💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › thomas-more-utopia.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:21:12. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Utopia Author: Thomas More Date: 1516 Language: en Topics: utopia, utopian socialism, fiction, satire, political philosophy Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2130
Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King’s Bench,
was born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his
earlier education at St. Anthony’s School, in Threadneedle Street, he
was placed, as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton,
Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for
persons of wealth or influence and sons of good families to be so
established together in a relation of patron and client. The youth wore
his patron’s livery, and added to his state. The patron used,
afterwards, his wealth or influence in helping his young client forward
in the world. Cardinal Morton had been in earlier days that Bishop of
Ely whom Richard III. sent to the Tower; was busy afterwards in
hostility to Richard; and was a chief adviser of Henry VII., who in 1486
made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and nine months afterwards Lord
Chancellor. Cardinal Morton—of talk at whose table there are
recollections in “Utopia”—delighted in the quick wit of young Thomas
More. He once said, “Whoever shall live to try it, shall see this child
here waiting at table prove a notable and rare man.”
At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury
College, Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men
who brought Greek studies from Italy to England—William Grocyn and
Thomas Linacre. Linacre, a physician, who afterwards took orders, was
also the founder of the College of Physicians. In 1499, More left Oxford
to study law in London, at Lincoln’s Inn, and in the next year
Archbishop Morton died.
More’s earnest character caused him while studying law to aim at the
subduing of the flesh, by wearing a hair shirt, taking a log for a
pillow, and whipping himself on Fridays. At the age of twenty-one he
entered Parliament, and soon after he had been called to the bar he was
made Under-Sheriff of London. In 1503 he opposed in the House of Commons
Henry VII.’s proposal for a subsidy on account of the marriage portion
of his daughter Margaret; and he opposed with so much energy that the
House refused to grant it. One went and told the king that a beardless
boy had disappointed all his expectations. During the last years,
therefore, of Henry VII. More was under the displeasure of the king, and
had thoughts of leaving the country.
Henry VII. died in April, 1509, when More’s age was a little over
thirty. In the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. he rose to large
practice in the law courts, where it is said he refused to plead in
cases which he thought unjust, and took no fees from widows, orphans, or
the poor. He would have preferred marrying the second daughter of John
Colt, of New Hall, in Essex, but chose her elder sister, that he might
not subject her to the discredit of being passed over.
In 1513 Thomas More, still Under-Sheriff of London, is said to have
written his “History of the Life and Death of King Edward V., and of the
Usurpation of Richard III.” The book, which seems to contain the
knowledge and opinions of More’s patron, Morton, was not printed until
1557, when its writer had been twenty-two years dead. It was then
printed from a MS. in More’s handwriting.
In the year 1515 Wolsey, Archbishop of York, was made Cardinal by Leo
X.; Henry VIII. made him Lord Chancellor, and from that year until 1523
the King and the Cardinal ruled England with absolute authority, and
called no parliament. In May of the year 1515 Thomas More—not knighted
yet—was joined in a commission to the Low Countries with Cuthbert
Tunstal and others to confer with the ambassadors of Charles V., then
only Archduke of Austria, upon a renewal of alliance. On that embassy
More, aged about thirty-seven, was absent from England for six months,
and while at Antwerp he established friendship with Peter Giles
(Latinised Ægidius), a scholarly and courteous young man, who was
secretary to the municipality of Antwerp.
Cuthbert Tunstal was a rising churchman, chancellor to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who in that year (1515) was made Archdeacon of Chester, and
in May of the next year (1516) Master of the Rolls. In 1516 he was sent
again to the Low Countries, and More then went with him to Brussels,
where they were in close companionship with Erasmus.
More’s “Utopia” was written in Latin, and is in two parts, of which the
second, describing the place ([Greek text]—or Nusquama, as he called it
sometimes in his letters—“Nowhere”), was probably written towards the
close of 1515; the first part, introductory, early in 1516. The book was
first printed at Louvain, late in 1516, under the editorship of Erasmus,
Peter Giles, and other of More’s friends in Flanders. It was then
revised by More, and printed by Frobenius at Basle in November, 1518. It
was reprinted at Paris and Vienna, but was not printed in England during
More’s lifetime. Its first publication in this country was in the
English translation, made in Edward’s VI.’s reign (1551) by Ralph
Robinson. It was translated with more literary skill by Gilbert Burnet,
in 1684, soon after he had conducted the defence of his friend Lord
William Russell, attended his execution, vindicated his memory, and been
spitefully deprived by James II. of his lectureship at St. Clement’s.
Burnet was drawn to the translation of “Utopia” by the same sense of
unreason in high places that caused More to write the book. Burnet’s is
the translation given in this volume.
The name of the book has given an adjective to our language—we call an
impracticable scheme Utopian. Yet, under the veil of a playful fiction,
the talk is intensely earnest, and abounds in practical suggestion. It
is the work of a scholarly and witty Englishman, who attacks in his own
way the chief political and social evils of his time. Beginning with
fact, More tells how he was sent into Flanders with Cuthbert Tunstal,
“whom the king’s majesty of late, to the great rejoicing of all men, did
prefer to the office of Master of the Rolls;” how the commissioners of
Charles met them at Bruges, and presently returned to Brussels for
instructions; and how More then went to Antwerp, where he found a
pleasure in the society of Peter Giles which soothed his desire to see
again his wife and children, from whom he had been four months away.
Then fact slides into fiction with the finding of Raphael Hythloday
(whose name, made of two Greek words [Greek text] and [Greek text],
means “knowing in trifles”), a man who had been with Amerigo Vespucci in
the three last of the voyages to the new world lately discovered, of
which the account had been first printed in 1507, only nine years before
Utopia was written.
Designedly fantastic in suggestion of details, “Utopia” is the work of a
scholar who had read Plato’s “Republic,” and had his fancy quickened
after reading Plutarch’s account of Spartan life under Lycurgus. Beneath
the veil of an ideal communism, into which there has been worked some
witty extravagance, there lies a noble English argument. Sometimes More
puts the case as of France when he means England. Sometimes there is
ironical praise of the good faith of Christian kings, saving the book
from censure as a political attack on the policy of Henry VIII. Erasmus
wrote to a friend in 1517 that he should send for More’s “Utopia,” if he
had not read it, and “wished to see the true source of all political
evils.” And to More Erasmus wrote of his book, “A burgomaster of Antwerp
is so pleased with it that he knows it all by heart.”
H. M.
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 lantern.” 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
honour, 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 candour and affection, that there is not,
perhaps, above one or two anywhere to be found, that is 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 Vesputius, 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 heavens 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 Castalians, 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 past 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 Vesputius 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
waggons 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 neighbours, but traded, both by sea and land,
to very remote countries. There they found the conveniencies 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, afterwards, 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 favour 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 civilised 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; we made no inquiries after monsters, than which nothing is
more common; for everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves,
and cruel men-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 past, 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, is 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 sakes 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 favour 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 council 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 favour, whom
by their fawning and flatteries they endeavour 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 interests 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 labour, on the
labour 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 neighbourhood 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 honour 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 into 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 trick or by main force, or, being
wearied out by 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 labour, 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 likely 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 labour 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 ale-houses are no better;
add to these dice, cards, tables, football, 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 be 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 those 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 men
in making laws can authorise man-slaughter 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 licence 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 much 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 Persian, secure them from all invasions. Thus
they have no wars among them; they live rather conveniently than with
splendour, 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 neighbours. 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
happens to be some extraordinary circumstance 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 labour; 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 or 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, besides their livelihood, they
earn somewhat still to the public. They all wear a peculiar habit, of
one certain colour, 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
colour; 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 are 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 had
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 neighbourhood can do nothing to any purpose unless a
general conspiracy were laid amongst 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 sentence of death were
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 labour, ‘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 labour, 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 the 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 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 honour 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 counsels.” “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 counsels 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 endeavouring 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 I 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 has
so often 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 counsels 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 that 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 counsels how to carry on the war, if so mean a
man as I should stand up and wish them to change all their counsels—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 south-east 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 interest of either. When they saw this, and that there would
be no end to these evils, they by joint counsels 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 also been 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 licences 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 favour 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
colour 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 through 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 favour. It will either be said
that equity lies of 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
willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government. Whereas necessity
and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks
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 counsels were both unbecoming a king and mischievous to
him; and that not only his honour, 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
endeavours, 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 mean 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, having 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 make 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 be 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 endeavour 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 began to reign, is tied by an oath,
confirmed by solemn sacrifices, never to have at once above a thousand
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 moderate sum might be sufficient
for any accident, if either the king had occasion for it against the
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 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’ 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 as 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
argument,” answered he, “all that I could be able to do would be to
preserve myself from being mad while I endeavoured to cure the madness
of others; for, if I speak with, 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, leave 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 housetops 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 seem 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, ‘were 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 every one 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 favourable 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 effect 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 labour? 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 falls 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 twelve hundred years ago, and
that some Romans and Egyptians that were in the ship, getting safe
ashore, spent the rest of their days amongst 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 aftertimes 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:—
“The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and
holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows
narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between
its horns the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a
great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five
hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no
great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbour,
which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual
commerce. But the entry into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one
hand and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it
there is one single rock which appears above water, and may, therefore,
easily be avoided; and on the top of it there is a tower, in which a
garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very
dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives; so that if any
stranger should enter into the bay without one of their pilots he would
run great danger of shipwreck. For even they themselves could not pass
it safe if some marks that are on the coast did not direct their way;
and if these should be but a little shifted, any fleet that might come
against them, how great soever it were, would be certainly lost. On the
other side of the island there are likewise many harbours; and the coast
is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of men can
hinder the descent of a great army. But they report (and there remains
good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first,
but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it
still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and
uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure
of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having
soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and
to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this he ordered a deep
channel to be dug, fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not
think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants,
but also his own soldiers, to labour in carrying it on. As he set a vast
number of men to work, he, beyond all men’s expectations, brought it to
a speedy conclusion. And his neighbours, who at first laughed at the
folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than
they were struck with admiration and terror.
“There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well built,
the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same, and they are all
contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand
will allow. The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles’ distance from
one another, and the most remote are not so far distant but that a man
can go on foot in one day from it to that which lies next it. Every city
sends three of their wisest senators once a year to Amaurot, to consult
about their common concerns; for that is the chief town of the island,
being situated near the centre of it, so that it is the most convenient
place for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of every city extends at
least twenty miles, and, where the towns lie wider, they have much more
ground. No town desires to enlarge its bounds, for the people consider
themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have built, over all
the country, farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and
furnished with all things necessary for country labour. Inhabitants are
sent, by turns, from the cities to dwell in them; no country family has
fewer than forty men and women in it, besides two slaves. There is a
master and a mistress set over every family, and over thirty families
there is a magistrate. Every year twenty of this family come back to the
town after they have stayed two years in the country, and in their room
there are other twenty sent from the town, that they may learn country
work from those that have been already one year in the country, as they
must teach those that come to them the next from the town. By this means
such as dwell in those country farms are never ignorant of agriculture,
and so commit no errors which might otherwise be fatal and bring them
under a scarcity of corn. But though there is every year such a shifting
of the husbandmen to prevent any man being forced against his will to
follow that hard course of life too long, yet many among them take such
pleasure in it that they desire leave to continue in it many years.
These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it
to the towns either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed
an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens
do not sit and hatch them, but a vast number of eggs are laid in a
gentle and equal heat in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out
of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those
that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do
the hen that hatched them. They breed very few horses, but those they
have are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their youth in
the art of sitting and riding them; for they do not put them to any
work, either of ploughing or carriage, in which they employ oxen. For
though their horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out
longer; and as they are not subject to so many diseases, so they are
kept upon a less charge and with less trouble. And even when they are so
worn out that they are no more fit for labour, they are good meat at
last. They sow no corn but that which is to be their bread; for they
drink either wine, cider or perry, and often water, sometimes boiled
with honey or liquorice, with which they abound; and though they know
exactly how much corn will serve every town and all that tract of
country which belongs to it, yet they sow much more and breed more
cattle than are necessary for their consumption, and they give that
overplus of which they make no use to their neighbours. When they want
anything in the country which it does not produce, they fetch that from
the town, without carrying anything in exchange for it. And the
magistrates of the town take care to see it given them; for they meet
generally in the town once a month, upon a festival day. When the time
of harvest comes, the magistrates in the country send to those in the
towns and let them know how many hands they will need for reaping the
harvest; and the number they call for being sent to them, they commonly
despatch it all in one day.
