of this age than any part of my discourse has been; but
the preachers seemed to have learned that craft to which you
advise me, for they observing that the world would not willingly
suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given, have fitted
his doctrine as if it had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that
so some way or other they might agree with one another. But I see
no other effect of this compliance except it be that men become
more secure in their wickedness by it. And this is all the success
that I can have in a court, for I must always differ from the
rest, and then I shall signify nothing; or if I agree with them, I
shall then only help forward their madness. I do not comprehend
what you mean by your casting about, or by the bending and
handling things so dexterously, that if they go not well they may
go as little ill as may be; for in courts they will not bear with
a man's holding his peace or conniving at what others do. A man
must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels, and consent to the
blackest designs: so that he would pass for a spy, or possibly for
a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices:
and therefore when a man is engaged in such a society, he will be
so far from being able to mend matters by his casting about, as
you call it, that he will find no occasions of doing any good: the
ill company will sooner corrupt him than be the better for him: or
if notwithstanding all their ill company, he still remains steady
and innocent, yet their follies and knavery will be imputed to
him; and by mixing counsels with them, he must bear his share of
all the blame that belongs wholly to others.

"It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the
unreasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with government. If a
man, says he, was to see a great company run out every day into
the rain, and take delight in being wet; if he knew that it would
be to no purpose for him to go and persuade them to return to
their houses, in order to avoid the storm, and that all that could
be expected by his going to speak to them would be that he himself
should be as wet as they, it would be best for him to keep within
doors; and since he had not influence enough to correct other
people's folly, to take care to preserve himself.

"Though to speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own
that as long as there is any property, and while money is the
standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be
governed either justly or happily: not justly, because the best
things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily,
because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are
not in all respects happy), the rest being left to be absolutely
miserable. Therefore when I reflect on the wise and good
constitution of the Utopians--among whom all things are so well
governed, and with so few laws; where virtue hath its due reward,
and yet there is such an equality, that every man lives in plenty-
-
when I compare with them so many other nations that are still
making new laws, and yet can never bring their constitution to a
right regulation, where notwithstanding everyone has his property;
yet all the laws that they can invent have not the power either to
obtain or preserve it, or even to enable men certainly to
distinguish what is their own from what is another's; of which the
many lawsuits that every day break out, and are eternally
depending, give too plain a demonstration; when, I say, I balance
all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favorable to Plato,
and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for such
as would not submit to a community of all things: for so wise a
man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was
the only way to make a nation happy, which cannot be obtained so
long as there is property: for when every man draws to himself all
that he can compass, by one title or another, it must needs
follow, that how plentiful soever a nation may be, yet a few
dividing the wealth of it among themselves, the rest must fall
into indigence.

"So that there will be two sorts of people among them, who deserve
that their fortunes should be interchanged; the former useless,
but wicked and ravenous; and the latter, who by their constant
industry serve the public more than themselves, sincere and modest
men. From whence I am persuaded, that till property is taken away
there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can
the world be happily governed: for as long as that is maintained,
the greatest and the far best part of mankind will be still
oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. I confess without
taking it quite away, those pressures that lie on a great part of
mankind may be made lighter; but they can never be quite removed.
For if laws were made to determine at how great an extent in soil,
and at how much money every man must stop, to limit the prince
that he might not grow too great, and to restrain the people that
they might not become too insolent, and that none might factiously
aspire to public employments; which ought neither to be sold, nor
made burdensome by a great expense; since otherwise those that
serve in them would be tempted to reimburse themselves by cheats
and violence, and it would become necessary to find out rich men
for undergoing those employments which ought rather to be trusted
to the wise--these laws, I say, might have such effects, as good
diet and care might have on a sick man, whose recovery is
desperate: they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could
never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a
good habit, as long as property remains; and it will fall out as
in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one
sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill
symptom produces others, while the strengthening one part of the
body weakens the rest."

"On the contrary," answered I, "it seems to me that men cannot
live conveniently where all things are common: how can there be
any plenty, where every man will excuse himself from labor? For as
the hope of gain doth not excite him, so the confidence that he
has in other men's industry may make him slothful: if people come
to be pinched with want, and yet cannot dispose of anything as
their own; what can follow upon this but perpetual sedition and
bloodshed, especially when the reverence and authority due to
magistrates fall to the ground? For I cannot imagine how that can
be kept up among those that are in all things equal to one
another."

"I do not wonder," said he, "that it appears so to you, since you
have no notion, or at least no right one, of such a constitution:
but if you had been in Utopia with me, and had seen their laws and
rules, as I did, for the space of five years, in which I lived
among them; and during which time I was so delighted with them,
that indeed I should never have left them, if it had not been to
make the discovery of that new world to the Europeans; you would
then confess that you had never seen a people so well constituted
as they."

"You will not easily persuade me," said Peter, "that any nation in
that new world is better governed than those among us. For as our
understandings are not worse than theirs, so our government, if I
mistake not, being more ancient, a long practice has helped us to
find out many conveniences of life: and some happy chances have
discovered other things to us, which no man's understanding could
ever have invented."

"As for the antiquity, either of their government or of ours,"
said he, "you cannot pass a true judgment of it unless you had
read their histories; for if they are to be believed, they had
towns among them before these parts were so much as inhabited. And
as for those discoveries, that have been either hit on by chance,
or made by ingenious men, these might have happened there as well
as here. I do not deny but we are more ingenious than they are,
but they exceed us much in industry and application. They knew
little concerning us before our arrival among them; they call us
all by a general name of the nations that lie beyond the
equinoctial line; for their chronicle mentions a shipwreck that
was made on their coast 1,200 years ago; and that some Romans and
Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe ashore, spent the
rest of their days among them; and such was their ingenuity, that
from this single opportunity they drew the advantage of learning
from those unlooked-for guests, and acquired all the useful arts
that were then among the Romans, and which were known to these
shipwrecked men: and by the hints that they gave them, they
themselves found out even some of those arts which they could not
fully explain; so happily did they improve that accident, of
having some of our people cast upon their shore.

"But if such an accident has at any time brought any from thence
into Europe, we have been so far from improving it, that we do not
so much as remember it; as in after-times perhaps it will be
forgot by our people that I was ever there. For though they from
one such accident made themselves masters of all the good
inventions that were among us; yet I believe it would be long
before we should learn or put in practice any of the good
institutions that are among them. And this is the true cause of
their being better governed, and living happier than we, though we
come not short of them in point of understanding or outward
advantages."

Upon this I said to him: "I earnestly beg you would describe that
island very particularly to us. Be not too short, but set out in
order all things relating to their soil, their rivers, their
towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a
word, all that you imagine we desire to know. And you may well
imagine that we desire to know everything concerning them, of
which we are hitherto ignorant."

"I will do it very willingly," said he, "for I have digested the
whole matter carefully; but it will take up some time."

"Let us go then," said I, "first and dine, and then we shall have
leisure enough."

He consented. We went in and dined, and after dinner came back and
sat down in the same place. I ordered my servants to take care
that none might come and interrupt us. And both Peter and I
desired Raphael to be as good as his word. When he saw that we
were very intent upon it, he paused a little to recollect himself,
and began in this manner:


1901. New York: Ideal Commonwealths. P.F. Collier & Son. The
Colonial Press. This book is in the public domain, released
July 1993 by the Internet Wiretap. Prepared by Kirk Crady
(kcrady@polaris.cv.nrao.edu) from scanner output provided by
Internet Wiretap.

Utopia Index | More about More