UTOPIA by SIR THOMAS MORE

BOOK II: OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE

AGRICULTURE is that which is so universally understood among them
that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are
instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn
at school and partly by practice; they being led out often into
the fields, about the town, where they not only see others at
work, but are likewise exercised in it themselves. Besides
agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some
peculiar trade to which he applies himself, such as the
manufacture of wool, or flax, masonry, smith's work, or
carpenter's work; for there is no sort of trade that is not in
great esteem among them. Throughout the island they wear the same
sort of clothes without any other distinction, except what is
necessary to distinguish the two sexes, and the married and
unmarried. The fashion never alters; and as it is neither
disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and
calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes
their own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn
one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most
part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness,
leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally
passes down from father to son, inclinations often following
descent; but if any man's genius lies another way, he is by
adoption translated into a family that deals in the trade to which
he is inclined: and when that is to be done, care is taken not
only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a
discreet and good man. And if after a person has learned one
trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is
managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned
both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has
more occasion for the other.

The chief, and almost the only business of the syphogrants, is to
take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow
his trade diligently: yet they do not wear themselves out with
perpetual toil, from morning to night, as if they were beasts of
burden, which, as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is
everywhere the common course of life among all mechanics except
the Utopians; but they dividing the day and night into twenty-four
hours, appoint six of these for work; three of which are before
dinner, and three after. They then sup, and at eight o'clock,
counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours. The rest of
their time besides that taken up in work, eating and sleeping, is
left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that
interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper
exercise according to their various inclinations, which is for the
most part reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every
morning before daybreak; at which none are obliged to appear but
those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both
men and women of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort of
other, according to their inclinations. But if others, that are
not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at
that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not
hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve
their country. After supper, they spend an hour in some diversion,
in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they
eat; where they entertain each other, either with music or
discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish
and mischievous games: they have, however, two sorts of games not
unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one
number, as it were, consumes another: the other resembles a battle
between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the
vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not
unpleasantly represented; together with the special oppositions
between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by
which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue,
and virtue on the other hand resists it. But the time appointed
for labor is to be narrowly examined, otherwise you may imagine,
that since there are only six hours appointed for work, they may
fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions. But it is so far
from being true, that this time is not sufficient for supplying
them with plenty of all things, either necessary or convenient,
that it is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend, if
you consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle.

First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind; and
if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle: then
consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are
called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those
that have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen,
together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are
kept more for show than use; add to these, all those strong and
lusty beggars, that go about pretending some disease, in excuse
for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that
the number of those by whose labors mankind is supplied, is much
less than you perhaps imagined. Then consider how few of those
that work are employed in labors that are of real service; for we
who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that are
both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and
luxury. For if those who work were employed only in such things as
the conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance
of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could
not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labor about
useless things were set to more profitable employments, and if all
they that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness, every
one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at
work, were forced to labor, you may easily imagine that a small
proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either
necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while
pleasure is kept within its due bounds.

This appears very plainly in Utopia, for there, in a great city,
and in all the territory that lies round it, you can scarce find
500, either men or women, by their age and strength, are capable
of labor, that are not engaged in it; even the syphogrants, though
excused by the law, yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that
by their examples they may excite the industry of the rest of the
people. The like exemption is allowed to those who, being
recommended to the people by the priests, are by the secret
suffrages of the syphogrants privileged from labor, that they may
apply themselves wholly to study; and if any of these fall short
of those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they are obliged
to return to work. And sometimes a mechanic, that so employs his
leisure hours, as to make a considerable advancement in learning,
is eased from being a tradesman, and ranked among their learned
men. Out of these they choose their ambassadors, their priests,
their tranibors, and the prince himself, anciently called their
Barzenes, but is called of late their Ademus.

And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither
suffered to be idle, nor to be employed in any fruitless labor,
you may easily make the estimate how much may be done in those few
hours in which they are obliged to labor. But besides all that has
been already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts
among them are managed with less labor than anywhere else. The
building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands,
because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father
built to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great
cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge:
it frequently happens that the same house which one person built
at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a
more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture; and he
suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge.
But among the Utopians all things are so regulated that men very
seldom build upon a new piece of ground; and are not only very
quick in repairing their houses, but show their foresight in
preventing their decay: so that their buildings are preserved very
long, with but little labor, and thus the builders to whom that
care belongs are often without employment, except the hewing of
timber and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in
readiness for raising a building very suddenly when there is any
occasion for it.

As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them:
while they are at labor, they are clothed with leather and skins.
cast carelessly about them, which will last seven years; and when
they appear in public they put on an upper garment, which hides
the other; and these are all of one color, and that is the natural
color of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used
anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly.
They use linen cloth more; but that is prepared with less labor,
and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the
cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the
thread: while in other places, four or five upper garments of
woollen cloth, of different colors, and as many vests of silk,
will scarce serve one man; and while those that are nicer think
ten are too few, every man there is content with one, which very
often serves him two years. Nor is there anything that can tempt a
man to desire more; for if he had them, he would neither be the
warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it. And
thus, since they are all employed in some useful labor, and since
they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there
is a great abundance of all things among them: so that it
frequently happens that, for want of other work, vast numbers are
sent out to mend the highways. But when no public undertaking is
to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The
magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labor, since
the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor by the
necessities of the public, and to allow all the people as much
time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which
they think the happiness of life consists.


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.

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