“He that knows one of their towns knows them all—they are so like one
another, except where the situation makes some difference. I shall
therefore describe one of them, and none is so proper as Amaurot; for as
none is more eminent (all the rest yielding in precedence to this,
because it is the seat of their supreme council), so there was none of
them better known to me, I having lived five years all together in it.
“It lies upon the side of a hill, or, rather, a rising ground. Its
figure is almost square, for from the one side of it, which shoots up
almost to the top of the hill, it runs down, in a descent for two miles,
to the river Anider; but it is a little broader the other way that runs
along by the bank of that river. The Anider rises about eighty miles
above Amaurot, in a small spring at first. But other brooks falling into
it, of which two are more considerable than the rest, as it runs by
Amaurot it is grown half a mile broad; but, it still grows larger and
larger, till, after sixty miles’ course below it, it is lost in the
ocean. Between the town and the sea, and for some miles above the town,
it ebbs and flows every six hours with a strong current. The tide comes
up about thirty miles so full that there is nothing but salt water in
the river, the fresh water being driven back with its force; and above
that, for some miles, the water is brackish; but a little higher, as it
runs by the town, it is quite fresh; and when the tide ebbs, it
continues fresh all along to the sea. There is a bridge cast over the
river, not of timber, but of fair stone, consisting of many stately
arches; it lies at that part of the town which is farthest from the sea,
so that the ships, without any hindrance, lie all along the side of the
town. There is, likewise, another river that runs by it, which, though
it is not great, yet it runs pleasantly, for it rises out of the same
hill on which the town stands, and so runs down through it and falls
into the Anider. The inhabitants have fortified the fountain-head of
this river, which springs a little without the towns; that so, if they
should happen to be besieged, the enemy might not be able to stop or
divert the course of the water, nor poison it; from thence it is
carried, in earthen pipes, to the lower streets. And for those places of
the town to which the water of that small river cannot be conveyed, they
have great cisterns for receiving the rain-water, which supplies the
want of the other. The town is compassed with a high and thick wall, in
which there are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep
dry ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the town,
and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are
very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds.
Their buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a
street looks like one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there
lie gardens behind all their houses. These are large, but enclosed with
buildings, that on all hands face the streets, so that every house has
both a door to the street and a back door to the garden. Their doors
have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of
their own accord; and, there being no property among them, every man may
freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years’ end they
shift their houses by lots. They cultivate their gardens with great
care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them;
and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens
anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this
humour of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by the
pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the
inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other. And there
is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole town that is both more useful
and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have taken
care of nothing more than of their gardens; for they say the whole
scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that
belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those that
should come after him, that being too much for one man to bring to
perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their town and
State, are preserved with an exact care, and run backwards seventeen
hundred and sixty years. From these it appears that their houses were at
first low and mean, like cottages, made of any sort of timber, and were
built with mud walls and thatched with straw. But now their houses are
three storeys high, the fronts of them are faced either with stone,
plastering, or brick, and between the facings of their walls they throw
in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on them they lay a sort of
plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not
apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. They have
great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their
windows; they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so
oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission
to the light.
“Thirty families choose every year a magistrate, who was anciently
called the Syphogrant, but is now called the Philarch; and over every
ten Syphogrants, with the families subject to them, there is another
magistrate, who was anciently called the Tranibore, but of late the
Archphilarch. All the Syphogrants, who are in number two hundred, choose
the Prince out of a list of four who are named by the people of the four
divisions of the city; but they take an oath, before they proceed to an
election, that they will choose him whom they think most fit for the
office: they give him their voices secretly, so that it is not known for
whom every one gives his suffrage. The Prince is for life, unless he is
removed upon suspicion of some design to enslave the people. The
Tranibors are new chosen every year, but yet they are, for the most
part, continued; all their other magistrates are only annual. The
Tranibors meet every third day, and oftener if necessary, and consult
with the Prince either concerning the affairs of the State in general,
or such private differences as may arise sometimes among the people,
though that falls out but seldom. There are always two Syphogrants
called into the council chamber, and these are changed every day. It is
a fundamental rule of their government, that no conclusion can be made
in anything that relates to the public till it has been first debated
three several days in their council. It is death for any to meet and
consult concerning the State, unless it be either in their ordinary
council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people.
“These things have been so provided among them that the Prince and the
Tranibors may not conspire together to change the government and enslave
the people; and therefore when anything of great importance is set on
foot, it is sent to the Syphogrants, who, after they have communicated
it to the families that belong to their divisions, and have considered
it among themselves, make report to the senate; and, upon great
occasions, the matter is referred to the council of the whole island.
One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the
same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to
the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of
discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much
that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather
study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and
preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger
their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted
foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore,
to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than
sudden in their motions.
“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 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
amongst 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 or 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 opposition 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 labour 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 labours mankind is supplied is much less than
you perhaps imagined: then consider how few of those that work are
employed in labours 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 labour 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 labour, 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 five hundred, either men or women, by their age and
strength capable of labour, 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 labour, 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 labour, you may easily make
the estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they are
obliged to labour. But, besides all that has been already said, it is to
be considered that the needful arts among them are managed with less
labour 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 very little labour, 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 labour they are clothed with
leather and skins, cut 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 colour, and that is the
natural colour 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 labour, 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
colours, and as many vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while
those that are nicer think ten 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 labour, 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
labour, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labour by
the necessities of the public, and to allow the people as much time as
is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the
happiness of life consists.
“But it is now time to explain to you the mutual intercourse of this
people, their commerce, and the rules by which all things are
distributed among them.
“As their cities are composed of families, so their families are made up
of those that are nearly related to one another. Their women, when they
grow up, are married out, but all the males, both children and
grand-children, live still in the same house, in great obedience to
their common parent, unless age has weakened his understanding, and in
that case he that is next to him in age comes in his room; but lest any
city should become either too great, or by any accident be dispeopled,
provision is made that none of their cities may contain above six
thousand families, besides those of the country around it. No family may
have less than ten and more than sixteen persons in it, but there can be
no determined number for the children under age; this rule is easily
observed by removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to
any other family that does not abound so much in them. By the same rule
they supply cities that do not increase so fast from others that breed
faster; and if there is any increase over the whole island, then they
draw out a number of their citizens out of the several towns and send
them over to the neighbouring continent, where, if they find that the
inhabitants have more soil than they can well cultivate, they fix a
colony, taking the inhabitants into their society if they are willing to
live with them; and where they do that of their own accord, they quickly
enter into their method of life and conform to their rules, and this
proves a happiness to both nations; for, according to their
constitution, such care is taken of the soil that it becomes fruitful
enough for both, though it might be otherwise too narrow and barren for
any one of them. But if the natives refuse to conform themselves to
their laws they drive them out of those bounds which they mark out for
themselves, and use force if they resist, for they account it a very
just cause of war for a nation to hinder others from possessing a part
of that soil of which they make no use, but which is suffered to lie
idle and uncultivated, since every man has, by the law of nature, a
right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his
subsistence. If an accident has so lessened the number of the
inhabitants of any of their towns that it cannot be made up from the
other towns of the island without diminishing them too much (which is
said to have fallen out but twice since they were first a people, when
great numbers were carried off by the plague), the loss is then supplied
by recalling as many as are wanted from their colonies, for they will
abandon these rather than suffer the towns in the island to sink too
low.
“But to return to their manner of living in society: the oldest man of
every family, as has been already said, is its governor; wives serve
their husbands, and children their parents, and always the younger
serves the elder. Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in
the middle of each there is a market-place. What is brought thither, and
manufactured by the several families, is carried from thence to houses
appointed for that purpose, in which all things of a sort are laid by
themselves; and thither every father goes, and takes whatsoever he or
his family stand in need of, without either paying for it or leaving
anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to any
person, since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there
is no danger of a man’s asking for more than he needs; they have no
inducements to do this, since they are sure they shall always be
supplied: it is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of
animals either greedy or ravenous; but, besides fear, there is in man a
pride that makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others in pomp
and excess; but by the laws of the Utopians, there is no room for this.
Near these markets there are others for all sorts of provisions, where
there are not only herbs, fruits, and bread, but also fish, fowl, and
cattle. There are also, without their towns, places appointed near some
running water for killing their beasts and for washing away their filth,
which is done by their slaves; for they suffer none of their citizens to
kill their cattle, because they think that pity and good-nature, which
are among the best of those affections that are born with us, are much
impaired by the butchering of animals; nor do they suffer anything that
is foul or unclean to be brought within their towns, lest the air should
be infected by ill-smells, which might prejudice their health. In every
street there are great halls, that lie at an equal distance from each
other, distinguished by particular names. The Syphogrants dwell in those
that are set over thirty families, fifteen lying on one side of it, and
as many on the other. In these halls they all meet and have their
repasts; the stewards of every one of them come to the market-place at
an appointed hour, and according to the number of those that belong to
the hall they carry home provisions. But they take more care of their
sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public
hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that are
built without their walls, and are so large that they may pass for
little towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick
persons, they could lodge them conveniently, and at such a distance that
such of them as are sick of infectious diseases may be kept so far from
the rest that there can be no danger of contagion. The hospitals are
furnished and stored with all things that are convenient for the ease
and recovery of the sick; and those that are put in them are looked
after with such tender and watchful care, and are so constantly attended
by their skilful physicians, that as none is sent to them against their
will, so there is scarce one in a whole town that, if he should fall
ill, would not choose rather to go thither than lie sick at home.
“After the steward of the hospitals has taken for the sick whatsoever
the physician prescribes, then the best things that are left in the
market are distributed equally among the halls in proportion to their
numbers; only, in the first place, they serve the Prince, the Chief
Priest, the Tranibors, the Ambassadors, and strangers, if there are any,
which, indeed, falls out but seldom, and for whom there are houses, well
furnished, particularly appointed for their reception when they come
among them. At the hours of dinner and supper the whole Syphogranty
being called together by sound of trumpet, they meet and eat together,
except only such as are in the hospitals or lie sick at home. Yet, after
the halls are served, no man is hindered to carry provisions home from
the market-place, for they know that none does that but for some good
reason; for though any that will may eat at home, yet none does it
willingly, since it is both ridiculous and foolish for any to give
themselves the trouble to make ready an ill dinner at home when there is
a much more plentiful one made ready for him so near hand. All the
uneasy and sordid services about these halls are performed by their
slaves; but the dressing and cooking their meat, and the ordering their
tables, belong only to the women, all those of every family taking it by
turns. They sit at three or more tables, according to their number; the
men sit towards the wall, and the women sit on the other side, that if
any of them should be taken suddenly ill, which is no uncommon case
amongst women with child, she may, without disturbing the rest, rise and
go to the nurses’ room (who are there with the sucking children), where
there is always clean water at hand and cradles, in which they may lay
the young children if there is occasion for it, and a fire, that they
may shift and dress them before it. Every child is nursed by its own
mother if death or sickness does not intervene; and in that case the
Syphogrants’ wives find out a nurse quickly, which is no hard matter,
for any one that can do it offers herself cheerfully; for as they are
much inclined to that piece of mercy, so the child whom they nurse
considers the nurse as its mother. All the children under five years old
sit among the nurses; the rest of the younger sort of both sexes, till
they are fit for marriage, either serve those that sit at table, or, if
they are not strong enough for that, stand by them in great silence and
eat what is given them; nor have they any other formality of dining. In
the middle of the first table, which stands across the upper end of the
hall, sit the Syphogrant and his wife, for that is the chief and most
conspicuous place; next to him sit two of the most ancient, for there go
always four to a mess. If there is a temple within the Syphogranty, the
Priest and his wife sit with the Syphogrant above all the rest; next
them there is a mixture of old and young, who are so placed that as the
young are set near others, so they are mixed with the more ancient;
which, they say, was appointed on this account: that the gravity of the
old people, and the reverence that is due to them, might restrain the
younger from all indecent words and gestures. Dishes are not served up
to the whole table at first, but the best are first set before the old,
whose seats are distinguished from the young, and, after them, all the
rest are served alike. The old men distribute to the younger any curious
meats that happen to be set before them, if there is not such an
abundance of them that the whole company may be served alike.
“Thus old men are honoured with a particular respect, yet all the rest
fare as well as they. Both dinner and supper are begun with some lecture
of morality that is read to them; but it is so short that it is not
tedious nor uneasy to them to hear it. From hence the old men take
occasion to entertain those about them with some useful and pleasant
enlargements; but they do not engross the whole discourse so to
themselves during their meals that the younger may not put in for a
share; on the contrary, they engage them to talk, that so they may, in
that free way of conversation, find out the force of every one’s spirit
and observe his temper. They despatch their dinners quickly, but sit
long at supper, because they go to work after the one, and are to sleep
after the other, during which they think the stomach carries on the
concoction more vigorously. They never sup without music, and there is
always fruit served up after meat; while they are at table some burn
perfumes and sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet waters—in
short, they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits; they give
themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge themselves in all
such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience. Thus do those that
are in the towns live together; but in the country, where they live at a
great distance, every one eats at home, and no family wants any
necessary sort of provision, for it is from them that provisions are
sent unto those that live in the towns.
If any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other town,
or desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he obtains leave
very easily from the Syphogrant and Tranibors, when there is no
particular occasion for him at home. Such as travel carry with them a
passport from the Prince, which both certifies the licence that is
granted for travelling, and limits the time of their return. They are
furnished with a waggon and a slave, who drives the oxen and looks after
them; but, unless there are women in the company, the waggon is sent
back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are
on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for
nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they
stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his proper
occupation, and is very well used by those of his own trade; but if any
man goes out of the city to which he belongs without leave, and is found
rambling without a passport, he is severely treated, he is punished as a
fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and, if he falls again into the
like fault, is condemned to slavery. If any man has a mind to travel
only over the precinct of his own city, he may freely do it, with his
father’s permission and his wife’s consent; but when he comes into any
of the country houses, if he expects to be entertained by them, he must
labour with them and conform to their rules; and if he does this, he may
freely go over the whole precinct, being then as useful to the city to
which he belongs as if he were still within it. Thus you see that there
are no idle persons among them, nor pretences of excusing any from
labour. There are no taverns, no ale-houses, nor stews among them, nor
any other occasions of corrupting each other, of getting into corners,
or forming themselves into parties; all men live in full view, so that
all are obliged both to perform their ordinary task and to employ
themselves well in their spare hours; and it is certain that a people
thus ordered must live in great abundance of all things, and these being
equally distributed among them, no man can want or be obliged to beg.
“In their great council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent from
every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions and
what are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from the
other; and this is done freely, without any sort of exchange; for,
according to their plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from
one another, so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one family.
When they have thus taken care of their whole country, and laid up
stores for two years (which they do to prevent the ill consequences of
an unfavourable season), they order an exportation of the overplus, both
of corn, honey, wool, flax, wood, wax, tallow, leather, and cattle,
which they send out, commonly in great quantities, to other nations.
They order a seventh part of all these goods to be freely given to the
poor of the countries to which they send them, and sell the rest at
moderate rates; and by this exchange they not only bring back those few
things that they need at home (for, indeed, they scarce need anything
but iron), but likewise a great deal of gold and silver; and by their
driving this trade so long, it is not to be imagined how vast a treasure
they have got among them, so that now they do not much care whether they
sell off their merchandise for money in hand or upon trust. A great part
of their treasure is now in bonds; but in all their contracts no private
man stands bound, but the writing runs in the name of the town; and the
towns that owe them money raise it from those private hands that owe it
to them, lay it up in their public chamber, or enjoy the profit of it
till the Utopians call for it; and they choose rather to let the
greatest part of it lie in their hands, who make advantage by it, than
to call for it themselves; but if they see that any of their other
neighbours stand more in need of it, then they call it in and lend it to
them. Whenever they are engaged in war, which is the only occasion in
which their treasure can be usefully employed, they make use of it
themselves; in great extremities or sudden accidents they employ it in
hiring foreign troops, whom they more willingly expose to danger than
their own people; they give them great pay, knowing well that this will
work even on their enemies; that it will engage them either to betray
their own side, or, at least, to desert it; and that it is the best
means of raising mutual jealousies among them. For this end they have an
incredible treasure; but they do not keep it as a treasure, but in such
a manner as I am almost afraid to tell, lest you think it so extravagant
as to be hardly credible. This I have the more reason to apprehend
because, if I had not seen it myself, I could not have been easily
persuaded to have believed it upon any man’s report.
“It is certain that all things appear incredible to us in proportion as
they differ from known customs; but one who can judge aright will not
wonder to find that, since their constitution differs so much from ours,
their value of gold and silver should be measured by a very different
standard; for since they have no use for money among themselves, but
keep it as a provision against events which seldom happen, and between
which there are generally long intervening intervals, they value it no
farther than it deserves—that is, in proportion to its use. So that it
is plain they must prefer iron either to gold or silver, for men can no
more live without iron than without fire or water; but Nature has marked
out no use for the other metals so essential as not easily to be
dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and
silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their
opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the
best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up
and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.
“If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would raise
a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that foolish
mistrust into which the people are apt to fall—a jealousy of their
intending to sacrifice the interest of the public to their own private
advantage. If they should work it into vessels, or any sort of plate,
they fear that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling
to let the plate be run down, if a war made it necessary, to employ it
in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences they have
fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so
is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who
value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out
of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though
formed of brittle materials; while they make their chamber-pots and
close-stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls
but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make
chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of
infamy, they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a chain or a
coronet of the same metal; and thus they take care by all possible means
to render gold and silver of no esteem; and from hence it is that while
other nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one
tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all
they possess of those metals (when there were any use for them) but as
the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny!
They find pearls on their coasts, and diamonds and carbuncles on their
rocks; they do not look after them, but, if they find them by chance,
they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are
delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when
they grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles,
they of their own accord, without being bid by their parents, lay them
aside, and would be as much ashamed to use them afterwards as children
among us, when they come to years, are of their puppets and other toys.
“I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that
different customs make on people than I observed in the ambassadors of
the Anemolians, who came to Amaurot when I was there. As they came to
treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several towns
met together to wait for their coming. The ambassadors of the nations
that lie near Utopia, knowing their customs, and that fine clothes are
in no esteem among them, that silk is despised, and gold is a badge of
infamy, used to come very modestly clothed; but the Anemolians, lying
more remote, and having had little commerce with them, understanding
that they were coarsely clothed, and all in the same manner, took it for
granted that they had none of those fine things among them of which they
made no use; and they, being a vainglorious rather than a wise people,
resolved to set themselves out with so much pomp that they should look
like gods, and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with their
splendour. Thus three ambassadors made their entry with a hundred
attendants, all clad in garments of different colours, and the greater
part in silk; the ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility of
their country, were in cloth-of-gold, and adorned with massy chains,
earrings and rings of gold; their caps were covered with bracelets set
full of pearls and other gems—in a word, they were set out with all
those things that among the Utopians were either the badges of slavery,
the marks of infamy, or the playthings of children. It was not
unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked big, when they
compared their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians, who
were come out in great numbers to see them make their entry; and, on the
other, to observe how much they were mistaken in the impression which
they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous
a show to all that had never stirred out of their country, and had not
seen the customs of other nations, that though they paid some reverence
to those that were the most meanly clad, as if they had been the
ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves so full of
gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and forbore to treat
them with reverence. You might have seen the children who were grown big
enough to despise their playthings, and who had thrown away their
jewels, call to their mothers, push them gently, and cry out, ‘See that
great fool, that wears pearls and gems as if he were yet a child!’ while
their mothers very innocently replied, ‘Hold your peace! this, I
believe, is one of the ambassadors’ fools.’ Others censured the fashion
of their chains, and observed, ‘That they were of no use, for they were
too slight to bind their slaves, who could easily break them; and,
besides, hung so loose about them that they thought it easy to throw
their away, and so get from them.” But after the ambassadors had stayed
a day among them, and saw so vast a quantity of gold in their houses
(which was as much despised by them as it was esteemed in other
nations), and beheld more gold and silver in the chains and fetters of
one slave than all their ornaments amounted to, their plumes fell, and
they were ashamed of all that glory for which they had formed valued
themselves, and accordingly laid it aside—a resolution that they
immediately took when, on their engaging in some free discourse with the
Utopians, they discovered their sense of such things and their other
customs. The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with
the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone, that can look up to a
star or to the sun himself; or how any should value himself because his
cloth is made of a finer thread; for, how fine soever that thread may
be, it was once no better than the fleece of a sheep, and that sheep,
was a sheep still, for all its wearing it. They wonder much to hear that
gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so
much esteemed that even man, for whom it was made, and by whom it has
its value, should yet be thought of less value than this metal; that a
man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as
he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only
because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if it should happen
that by some accident or trick of law (which, sometimes produces as
great changes as chance itself) all this wealth should pass from the
master to the meanest varlet of his whole family, he himself would very
soon become one of his servants, as if he were a thing that belonged to
his wealth, and so were bound to follow its fortune! But they much more
admire and detest the folly of those who, when they see a rich man,
though they neither owe him anything, nor are in any sort dependent on
his bounty, yet, merely because he is rich, give him little less than
divine honours, even though they know him to be so covetous and
base-minded that, notwithstanding all his wealth, he will not part with
one farthing of it to them as long as he lives!
“These and such like notions have that people imbibed, partly from their
education, being bred in a country whose customs and laws are opposite
to all such foolish maxims, and partly from their learning and
studies—for though there are but few in any town that are so wholly
excused from labour as to give themselves entirely up to their studies
(these being only such persons as discover from their childhood an
extraordinary capacity and disposition for letters), yet their children
and a great part of the nation, both men and women, are taught to spend
those hours in which they are not obliged to work in reading; and this
they do through the whole progress of life. They have all their learning
in their own tongue, which is both a copious and pleasant language, and
in which a man can fully express his mind; it runs over a great tract of
many countries, but it is not equally pure in all places. They had never
so much as heard of the names of any of those philosophers that are so
famous in these parts of the world, before we went among them; and yet
they had made the same discoveries as the Greeks, both in music, logic,
arithmetic, and geometry. But as they are almost in everything equal to
the ancient philosophers, so they far exceed our modern logicians for
they have never yet fallen upon the barbarous niceties that our youth
are forced to learn in those trifling logical schools that are among us.
They are so far from minding chimeras and fantastical images made in the
mind that none of them could comprehend what we meant when we talked to
them of a man in the abstract as common to all men in particular (so
that though we spoke of him as a thing that we could point at with our
fingers, yet none of them could perceive him) and yet distinct from
every one, as if he were some monstrous Colossus or giant; yet, for all
this ignorance of these empty notions, they knew astronomy, and were
perfectly acquainted with the motions of the heavenly bodies; and have
many instruments, well contrived and divided, by which they very
accurately compute the course and positions of the sun, moon, and stars.
But for the cheat of divining by the stars, by their oppositions or
conjunctions, it has not so much as entered into their thoughts. They
have a particular sagacity, founded upon much observation, in judging of
the weather, by which they know when they may look for rain, wind, or
other alterations in the air; but as to the philosophy of these things,
the cause of the saltness of the sea, of its ebbing and flowing, and of
the original and nature both of the heavens and the earth, they dispute
of them partly as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly upon
some new hypothesis, in which, as they differ from them, so they do not
in all things agree among themselves.
“As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we
have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and
the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if
that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire,
likewise, into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief
dispute is concerning the happiness of a man, and wherein it
consists—whether in some one thing or in a great many. They seem,
indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that places, if not the whole,
yet the chief part, of a man’s happiness in pleasure; and, what may seem
more strange, they make use of arguments even from religion,
notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that
opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning
happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of
religion as well as from natural reason, since without the former they
reckon that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural
and defective.
“These are their religious principles:—That the soul of man is immortal,
and that God of His goodness has designed that it should be happy; and
that He has, therefore, appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions,
and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. Though
these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition,
they think that even reason itself determines a man to believe and
acknowledge them; and freely confess that if these were taken away, no
man would be so insensible as not to seek after pleasure by all possible
means, lawful or unlawful, using only this caution—that a lesser
pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure
ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it; for
they think it the maddest thing in the world to pursue virtue, that is a
sour and difficult thing, and not only to renounce the pleasures of
life, but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man has no
prospect of a reward. And what reward can there be for one that has
passed his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there
is nothing to be expected after death? Yet they do not place happiness
in all sorts of pleasures, but only in those that in themselves are good
and honest. There is a party among them who place happiness in bare
virtue; others think that our natures are conducted by virtue to
happiness, as that which is the chief good of man. They define virtue
thus—that it is a living according to Nature, and think that we are made
by God for that end; they believe that a man then follows the dictates
of Nature when he pursues or avoids things according to the direction of
reason. They say that the first dictate of reason is the kindling in us
a love and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both all
that we have and, all that we can ever hope for. In the next place,
reason directs us to keep our minds as free from passion and as cheerful
as we can, and that we should consider ourselves as bound by the ties of
good-nature and humanity to use our utmost endeavours to help forward
the happiness of all other persons; for there never was any man such a
morose and severe pursuer of virtue, such an enemy to pleasure, that
though he set hard rules for men to undergo, much pain, many watchings,
and other rigors, yet did not at the same time advise them to do all
they could in order to relieve and ease the miserable, and who did not
represent gentleness and good-nature as amiable dispositions. And from
thence they infer that if a man ought to advance the welfare and comfort
of the rest of mankind (there being no virtue more proper and peculiar
to our nature than to ease the miseries of others, to free from trouble
and anxiety, in furnishing them with the comforts of life, in which
pleasure consists) Nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this
for himself. A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case
we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, on the
contrary, to keep them from it all we can, as from that which is most
hurtful and deadly; or if it is a good thing, so that we not only may
but ought to help others to it, why, then, ought not a man to begin with
himself? since no man can be more bound to look after the good of
another than after his own; for Nature cannot direct us to be good and
kind to others, and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and cruel to
ourselves. Thus as they define virtue to be living according to Nature,
so they imagine that Nature prompts all people on to seek after pleasure
as the end of all they do. They also observe that in order to our
supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into
society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind as
to be the only favourite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to have
placed on a level all those that belong to the same species. Upon this
they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as
to prejudice others; and therefore they think that not only all
agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise
that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good prince has
published in due form, or to which a people that is neither oppressed
with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud has consented, for distributing
those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures.
“They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own
advantage as far as the laws allow it, they account it piety to prefer
the public good to one’s private concerns, but they think it unjust for
a man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man’s pleasures from
him; and, on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good
soul for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of
others, and that by this means a good man finds as much pleasure one way
as he parts with another; for as he may expect the like from others when
he may come to need it, so, if that should fail him, yet the sense of a
good action, and the reflections that he makes on the love and gratitude
of those whom he has so obliged, gives the mind more pleasure than the
body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself. They
are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small
pleasures with a vast and endless joy, of which religion easily
convinces a good soul.
“Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our
actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our
chief end and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or state,
either of body or mind, in which Nature teaches us to delight, a
pleasure. Thus they cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to
which Nature leads us; for they say that Nature leads us only to those
delights to which reason, as well as sense, carries us, and by which we
neither injure any other person nor lose the possession of greater
pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles after them. But they look
upon those delights which men by a foolish, though common, mistake call
pleasure, as if they could change as easily the nature of things as the
use of words, as things that greatly obstruct their real happiness,
instead of advancing it, because they so entirely possess the minds of
those that are once captivated by them with a false notion of pleasure
that there is no room left for pleasures of a truer or purer kind.
“There are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly
delightful; on the contrary, they have a good deal of bitterness in
them; and yet, from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, are
not only ranked among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest
designs, of life. Among those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures
they reckon such as I mentioned before, who think themselves really the
better for having fine clothes; in which they think they are doubly
mistaken, both in the opinion they have of their clothes, and in that
they have of themselves. For if you consider the use of clothes, why
should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet these
men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe
them wholly to their mistakes, look big, seem to fancy themselves to be
more valuable, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of
a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been
more meanly clothed, and even resent it as an affront if that respect is
not paid them. It is also a great folly to be taken with outward marks
of respect, which signify nothing; for what true or real pleasure can
one man find in another’s standing bare or making legs to him? Will the
bending another man’s knees give ease to yours? and will the head’s
being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet it is wonderful to see how
this false notion of pleasure bewitches many who delight themselves with
the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased with this conceit—that they
are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions
rich, and who have had great possessions; for this is all that makes
nobility at present. Yet they do not think themselves a whit the less
noble, though their immediate parents have left none of this wealth to
them, or though they themselves have squandered it away. The Utopians
have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and
precious stones, and who account it a degree of happiness next to a
divine one if they can purchase one that is very extraordinary,
especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then in greatest
request, for the same sort is not at all times universally of the same
value, nor will men buy it unless it be dismounted and taken out of the
gold. The jeweller is then made to give good security, and required
solemnly to swear that the stone is true, that, by such an exact
caution, a false one might not be bought instead of a true; though, if
you were to examine it, your eye could find no difference between the
counterfeit and that which is true; so that they are all one to you, as
much as if you were blind. Or can it be thought that they who heap up a
useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but
merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true
pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy.
Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former,
and who hide it out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can
fit the hiding it in the earth, or, rather, the restoring it to it
again, it being thus cut off from being useful either to its owner or to
the rest of mankind? And yet the owner, having hid it carefully, is
glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. If it should be stole, the
owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of which
he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing
it, for both ways it was equally useless to him.
“Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight
in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only
heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us,
‘What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?’
(for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often
should give one a surfeit of it); ‘and what pleasure can one find in
hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than
pleasant sounds?’ Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs
run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if
the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same
entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the same
in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and
torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless,
and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs.
Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned
over to their butchers, and those, as has been already said, are all
slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a
butcher’s work, for they account it both more profitable and more decent
to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind,
whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can
only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he
can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed,
even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with
cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a
pleasure, must degenerate into it.
“Thus though the rabble of mankind look upon these, and on innumerable
other things of the same nature, as pleasures, the Utopians, on the
contrary, observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant,
conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures; for though
these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a
true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from
the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a
man’s taste that bitter things may pass for sweet, as women with child
think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man’s sense,
when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change
the nature of other things, so neither can it change the nature of
pleasure.
“They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones;
some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the
mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of
truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a
well-spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. They
divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts—the one is that which
gives our senses some real delight, and is performed either by
recruiting Nature and supplying those parts which feed the internal heat
of life by eating and drinking, or when Nature is eased of any surcharge
that oppresses it, when we are relieved from sudden pain, or that which
arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to
lead us to the propagation of the species. There is another kind of
pleasure that arises neither from our receiving what the body requires,
nor its being relieved when overcharged, and yet, by a secret unseen
virtue, affects the senses, raises the passions, and strikes the mind
with generous impressions—this is, the pleasure that arises from music.
Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an
undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active
spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely
free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure,
independent of all external objects of delight; and though this pleasure
does not so powerfully affect us, nor act so strongly on the senses as
some of the others, yet it may be esteemed as the greatest of all
pleasures; and almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and
basis of all the other joys of life, since this alone makes the state of
life easy and desirable, and when this is wanting, a man is really
capable of no other pleasure. They look upon freedom from pain, if it
does not rise from perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather
than of pleasure. This subject has been very narrowly canvassed among
them, and it has been debated whether a firm and entire health could be
called a pleasure or not. Some have thought that there was no pleasure
but what was ‘excited’ by some sensible motion in the body. But this
opinion has been long ago excluded from among them; so that now they
almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily
pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as opposite
in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they hold
that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should say that
sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with
it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter
the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that
health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire
gives heat, so it be granted that all those whose health is entire have
a true pleasure in the enjoyment of it. And they reason thus:—‘What is
the pleasure of eating, but that a man’s health, which had been
weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so
recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed
it finds a pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure,
the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we fancy that it
becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so
neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare.’ If it is said that
health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in
health, that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man
that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight
in health? And what is delight but another name for pleasure?
“But, of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie
in the mind, the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness
of a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that
belongs to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and
drinking, and all the other delights of sense, are only so far desirable
as they give or maintain health; but they are not pleasant in themselves
otherwise than as they resist those impressions that our natural
infirmities are still making upon us. For as a wise man desires rather
to avoid diseases than to take physic, and to be freed from pain rather
than to find ease by remedies, so it is more desirable not to need this
sort of pleasure than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man imagines
that there is a real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then confess
that he would be the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in
perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and, by consequence, in perpetual
eating, drinking, and scratching himself; which any one may easily see
would be not only a base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are,
indeed, the lowest of pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never
relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of
hunger must give us the pleasure of eating, and here the pain
out-balances the pleasure. And as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts
much longer; for as it begins before the pleasure, so it does not cease
but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and both expire together.
They think, therefore, none of those pleasures are to be valued any
further than as they are necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with
due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of Nature,
who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are
necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how
miserable a thing would life be if those daily diseases of hunger and
thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for
those diseases that return seldomer upon us! And thus these pleasant, as
well as proper, gifts of Nature maintain the strength and the
sprightliness of our bodies.
“They also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their
eyes, their ears, and their nostrils as the pleasant relishes and
seasoning of life, which Nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for
man, since no other sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty
of the universe, nor is delighted with smells any further than as they
distinguish meats by them; nor do they apprehend the concords or
discords of sound. Yet, in all pleasures whatsoever, they take care that
a lesser joy does not hinder a greater, and that pleasure may never
breed pain, which they think always follows dishonest pleasures. But
they think it madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his face or
the force of his natural strength, to corrupt the sprightliness of his
body by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by fasting; that it is
madness to weaken the strength of his constitution and reject the other
delights of life, unless by renouncing his own satisfaction he can
either serve the public or promote the happiness of others, for which he
expects a greater recompense from God. So that they look on such a
course of life as the mark of a mind that is both cruel to itself and
ungrateful to the Author of Nature, as if we would not be beholden to
Him for His favours, and therefore rejects all His blessings; as one who
should afflict himself for the empty shadow of virtue, or for no better
end than to render himself capable of bearing those misfortunes which
possibly will never happen.
“This is their notion of virtue and of pleasure: they think that no
man’s reason can carry him to a truer idea of them unless some discovery
from heaven should inspire him with sublimer notions. I have not now the
leisure to examine whether they think right or wrong in this matter; nor
do I judge it necessary, for I have only undertaken to give you an
account of their constitution, but not to defend all their principles. I
am sure that whatever may be said of their notions, there is not in the
whole world either a better people or a happier government. Their bodies
are vigorous and lively; and though they are but of a middle stature,
and have neither the fruitfullest soil nor the purest air in the world;
yet they fortify themselves so well, by their temperate course of life,
against the unhealthiness of their air, and by their industry they so
cultivate their soil, that there is nowhere to be seen a greater
increase, both of corn and cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men
and freer from diseases; for one may there see reduced to practice not
only all the art that the husbandman employs in manuring and improving
an ill soil, but whole woods plucked up by the roots, and in other
places new ones planted, where there were none before. Their principal
motive for this is the convenience of carriage, that their timber may be
either near their towns or growing on the banks of the sea, or of some
rivers, so as to be floated to them; for it is a harder work to carry
wood at any distance over land than corn. The people are industrious,
apt to learn, as well as cheerful and pleasant, and none can endure more
labour when it is necessary; but, except in that case, they love their
ease. They are unwearied pursuers of knowledge; for when we had given
them some hints of the learning and discipline of the Greeks, concerning
whom we only instructed them (for we know that there was nothing among
the Romans, except their historians and their poets, that they would
value much), it was strange to see how eagerly they were set on learning
that language: we began to read a little of it to them, rather in
compliance with their importunity than out of any hopes of their reaping
from it any great advantage: but, after a very short trial, we found
they made such progress, that we saw our labour was like to be more
successful than we could have expected: they learned to write their
characters and to pronounce their language so exactly, had so quick an
apprehension, they remembered it so faithfully, and became so ready and
correct in the use of it, that it would have looked like a miracle if
the greater part of those whom we taught had not been men both of
extraordinary capacity and of a fit age for instruction: they were, for
the greatest part, chosen from among their learned men by their chief
council, though some studied it of their own accord. In three years’
time they became masters of the whole language, so that they read the
best of the Greek authors very exactly. I am, indeed, apt to think that
they learned that language the more easily from its having some relation
to their own. I believe that they were a colony of the Greeks; for
though their language comes nearer the Persian, yet they retain many
names, both for their towns and magistrates, that are of Greek
derivation. I happened to carry a great many books with me, instead of
merchandise, when I sailed my fourth voyage; for I was so far from
thinking of soon coming back, that I rather thought never to have
returned at all, and I gave them all my books, among which were many of
Plato’s and some of Aristotle’s works: I had also Theophrastus on
Plants, which, to my great regret, was imperfect; for having laid it
carelessly by, while we were at sea, a monkey had seized upon it, and in
many places torn out the leaves. They have no books of grammar but
Lascares, for I did not carry Theodorus with me; nor have they any
dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscerides. They esteem Plutarch highly,
and were much taken with Lucian’s wit and with his pleasant way of
writing. As for the poets, they have Aristophanes, Homer, Euripides, and
Sophocles of Aldus’s edition; and for historians, Thucydides, Herodotus,
and Herodian. One of my companions, Thricius Apinatus, happened to carry
with him some of Hippocrates’s works and Galen’s Microtechne, which they
hold in great estimation; for though there is no nation in the world
that needs physic so little as they do, yet there is not any that
honours it so much; they reckon the knowledge of it one of the
pleasantest and most profitable parts of philosophy, by which, as they
search into the secrets of nature, so they not only find this study
highly agreeable, but think that such inquiries are very acceptable to
the Author of nature; and imagine, that as He, like the inventors of
curious engines amongst mankind, has exposed this great machine of the
universe to the view of the only creatures capable of contemplating it,
so an exact and curious observer, who admires His workmanship, is much
more acceptable to Him than one of the herd, who, like a beast incapable
of reason, looks on this glorious scene with the eyes of a dull and
unconcerned spectator.
“The minds of the Utopians, when fenced with a love for learning, are
very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry it
to perfection. Two things they owe to us, the manufacture of paper and
the art of printing; yet they are not so entirely indebted to us for
these discoveries but that a great part of the invention was their own.
We showed them some books printed by Aldus, we explained to them the way
of making paper and the mystery of printing; but, as we had never
practised these arts, we described them in a crude and superficial
manner. They seized the hints we gave them; and though at first they
could not arrive at perfection, yet by making many essays they at last
found out and corrected all their errors and conquered every difficulty.
Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds, or on the barks of
trees; but now they have established the manufactures of paper and set
up printing presses, so that, if they had but a good number of Greek
authors, they would be quickly supplied with many copies of them: at
present, though they have no more than those I have mentioned, yet, by
several impressions, they have multiplied them into many thousands. If
any man was to go among them that had some extraordinary talent, or that
by much travelling had observed the customs of many nations (which made
us to be so well received), he would receive a hearty welcome, for they
are very desirous to know the state of the whole world. Very few go
among them on the account of traffic; for what can a man carry to them
but iron, or gold, or silver? which merchants desire rather to export
than import to a strange country: and as for their exportation, they
think it better to manage that themselves than to leave it to
foreigners, for by this means, as they understand the state of the
neighbouring countries better, so they keep up the art of navigation
which cannot be maintained but by much practice.
“They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are
taken in battle, nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those of other
nations: the slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that
state of life for the commission of some crime, or, which is more
common, such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to
which they trade, whom they sometimes redeem at low rates, and in other
places have them for nothing. They are kept at perpetual labour, and are
always chained, but with this difference, that their own natives are
treated much worse than others: they are considered as more profligate
than the rest, and since they could not be restrained by the advantages
of so excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage. Another
sort of slaves are the poor of the neighbouring countries, who offer of
their own accord to come and serve them: they treat these better, and
use them in all other respects as well as their own countrymen, except
their imposing more labour upon them, which is no hard task to those
that have been accustomed to it; and if any of these have a mind to go
back to their own country, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, as they
do not force them to stay, so they do not send them away empty-handed.
“I have already told you with what care they look after their sick, so
that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their case or
health; and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases,
they use all possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives as
comfortable as possible. They visit them often and take great pains to
make their time pass off easily; but when any is taken with a torturing
and lingering pain, so that there is no hope either of recovery or ease,
the priests and magistrates come and exhort them, that, since they are
now unable to go on with the business of life, are become a burden to
themselves and to all about them, and they have really out-lived
themselves, they should no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, but
choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery; being
assured that if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or are
willing that others should do it, they shall be happy after death:
since, by their acting thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only
the troubles of life, they think they behave not only reasonably but in
a manner consistent with religion and piety; because they follow the
advice given them by their priests, who are the expounders of the will
of God. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions either starve
themselves of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means die
without pain. But no man is forced on this way of ending his life; and
if they cannot be persuaded to it, this does not induce them to fail in
their attendance and care of them: but as they believe that a voluntary
death, when it is chosen upon such an authority, is very honourable, so
if any man takes away his own life without the approbation of the
priests and the senate, they give him none of the honours of a decent
funeral, but throw his body into a ditch.
“Their women are not married before eighteen nor their men before
two-and-twenty, and if any of them run into forbidden embraces before
marriage they are severely punished, and the privilege of marriage is
denied them unless they can obtain a special warrant from the Prince.
Such disorders cast a great reproach upon the master and mistress of the
family in which they happen, for it is supposed that they have failed in
their duty. The reason of punishing this so severely is, because they
think that if they were not strictly restrained from all vagrant
appetites, very few would engage in a state in which they venture the
quiet of their whole lives, by being confined to one person, and are
obliged to endure all the inconveniences with which it is accompanied.
In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very
absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is
accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave
matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to
the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom,
naked, to the bride. We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it
as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of
the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a
small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and
take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no
secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a
wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his
life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth
of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie
hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome. All men are not so wise
as to choose a woman only for her good qualities, and even wise men
consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind, and it is
certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may
totally alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with
her; if such a thing is discovered after marriage a man has no remedy
but patience; they, therefore, think it is reasonable that there should
be good provision made against such mischievous frauds.
“There was so much the more reason for them to make a regulation in this
matter, because they are the only people of those parts that neither
allow of polygamy nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery or
insufferable perverseness, for in these cases the Senate dissolves the
marriage and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the
guilty are made infamous and are never allowed the privilege of a second
marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills,
from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons, for they
look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of
the married persons when they need most the tender care of their
consort, and that chiefly in the case of old age, which, as it carries
many diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself. But it
frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree, they,
by mutual consent, separate, and find out other persons with whom they
hope they may live more happily; yet this is not done without obtaining
leave of the Senate, which never admits of a divorce but upon a strict
inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds
upon which it is desired, and even when they are satisfied concerning
the reasons of it they go on but slowly, for they imagine that too great
easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the
kindness of married people. They punish severely those that defile the
marriage bed; if both parties are married they are divorced, and the
injured persons may marry one another, or whom they please, but the
adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery, yet if either of
the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the married person they
may live with them still in that state, but they must follow them to
that labour to which the slaves are condemned, and sometimes the
repentance of the condemned, together with the unshaken kindness of the
innocent and injured person, has prevailed so far with the Prince that
he has taken off the sentence; but those that relapse after they are
once pardoned are punished with death.
“Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes, but that
is left to the Senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of
the fact. Husbands have power to correct their wives and parents to
chastise their children, unless the fault is so great that a public
punishment is thought necessary for striking terror into others. For the
most part slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes, for as
that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they
think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the
interest of the commonwealth than killing them, since, as their labour
is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the
sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that
which would be given by their death. If their slaves rebel, and will not
bear their yoke and submit to the labour that is enjoined them, they are
treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither by a prison
nor by their chains, and are at last put to death. But those who bear
their punishment patiently, and are so much wrought on by that pressure
that lies so hard on them, that it appears they are really more troubled
for the crimes they have committed than for the miseries they suffer,
are not out of hope, but that, at last, either the Prince will, by his
prerogative, or the people, by their intercession, restore them again to
their liberty, or, at least, very much mitigate their slavery. He that
tempts a married woman to adultery is no less severely punished than he
that commits it, for they believe that a deliberate design to commit a
crime is equal to the fact itself, since its not taking effect does not
make the person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less guilty.
“They take great pleasure in fools, and as it is thought a base and
unbecoming thing to use them ill, so they do not think it amiss for
people to divert themselves with their folly; and, in their opinion,
this is a great advantage to the fools themselves; for if men were so
sullen and severe as not at all to please themselves with their
ridiculous behaviour and foolish sayings, which is all that they can do
to recommend themselves to others, it could not be expected that they
would be so well provided for nor so tenderly used as they must
otherwise be. If any man should reproach another for his being misshaped
or imperfect in any part of his body, it would not at all be thought a
reflection on the person so treated, but it would be accounted
scandalous in him that had upbraided another with what he could not
help. It is thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve
carefully one’s natural beauty; but it is likewise infamous among them
to use paint. They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to
her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some
few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the
other excellences which charm all the world.
“As they fright men from committing crimes by punishments, so they
invite them to the love of virtue by public honours; therefore they
erect statues to the memories of such worthy men as have deserved well
of their country, and set these in their market-places, both to
perpetuate the remembrance of their actions and to be an incitement to
their posterity to follow their example.
“If any man aspires to any office he is sure never to compass it. They
all live easily together, for none of the magistrates are either
insolent or cruel to the people; they affect rather to be called
fathers, and, by being really so, they well deserve the name; and the
people pay them all the marks of honour the more freely because none are
exacted from them. The Prince himself has no distinction, either of
garments or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn
carried before him; as the High Priest is also known by his being
preceded by a person carrying a wax light.
“They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need
not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with
the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it
an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both
of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every
one of the subjects.
“They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of
people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws,
and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead
his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client
trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays
and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open
the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt
to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the
simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would
be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very
remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of
laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law; for, as it is a very
short study, so the plainest meaning of which words are capable is
always the sense of their laws; and they argue thus: all laws are
promulgated for this end, that every man may know his duty; and,
therefore, the plainest and most obvious sense of the words is that
which ought to be put upon them, since a more refined exposition cannot
be easily comprehended, and would only serve to make the laws become
useless to the greater part of mankind, and especially to those who need
most the direction of them; for it is all one not to make a law at all
or to couch it in such terms that, without a quick apprehension and much
study, a man cannot find out the true meaning of it, since the
generality of mankind are both so dull, and so much employed in their
several trades, that they have neither the leisure nor the capacity
requisite for such an inquiry.
“Some of their neighbours, who are masters of their own liberties
(having long ago, by the assistance of the Utopians, shaken off the yoke
of tyranny, and being much taken with those virtues which they observe
among them), have come to desire that they would send magistrates to
govern them, some changing them every year, and others every five years;
at the end of their government they bring them back to Utopia, with
great expressions of honour and esteem, and carry away others to govern
in their stead. In this they seem to have fallen upon a very good
expedient for their own happiness and safety; for since the good or ill
condition of a nation depends so much upon their magistrates, they could
not have made a better choice than by pitching on men whom no advantages
can bias; for wealth is of no use to them, since they must so soon go
back to their own country, and they, being strangers among them, are not
engaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is certain that
when public judicatories are swayed, either by avarice or partial
affections, there must follow a dissolution of justice, the chief sinew
of society.
“The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates from them
Neighbours; but those to whom they have been of more particular service,
Friends; and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues
or breaking them, they never enter into an alliance with any state. They
think leagues are useless things, and believe that if the common ties of
humanity do not knit men together, the faith of promises will have no
great effect; and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see
among the nations round about them, who are no strict observers of
leagues and treaties. We know how religiously they are observed in
Europe, more particularly where the Christian doctrine is received,
among whom they are sacred and inviolable! which is partly owing to the
justice and goodness of the princes themselves, and partly to the
reverence they pay to the popes, who, as they are the most religious
observers of their own promises, so they exhort all other princes to
perform theirs, and, when fainter methods do not prevail, they compel
them to it by the severity of the pastoral censure, and think that it
would be the most indecent thing possible if men who are particularly
distinguished by the title of ‘The Faithful’ should not religiously keep
the faith of their treaties. But in that new-found world, which is not
more distant from us in situation than the people are in their manners
and course of life, there is no trusting to leagues, even though they
were made with all the pomp of the most sacred ceremonies; on the
contrary, they are on this account the sooner broken, some slight
pretence being found in the words of the treaties, which are purposely
couched in such ambiguous terms that they can never be so strictly bound
but they will always find some loophole to escape at, and thus they
break both their leagues and their faith; and this is done with such
impudence, that those very men who value themselves on having suggested
these expedients to their princes would, with a haughty scorn, declaim
against such craft; or, to speak plainer, such fraud and deceit, if they
found private men make use of it in their bargains, and would readily
say that they deserved to be hanged.
“By this means it is that all sort of justice passes in the world for a
low-spirited and vulgar virtue, far below the dignity of royal
greatness—or at least there are set up two sorts of justice; the one is
mean and creeps on the ground, and, therefore, becomes none but the
lower part of mankind, and so must be kept in severely by many
restraints, that it may not break out beyond the bounds that are set to
it; the other is the peculiar virtue of princes, which, as it is more
majestic than that which becomes the rabble, so takes a freer compass,
and thus lawful and unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest.
These practices of the princes that lie about Utopia, who make so little
account of their faith, seem to be the reasons that determine them to
engage in no confederacy. Perhaps they would change their mind if they
lived among us; but yet, though treaties were more religiously observed,
they would still dislike the custom of making them, since the world has
taken up a false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of nature
uniting one nation to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a
river, and that all were born in a state of hostility, and so might
lawfully do all that mischief to their neighbours against which there is
no provision made by treaties; and that when treaties are made they do
not cut off the enmity or restrain the licence of preying upon each
other, if, by the unskilfulness of wording them, there are not effectual
provisoes made against them; they, on the other hand, judge that no man
is to be esteemed our enemy that has never injured us, and that the
partnership of human nature is instead of a league; and that kindness
and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength
than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men’s
hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.
They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of
human nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts. They,
in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that
there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war;
and therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military
exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men, but
their women likewise, are trained up, that, in cases of necessity, they
may not be quite useless, yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless
it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust
aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an oppressed
nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They, indeed, help their
friends not only in defensive but also in offensive wars; but they never
do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and,
being satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that
all demands of reparation were rejected, so that a war was unavoidable.
This they think to be not only just when one neighbour makes an inroad
on another by public order, and carries away the spoils, but when the
merchants of one country are oppressed in another, either under pretence
of some unjust laws, or by the perverse wresting of good ones. This they
count a juster cause of war than the other, because those injuries are
done under some colour of laws. This was the only ground of that war in
which they engaged with the Nephelogetes against the Aleopolitanes, a
little before our time; for the merchants of the former having, as they
thought, met with great injustice among the latter, which (whether it
was in itself right or wrong) drew on a terrible war, in which many of
their neighbours were engaged; and their keenness in carrying it on
being supported by their strength in maintaining it, it not only shook
some very flourishing states and very much afflicted others, but, after
a series of much mischief ended in the entire conquest and slavery of
the Aleopolitanes, who, though before the war they were in all respects
much superior to the Nephelogetes, were yet subdued; but, though the
Utopians had assisted them in the war, yet they pretended to no share of
the spoil.
“But, though they so vigorously assist their friends in obtaining
reparation for the injuries they have received in affairs of this
nature, yet, if any such frauds were committed against themselves,
provided no violence was done to their persons, they would only, on
their being refused satisfaction, forbear trading with such a people.
This is not because they consider their neighbours more than their own
citizens; but, since their neighbours trade every one upon his own
stock, fraud is a more sensible injury to them than it is to the
Utopians, among whom the public, in such a case, only suffers, as they
expect no thing in return for the merchandise they export but that in
which they so much abound, and is of little use to them, the loss does
not much affect them. They think, therefore, it would be too severe to
revenge a loss attended with so little inconvenience, either to their
lives or their subsistence, with the death of many persons; but if any
of their people are either killed or wounded wrongfully, whether it be
done by public authority, or only by private men, as soon as they hear
of it they send ambassadors, and demand that the guilty persons may be
delivered up to them, and if that is denied, they declare war; but if it
be complied with, the offenders are condemned either to death or
slavery.
“They would be both troubled and ashamed of a bloody victory over their
enemies; and think it would be as foolish a purchase as to buy the most
valuable goods at too high a rate. And in no victory do they glory so
much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without
bloodshed. In such cases they appoint public triumphs, and erect
trophies to the honour of those who have succeeded; for then do they
reckon that a man acts suitably to his nature, when he conquers his
enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable
of, and that is by the strength of his understanding. Bears, lions,
boars, wolves, and dogs, and all other animals, employ their bodily
force one against another, in which, as many of them are superior to
men, both in strength and fierceness, so they are all subdued by his
reason and understanding.
“The only design of the Utopians in war is to obtain that by force
which, if it had been granted them in time, would have prevented the
war; or, if that cannot be done, to take so severe a revenge on those
that have injured them that they may be terrified from doing the like
for the time to come. By these ends they measure all their designs, and
manage them so, that it is visible that the appetite of fame or
vainglory does not work so much on there as a just care of their own
security.
“As soon as they declare war, they take care to have a great many
schedules, that are sealed with their common seal, affixed in the most
conspicuous places of their enemies’ country. This is carried secretly,
and done in many places all at once. In these they promise great rewards
to such as shall kill the prince, and lesser in proportion to such as
shall kill any other persons who are those on whom, next to the prince
himself, they cast the chief balance of the war. And they double the sum
to him that, instead of killing the person so marked out, shall take him
alive, and put him in their hands. They offer not only indemnity, but
rewards, to such of the persons themselves that are so marked, if they
will act against their countrymen. By this means those that are named in
their schedules become not only distrustful of their fellow-citizens,
but are jealous of one another, and are much distracted by fear and
danger; for it has often fallen out that many of them, and even the
prince himself, have been betrayed, by those in whom they have trusted
most; for the rewards that the Utopians offer are so immeasurably great,
that there is no sort of crime to which men cannot be drawn by them.
They consider the risk that those run who undertake such services, and
offer a recompense proportioned to the danger—not only a vast deal of
gold, but great revenues in lands, that lie among other nations that are
their friends, where they may go and enjoy them very securely; and they
observe the promises they make of their kind most religiously. They very
much approve of this way of corrupting their enemies, though it appears
to others to be base and cruel; but they look on it as a wise course, to
make an end of what would be otherwise a long war, without so much as
hazarding one battle to decide it. They think it likewise an act of
mercy and love to mankind to prevent the great slaughter of those that
must otherwise be killed in the progress of the war, both on their own
side and on that of their enemies, by the death of a few that are most
guilty; and that in so doing they are kind even to their enemies, and
pity them no less than their own people, as knowing that the greater
part of them do not engage in the war of their own accord, but are
driven into it by the passions of their prince.
“If this method does not succeed with them, then they sow seeds of
contention among their enemies, and animate the prince’s brother, or
some of the nobility, to aspire to the crown. If they cannot disunite
them by domestic broils, then they engage their neighbours against them,
and make them set on foot some old pretensions, which are never wanting
to princes when they have occasion for them. These they plentifully
supply with money, though but very sparingly with any auxiliary troops;
for they are so tender of their own people that they would not willingly
exchange one of them, even with the prince of their enemies’ country.
“But as they keep their gold and silver only for such an occasion, so,
when that offers itself, they easily part with it; since it would be no
convenience to them, though they should reserve nothing of it to
themselves. For besides the wealth that they have among them at home,
they have a vast treasure abroad; many nations round about them being
deep in their debt: so that they hire soldiers from all places for
carrying on their wars; but chiefly from the Zapolets, who live five
hundred miles east of Utopia. They are a rude, wild, and fierce nation,
who delight in the woods and rocks, among which they were born and bred
up. They are hardened both against heat, cold, and labour, and know
nothing of the delicacies of life. They do not apply themselves to
agriculture, nor do they care either for their houses or their clothes:
cattle is all that they look after; and for the greatest part they live
either by hunting or upon rapine; and are made, as it were, only for
war. They watch all opportunities of engaging in it, and very readily
embrace such as are offered them. Great numbers of them will frequently
go out, and offer themselves for a very low pay, to serve any that will
employ them: they know none of the arts of life, but those that lead to
the taking it away; they serve those that hire them, both with much
courage and great fidelity; but will not engage to serve for any
determined time, and agree upon such terms, that the next day they may
go over to the enemies of those whom they serve if they offer them a
greater encouragement; and will, perhaps, return to them the day after
that upon a higher advance of their pay. There are few wars in which
they make not a considerable part of the armies of both sides: so it
often falls out that they who are related, and were hired in the same
country, and so have lived long and familiarly together, forgetting both
their relations and former friendship, kill one another upon no other
consideration than that of being hired to it for a little money by
princes of different interests; and such a regard have they for money
that they are easily wrought on by the difference of one penny a day to
change sides. So entirely does their avarice influence them; and yet
this money, which they value so highly, is of little use to them; for
what they purchase thus with their blood they quickly waste on luxury,
which among them is but of a poor and miserable form.
“This nation serves the Utopians against all people whatsoever, for they
pay higher than any other. The Utopians hold this for a maxim, that as
they seek out the best sort of men for their own use at home, so they
make use of this worst sort of men for the consumption of war; and
therefore they hire them with the offers of vast rewards to expose
themselves to all sorts of hazards, out of which the greater part never
returns to claim their promises; yet they make them good most
religiously to such as escape. This animates them to adventure again,
whenever there is occasion for it; for the Utopians are not at all
troubled how many of these happen to be killed, and reckon it a service
done to mankind if they could be a means to deliver the world from such
a lewd and vicious sort of people, that seem to have run together, as to
the drain of human nature. Next to these, they are served in their wars
with those upon whose account they undertake them, and with the
auxiliary troops of their other friends, to whom they join a few of
their own people, and send some man of eminent and approved virtue to
command in chief. There are two sent with him, who, during his command,
are but private men, but the first is to succeed him if he should happen
to be either killed or taken; and, in case of the like misfortune to
him, the third comes in his place; and thus they provide against all
events, that such accidents as may befall their generals may not
endanger their armies. When they draw out troops of their own people,
they take such out of every city as freely offer themselves, for none
are forced to go against their wills, since they think that if any man
is pressed that wants courage, he will not only act faintly, but by his
cowardice dishearten others. But if an invasion is made on their
country, they make use of such men, if they have good bodies, though
they are not brave; and either put them aboard their ships, or place
them on the walls of their towns, that being so posted, they may find no
opportunity of flying away; and thus either shame, the heat of action,
or the impossibility of flying, bears down their cowardice; they often
make a virtue of necessity, and behave themselves well, because nothing
else is left them. But as they force no man to go into any foreign war
against his will, so they do not hinder those women who are willing to
go along with their husbands; on the contrary, they encourage and praise
them, and they stand often next their husbands in the front of the army.
They also place together those who are related, parents, and children,
kindred, and those that are mutually allied, near one another; that
those whom nature has inspired with the greatest zeal for assisting one
another may be the nearest and readiest to do it; and it is matter of
great reproach if husband or wife survive one another, or if a child
survives his parent, and therefore when they come to be engaged in
action, they continue to fight to the last man, if their enemies stand
before them: and as they use all prudent methods to avoid the
endangering their own men, and if it is possible let all the action and
danger fall upon the troops that they hire, so if it becomes necessary
for themselves to engage, they then charge with as much courage as they
avoided it before with prudence: nor is it a fierce charge at first, but
it increases by degrees; and as they continue in action, they grow more
obstinate, and press harder upon the enemy, insomuch that they will much
sooner die than give ground; for the certainty that their children will
be well looked after when they are dead frees them from all that anxiety
concerning them which often masters men of great courage; and thus they
are animated by a noble and invincible resolution. Their skill in
military affairs increases their courage: and the wise sentiments which,
according to the laws of their country, are instilled into them in their
education, give additional vigour to their minds: for as they do not
undervalue life so as prodigally to throw it away, they are not so
indecently fond of it as to preserve it by base and unbecoming methods.
In the greatest heat of action the bravest of their youth, who have
devoted themselves to that service, single out the general of their
enemies, set on him either openly or by ambuscade; pursue him
everywhere, and when spent and wearied out, are relieved by others, who
never give over the pursuit, either attacking him with close weapons
when they can get near him, or with those which wound at a distance,
when others get in between them. So that, unless he secures himself by
flight, they seldom fail at last to kill or to take him prisoner. When
they have obtained a victory, they kill as few as possible, and are much
more bent on taking many prisoners than on killing those that fly before
them. Nor do they ever let their men so loose in the pursuit of their
enemies as not to retain an entire body still in order; so that if they
have been forced to engage the last of their battalions before they
could gain the day, they will rather let their enemies all escape than
pursue them when their own army is in disorder; remembering well what
has often fallen out to themselves, that when the main body of their
army has been quite defeated and broken, when their enemies, imagining
the victory obtained, have let themselves loose into an irregular
pursuit, a few of them that lay for a reserve, waiting a fit
opportunity, have fallen on them in their chase, and when straggling in
disorder, and apprehensive of no danger, but counting the day their own,
have turned the whole action, and, wresting out of their hands a victory
that seemed certain and undoubted, while the vanquished have suddenly
become victorious.
“It is hard to tell whether they are more dexterous in laying or
avoiding ambushes. They sometimes seem to fly when it is far from their
thoughts; and when they intend to give ground, they do it so that it is
very hard to find out their design. If they see they are ill posted, or
are like to be overpowered by numbers, they then either march off in the
night with great silence, or by some stratagem delude their enemies. If
they retire in the day-time, they do it in such order that it is no less
dangerous to fall upon them in a retreat than in a march. They fortify
their camps with a deep and large trench; and throw up the earth that is
dug out of it for a wall; nor do they employ only their slaves in this,
but the whole army works at it, except those that are then upon the
guard; so that when so many hands are at work, a great line and a strong
fortification is finished in so short a time that it is scarce credible.
Their armour is very strong for defence, and yet is not so heavy as to
make them uneasy in their marches; they can even swim with it. All that
are trained up to war practise swimming. Both horse and foot make great
use of arrows, and are very expert. They have no swords, but fight with
a pole-axe that is both sharp and heavy, by which they thrust or strike
down an enemy. They are very good at finding out warlike machines, and
disguise them so well that the enemy does not perceive them till he
feels the use of them; so that he cannot prepare such a defence as would
render them useless; the chief consideration had in the making them is
that they may be easily carried and managed.
“If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously that no
provocations will make them break it. They never lay their enemies’
country waste nor burn their corn, and even in their marches they take
all possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for
they do not know but that they may have use for it themselves. They hurt
no man whom they find disarmed, unless he is a spy. When a town is
surrendered to them, they take it into their protection; and when they
carry a place by storm they never plunder it, but put those only to the
sword that oppose the rendering of it up, and make the rest of the
garrison slaves, but for the other inhabitants, they do them no hurt;
and if any of them had advised a surrender, they give them good rewards
out of the estates of those that they condemn, and distribute the rest
among their auxiliary troops, but they themselves take no share of the
spoil.
“When a war is ended, they do not oblige their friends to reimburse
their expenses; but they obtain them of the conquered, either in money,
which they keep for the next occasion, or in lands, out of which a
constant revenue is to be paid them; by many increases the revenue which
they draw out from several countries on such occasions is now risen to
above 700,000 ducats a year. They send some of their own people to
receive these revenues, who have orders to live magnificently and like
princes, by which means they consume much of it upon the place; and
either bring over the rest to Utopia or lend it to that nation in which
it lies. This they most commonly do, unless some great occasion, which
falls out but very seldom, should oblige them to call for it all. It is
out of these lands that they assign rewards to such as they encourage to
adventure on desperate attempts. If any prince that engages in war with
them is making preparations for invading their country, they prevent
him, and make his country the seat of the war; for they do not willingly
suffer any war to break in upon their island; and if that should happen,
they would only defend themselves by their own people; but would not
call for auxiliary troops to their assistance.
“There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of
the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the
moon or one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent
in former times for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but
as the supreme god. Yet the greater and wiser sort of them worship none
of these, but adore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and
incomprehensible Deity; as a Being that is far above all our
apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe, not by His bulk,
but by His power and virtue; Him they call the Father of All, and
acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the
vicissitudes, and the end of all things come only from Him; nor do they
offer divine honours to any but to Him alone. And, indeed, though they
differ concerning other things, yet all agree in this: that they think
there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world, whom they
call, in the language of their country, Mithras. They differ in this:
that one thinks the god whom he worships is this Supreme Being, and
another thinks that his idol is that god; but they all agree in one
principle, that whoever is this Supreme Being, He is also that great
essence to whose glory and majesty all honours are ascribed by the
consent of all nations.
“By degrees they fall off from the various superstitions that are among
them, and grow up to that one religion that is the best and most in
request; and there is no doubt to be made, but that all the others had
vanished long ago, if some of those who advised them to lay aside their
superstitions had not met with some unhappy accidents, which, being
considered as inflicted by heaven, made them afraid that the god whose
worship had like to have been abandoned had interposed and revenged
themselves on those who despised their authority.
“After they had heard from us an account of the doctrine, the course of
life, and the miracles of Christ, and of the wonderful constancy of so
many martyrs, whose blood, so willingly offered up by them, was the
chief occasion of spreading their religion over a vast number of
nations, it is not to be imagined how inclined they were to receive it.
I shall not determine whether this proceeded from any secret inspiration
of God, or whether it was because it seemed so favourable to that
community of goods, which is an opinion so particular as well as so dear
to them; since they perceived that Christ and His followers lived by
that rule, and that it was still kept up in some communities among the
sincerest sort of Christians. From whichsoever of these motives it might
be, true it is, that many of them came over to our religion, and were
initiated into it by baptism. But as two of our number were dead, so
none of the four that survived were in priests’ orders, we, therefore,
could only baptise them, so that, to our great regret, they could not
partake of the other sacraments, that can only be administered by
priests, but they are instructed concerning them and long most
vehemently for them. They have had great disputes among themselves,
whether one chosen by them to be a priest would not be thereby qualified
to do all the things that belong to that character, even though he had
no authority derived from the Pope, and they seemed to be resolved to
choose some for that employment, but they had not done it when I left
them.
“Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any
from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I
was there one man was only punished on this occasion. He being newly
baptised did, notwithstanding all that we could say to the contrary,
dispute publicly concerning the Christian religion, with more zeal than
discretion, and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our
worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried
out against all that adhered to them as impious and sacrilegious
persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having
frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and after trial he was
condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but
for his inflaming the people to sedition; for this is one of their most
ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion. At the
first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that
before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in
great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among
themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since,
instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in
religion fought by themselves. After he had subdued them he made a law
that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavour
to draw others to it by the force of argument and by amicable and modest
ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that
he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither
to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were
to be condemned to banishment or slavery.
“This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace,
which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable
heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required
it. He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to
doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from
God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with
this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man
to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear
to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true,
and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at
last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of
argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on
the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and
tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best
and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is
with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty,
that they might be free to believe as they should see cause; only he
made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate
from the dignity of human nature, as to think that our souls died with
our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise
overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a
state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life;
and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be
counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon
it no better than a beast’s: thus they are far from looking on such men
as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered
commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he
dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt
to be made, that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and
apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all
the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he
may satisfy his appetites. They never raise any that hold these maxims,
either to honours or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but
despise them, as men of base and sordid minds. Yet they do not punish
them, because they lay this down as a maxim, that a man cannot make
himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble
their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or
disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the
Utopians: they take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of
these opinions, especially before the common people: but they suffer,
and even encourage them to dispute concerning them in private with their
priest, and other grave men, being confident that they will be cured of
those mad opinions by having reason laid before them. There are many
among them that run far to the other extreme, though it is neither
thought an ill nor unreasonable opinion, and therefore is not at all
discouraged. They think that the souls of beasts are immortal, though
far inferior to the dignity of the human soul, and not capable of so
great a happiness. They are almost all of them very firmly persuaded
that good men will be infinitely happy in another state: so that though
they are compassionate to all that are sick, yet they lament no man’s
death, except they see him loath to part with life; for they look on
this as a very ill presage, as if the soul, conscious to itself of
guilt, and quite hopeless, was afraid to leave the body, from some
secret hints of approaching misery. They think that such a man’s
appearance before God cannot be acceptable to Him, who being called on,
does not go out cheerfully, but is backward and unwilling, and is as it
were dragged to it. They are struck with horror when they see any die in
this manner, and carry them out in silence and with sorrow, and praying
God that He would be merciful to the errors of the departed soul, they
lay the body in the ground: but when any die cheerfully, and full of
hope, they do not mourn for them, but sing hymns when they carry out
their bodies, and commending their souls very earnestly to God: their
whole behaviour is then rather grave than sad, they burn the body, and
set up a pillar where the pile was made, with an inscription to the
honour of the deceased. When they come from the funeral, they discourse
of his good life, and worthy actions, but speak of nothing oftener and
with more pleasure than of his serenity at the hour of death. They think
such respect paid to the memory of good men is both the greatest
incitement to engage others to follow their example, and the most
acceptable worship that can be offered them; for they believe that
though by the imperfection of human sight they are invisible to us, yet
they are present among us, and hear those discourses that pass
concerning themselves. They believe it inconsistent with the happiness
of departed souls not to be at liberty to be where they will: and do not
imagine them capable of the ingratitude of not desiring to see those
friends with whom they lived on earth in the strictest bonds of love and
kindness: besides, they are persuaded that good men, after death, have
these affections; and all other good dispositions increased rather than
diminished, and therefore conclude that they are still among the living,
and observe all they say or do. From hence they engage in all their
affairs with the greater confidence of success, as trusting to their
protection; while this opinion of the presence of their ancestors is a
restraint that prevents their engaging in ill designs.
“They despise and laugh at auguries, and the other vain and
superstitious ways of divination, so much observed among other nations;
but have great reverence for such miracles as cannot flow from any of
the powers of nature, and look on them as effects and indications of the
presence of the Supreme Being, of which they say many instances have
occurred among them; and that sometimes their public prayers, which upon
great and dangerous occasions they have solemnly put up to God, with
assured confidence of being heard, have been answered in a miraculous
manner.
“They think the contemplating God in His works, and the adoring Him for
them, is a very acceptable piece of worship to Him.
“There are many among them that upon a motive of religion neglect
learning, and apply themselves to no sort of study; nor do they allow
themselves any leisure time, but are perpetually employed, believing
that by the good things that a man does he secures to himself that
happiness that comes after death. Some of these visit the sick; others
mend highways, cleanse ditches, repair bridges, or dig turf, gravel, or
stone. Others fell and cleave timber, and bring wood, corn, and other
necessaries, on carts, into their towns; nor do these only serve the
public, but they serve even private men, more than the slaves themselves
do: for if there is anywhere a rough, hard, and sordid piece of work to
be done, from which many are frightened by the labour and loathsomeness
of it, if not the despair of accomplishing it, they cheerfully, and of
their own accord, take that to their share; and by that means, as they
ease others very much, so they afflict themselves, and spend their whole
life in hard labour: and yet they do not value themselves upon this, nor
lessen other people’s credit to raise their own; but by their stooping
to such servile employments they are so far from being despised, that
they are so much the more esteemed by the whole nation.
“Of these there are two sorts: some live unmarried and chaste, and
abstain from eating any sort of flesh; and thus weaning themselves from
all the pleasures of the present life, which they account hurtful, they
pursue, even by the hardest and painfullest methods possible, that
blessedness which they hope for hereafter; and the nearer they approach
to it, they are the more cheerful and earnest in their endeavours after
it. Another sort of them is less willing to put themselves to much toil,
and therefore prefer a married state to a single one; and as they do not
deny themselves the pleasure of it, so they think the begetting of
children is a debt which they owe to human nature, and to their country;
nor do they avoid any pleasure that does not hinder labour; and
therefore eat flesh so much the more willingly, as they find that by
this means they are the more able to work: the Utopians look upon these
as the wiser sect, but they esteem the others as the most holy. They
would indeed laugh at any man who, from the principles of reason, would
prefer an unmarried state to a married, or a life of labour to an easy
life: but they reverence and admire such as do it from the motives of
religion. There is nothing in which they are more cautious than in
giving their opinion positively concerning any sort of religion. The men
that lead those severe lives are called in the language of their country
Brutheskas, which answers to those we call Religious Orders.
“Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few,
for there are only thirteen in every town, one for every temple; but
when they go to war, seven of these go out with their forces, and seven
others are chosen to supply their room in their absence; but these enter
again upon their employments when they return; and those who served in
their absence, attend upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by
death; for there is one set over the rest. They are chosen by the people
as the other magistrates are, by suffrages given in secret, for
preventing of factions: and when they are chosen, they are consecrated
by the college of priests. The care of all sacred things, the worship of
God, and an inspection into the manners of the people, are committed to
them. It is a reproach to a man to be sent for by any of them, or for
them to speak to him in secret, for that always gives some suspicion:
all that is incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the people;
for the power of correcting and punishing ill men belongs wholly to the
Prince, and to the other magistrates: the severest thing that the priest
does is the excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining in
their worship: there is not any sort of punishment more dreaded by them
than this, for as it loads them with infamy, so it fills them with
secret horrors, such is their reverence to their religion; nor will
their bodies be long exempted from their share of trouble; for if they
do not very quickly satisfy the priests of the truth of their
repentance, they are seized on by the Senate, and punished for their
impiety. The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not
take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their
minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very
early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as
are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for
when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow
men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to
preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than
by vices that rise out of ill opinions. The wives of their priests are
the most extraordinary women of the whole country; sometimes the women
themselves are made priests, though that falls out but seldom, nor are
any but ancient widows chosen into that order.
“None of the magistrates have greater honour paid them than is paid the
priests; and if they should happen to commit any crime, they would not
be questioned for it; their punishment is left to God, and to their own
consciences; for they do not think it lawful to lay hands on any man,
how wicked soever he is, that has been in a peculiar manner dedicated to
God; nor do they find any great inconvenience in this, both because they
have so few priests, and because these are chosen with much caution, so
that it must be a very unusual thing to find one who, merely out of
regard to his virtue, and for his being esteemed a singularly good man,
was raised up to so great a dignity, degenerate into corruption and
vice; and if such a thing should fall out, for man is a changeable
creature, yet, there being few priests, and these having no authority
but what rises out of the respect that is paid them, nothing of great
consequence to the public can proceed from the indemnity that the
priests enjoy.
“They have, indeed, very few of them, lest greater numbers sharing in
the same honour might make the dignity of that order, which they esteem
so highly, to sink in its reputation; they also think it difficult to
find out many of such an exalted pitch of goodness as to be equal to
that dignity, which demands the exercise of more than ordinary virtues.
Nor are the priests in greater veneration among them than they are among
their neighbouring nations, as you may imagine by that which I think
gives occasion for it.
“When the Utopians engage in battle, the priests who accompany them to
the war, apparelled in their sacred vestments, kneel down during the
action (in a place not far from the field), and, lifting up their hands
to heaven, pray, first for peace, and then for victory to their own
side, and particularly that it may be gained without the effusion of
much blood on either side; and when the victory turns to their side,
they run in among their own men to restrain their fury; and if any of
their enemies see them or call to them, they are preserved by that
means; and such as can come so near them as to touch their garments have
not only their lives, but their fortunes secured to them; it is upon
this account that all the nations round about consider them so much, and
treat them with such reverence, that they have been often no less able
to preserve their own people from the fury of their enemies than to save
their enemies from their rage; for it has sometimes fallen out, that
when their armies have been in disorder and forced to fly, so that their
enemies were running upon the slaughter and spoil, the priests by
interposing have separated them from one another, and stopped the
effusion of more blood; so that, by their mediation, a peace has been
concluded on very reasonable terms; nor is there any nation about them
so fierce, cruel, or barbarous, as not to look upon their persons as
sacred and inviolable.
“The first and the last day of the month, and of the year, is a
festival; they measure their months by the course of the moon, and their
years by the course of the sun: the first days are called in their
language the Cynemernes, and the last the Trapemernes, which answers in
our language, to the festival that begins or ends the season.
“They have magnificent temples, that are not only nobly built, but
extremely spacious, which is the more necessary as they have so few of
them; they are a little dark within, which proceeds not from any error
in the architecture, but is done with design; for their priests think
that too much light dissipates the thoughts, and that a more moderate
degree of it both recollects the mind and raises devotion. Though there
are many different forms of religion among them, yet all these, how
various soever, agree in the main point, which is the worshipping the
Divine Essence; and, therefore, there is nothing to be seen or heard in
their temples in which the several persuasions among them may not agree;
for every sect performs those rites that are peculiar to it in their
private houses, nor is there anything in the public worship that
contradicts the particular ways of those different sects. There are no
images for God in their temples, so that every one may represent Him to
his thoughts according to the way of his religion; nor do they call this
one God by any other name but that of Mithras, which is the common name
by which they all express the Divine Essence, whatsoever otherwise they
think it to be; nor are there any prayers among them but such as every
one of them may use without prejudice to his own opinion.
“They meet in their temples on the evening of the festival that
concludes a season, and not having yet broke their fast, they thank God
for their good success during that year or month which is then at an
end; and the next day, being that which begins the new season, they meet
early in their temples, to pray for the happy progress of all their
affairs during that period upon which they then enter. In the festival
which concludes the period, before they go to the temple, both wives and
children fall on their knees before their husbands or parents and
confess everything in which they have either erred or failed in their
duty, and beg pardon for it. Thus all little discontents in families are
removed, that they may offer up their devotions with a pure and serene
mind; for they hold it a great impiety to enter upon them with disturbed
thoughts, or with a consciousness of their bearing hatred or anger in
their hearts to any person whatsoever; and think that they should become
liable to severe punishments if they presumed to offer sacrifices
without cleansing their hearts, and reconciling all their differences.
In the temples the two sexes are separated, the men go to the right
hand, and the women to the left; and the males and females all place
themselves before the head and master or mistress of the family to which
they belong, so that those who have the government of them at home may
see their deportment in public. And they intermingle them so, that the
younger and the older may be set by one another; for if the younger sort
were all set together, they would, perhaps, trifle away that time too
much in which they ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of
the Supreme Being which is the greatest and almost the only incitement
to virtue.
“They offer up no living creature in sacrifice, nor do they think it
suitable to the Divine Being, from whose bounty it is that these
creatures have derived their lives, to take pleasure in their deaths, or
the offering up their blood. They burn incense and other sweet odours,
and have a great number of wax lights during their worship, not out of
any imagination that such oblations can add anything to the divine
nature (which even prayers cannot do), but as it is a harmless and pure
way of worshipping God; so they think those sweet savours and lights,
together with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccountable
virtue, elevate men’s souls, and inflame them with greater energy and
cheerfulness during the divine worship.
“All the people appear in the temples in white garments; but the
priest’s vestments are parti-coloured, and both the work and colours are
wonderful. They are made of no rich materials, for they are neither
embroidered nor set with precious stones; but are composed of the plumes
of several birds, laid together with so much art, and so neatly, that
the true value of them is far beyond the costliest materials. They say,
that in the ordering and placing those plumes some dark mysteries are
represented, which pass down among their priests in a secret tradition
concerning them; and that they are as hieroglyphics, putting them in
mind of the blessing that they have received from God, and of their
duties, both to Him and to their neighbours. As soon as the priest
appears in those ornaments, they all fall prostrate on the ground, with
so much reverence and so deep a silence, that such as look on cannot but
be struck with it, as if it were the effect of the appearance of a
deity. After they have been for some time in this posture, they all
stand up, upon a sign given by the priest, and sing hymns to the honour
of God, some musical instruments playing all the while. These are quite
of another form than those used among us; but, as many of them are much
sweeter than ours, so others are made use of by us. Yet in one thing
they very much exceed us: all their music, both vocal and instrumental,
is adapted to imitate and express the passions, and is so happily suited
to every occasion, that, whether the subject of the hymn be cheerful, or
formed to soothe or trouble the mind, or to express grief or remorse,
the music takes the impression of whatever is represented, affects and
kindles the passions, and works the sentiments deep into the hearts of
the hearers. When this is done, both priests and people offer up very
solemn prayers to God in a set form of words; and these are so composed,
that whatsoever is pronounced by the whole assembly may be likewise
applied by every man in particular to his own condition. In these they
acknowledge God to be the author and governor of the world, and the
fountain of all the good they receive, and therefore offer up to him
their thanksgiving; and, in particular, bless him for His goodness in
ordering it so, that they are born under the happiest government in the
world, and are of a religion which they hope is the truest of all
others; but, if they are mistaken, and if there is either a better
government, or a religion more acceptable to God, they implore His
goodness to let them know it, vowing that they resolve to follow him
whithersoever he leads them; but if their government is the best, and
their religion the truest, then they pray that He may fortify them in
it, and bring all the world both to the same rules of life, and to the
same opinions concerning Himself, unless, according to the
unsearchableness of His mind, He is pleased with a variety of religions.
Then they pray that God may give them an easy passage at last to
Himself, not presuming to set limits to Him, how early or late it should
be; but, if it may be wished for without derogating from His supreme
authority, they desire to be quickly delivered, and to be taken to
Himself, though by the most terrible kind of death, rather than to be
detained long from seeing Him by the most prosperous course of life.
When this prayer is ended, they all fall down again upon the ground;
and, after a little while, they rise up, go home to dinner, and spend
the rest of the day in diversion or military exercises.
“Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the
Constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in
the world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that
name. In all other places it is visible that, while people talk of a
commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth; but there, where no
man has any property, all men zealously pursue the good of the public,
and, indeed, it is no wonder to see men act so differently, for in other
commonwealths every man knows that, unless he provides for himself, how
flourishing soever the commonwealth may be, he must die of hunger, so
that he sees the necessity of preferring his own concerns to the public;
but in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know
that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can
want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that
no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has anything, yet
they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene
and cheerful life, free from anxieties; neither apprehending want
himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife? He is not
afraid of the misery of his children, nor is he contriving how to raise
a portion for his daughters; but is secure in this, that both he and his
wife, his children and grand-children, to as many generations as he can
fancy, will all live both plentifully and happily; since, among them,
there is no less care taken of those who were once engaged in labour,
but grow afterwards unable to follow it, than there is, elsewhere, of
these that continue still employed. I would gladly hear any man compare
the justice that is among them with that of all other nations; among
whom, may I perish, if I see anything that looks either like justice or
equity; for what justice is there in this: that a nobleman, a goldsmith,
a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or, at
best, is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should
live in great luxury and splendour upon what is so ill acquired, and a
mean man, a carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder even than
the beasts themselves, and is employed in labours so necessary, that no
commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a
livelihood and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the
beasts is much better than theirs? For as the beasts do not work so
constantly, so they feed almost as well, and with more pleasure, and
have no anxiety about what is to come, whilst these men are depressed by
a barren and fruitless employment, and tormented with the apprehensions
of want in their old age; since that which they get by their daily
labour does but maintain them at present, and is consumed as fast as it
comes in, there is no overplus left to lay up for old age.
“Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful, that is so prodigal
of its favours to those that are called gentlemen, or goldsmiths, or
such others who are idle, or live either by flattery or by contriving
the arts of vain pleasure, and, on the other hand, takes no care of
those of a meaner sort, such as ploughmen, colliers, and smiths, without
whom it could not subsist? But after the public has reaped all the
advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed with age,
sickness, and want, all their labours and the good they have done is
forgotten, and all the recompense given them is that they are left to
die in great misery. The richer sort are often endeavouring to bring the
hire of labourers lower, not only by their fraudulent practices, but by
the laws which they procure to be made to that effect, so that though it
is a thing most unjust in itself to give such small rewards to those who
deserve so well of the public, yet they have given those hardships the
name and colour of justice, by procuring laws to be made for regulating
them.
“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other
notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they
are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public,
only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they
can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that
they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to
toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them
as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these
contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is
considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are
accounted laws; yet these wicked men, after they have, by a most
insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves with which all
the rest might have been well supplied, are far from that happiness that
is enjoyed among the Utopians; for the use as well as the desire of
money being extinguished, much anxiety and great occasions of mischief
is cut off with it, and who does not see that the frauds, thefts,
robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders,
treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are, indeed, rather punished than
restrained by the severities of law, would all fall off, if money were
not any more valued by the world? Men’s fears, solicitudes, cares,
labours, and watchings would all perish in the same moment with the
value of money; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems
most necessary, would fall. But, in order to the apprehending this
aright, take one instance:—
“Consider any year, that has been so unfruitful that many thousands have
died of hunger; and yet if, at the end of that year, a survey was made
of the granaries of all the rich men that have hoarded up the corn, it
would be found that there was enough among them to have prevented all
that consumption of men that perished in misery; and that, if it had
been distributed among them, none would have felt the terrible effects
of that scarcity: so easy a thing would it be to supply all the
necessities of life, if that blessed thing called money, which is
pretended to be invented for procuring them was not really the only
thing that obstructed their being procured!
“I do not doubt but rich men are sensible of this, and that they well
know how much a greater happiness it is to want nothing necessary, than
to abound in many superfluities; and to be rescued out of so much
misery, than to abound with so much wealth: and I cannot think but the
sense of every man’s interest, added to the authority of Christ’s
commands, who, as He was infinitely wise, knew what was best, and was
not less good in discovering it to us, would have drawn all the world
over to the laws of the Utopians, if pride, that plague of human nature,
that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not
measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries of
others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none
were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks
its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the
misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth they may
feel their poverty the more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent that
creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much to be
easily drawn out; and, therefore, I am glad that the Utopians have
fallen upon this form of government, in which I wish that all the world
could be so wise as to imitate them; for they have, indeed, laid down
such a scheme and foundation of policy, that as men live happily under
it, so it is like to be of great continuance; for they having rooted out
of the minds of their people all the seeds, both of ambition and
faction, there is no danger of any commotions at home; which alone has
been the ruin of many states that seemed otherwise to be well secured;
but as long as they live in peace at home, and are governed by such good
laws, the envy of all their neighbouring princes, who have often, though
in vain, attempted their ruin, will never be able to put their state
into any commotion or disorder.”
When Raphael had thus made an end of speaking, though many things
occurred to me, both concerning the manners and laws of that people,
that seemed very absurd, as well in their way of making war, as in their
notions of religion and divine matters—together with several other
particulars, but chiefly what seemed the foundation of all the rest,
their living in common, without the use of money, by which all nobility,
magnificence, splendour, and majesty, which, according to the common
opinion, are the true ornaments of a nation, would be quite taken
away—yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary, and was not sure
whether he could easily bear contradiction, remembering that he had
taken notice of some, who seemed to think they were bound in honour to
support the credit of their own wisdom, by finding out something to
censure in all other men’s inventions, besides their own, I only
commended their Constitution, and the account he had given of it in
general; and so, taking him by the hand, carried him to supper, and told
him I would find out some other time for examining this subject more
particularly, and for discoursing more copiously upon it. And, indeed, I
shall be glad to embrace an opportunity of doing it. In the meanwhile,
though it must be confessed that he is both a very learned man and a
person who has obtained a great knowledge of the world, I cannot
perfectly agree to everything he has related. However, there are many
things in the commonwealth of Utopia that I rather wish, than hope, to
see followed in our governments.